Writing Twilight's World - Part 6. · 10:32pm Aug 23rd, 2016
Dreams are Hard.
You might think that writing a dream sequence is easy, but I have found it to be somewhat difficult.
“It’s easy”, you say. “Just string together a load of garbage and disjointed thoughts.”
Alas. That is exactly the problem. That string of disjointed thoughts and images are likely to be ‘Out Of Character’ for the pony you are writing about.
Here is an example of what I mean. Something I originally wrote for Twilight’s World’.
(Please Note: This will NEVER make it’s way into the story.)
Twilight found herself, Spike and Mike floating in a tiny room. She could see the moon approaching rapidly outside the window. She was in the A-paw-low space capsule.
Twilight winced as a loud bang sounded somewhere behind the aft bulkhead. Panic rose in her breast. “Oh no, we lost all of our oxygen.” She shouted even as the capsule began to buck and sway about them.
“Don’t worry, Twilight. We just have to find that checklist.” Mike stated tersely.
“You mean this one?” Spike pulled out a truly massive tomb from under his seat.
“No.” Mike explained. “Not that one. That’s the moon-landing checklist. We need the mysterious-explosion checklist.”
Twilight’s eyes grew wide with a sense of growing horror. “We don’t have that checklist. Ralph was supposed to have it ready before we launched.”
“Ralph?” Spike asked. “You mean Ralph – that wrecking guy?”
“Yes.” She replied.
“Oh. Well he called yesterday and said a ‘bug’ ate it.”
At first glance this may appear to be an acceptable dream sequence. It’s images are all drawn from prior elements of the story. But take a closer look while asking yourself these questions.
1) Why would Twilight have a dream about re-enacting the Apollo-13 mission? She was worried over the plight of the Astronaut’s, yes. But she never identified herself very closely with them.
If you think about it. Her cheerful pony nature should direct her dreams away from a boring yet terror stricken re-enactment of the Apollo-13 mission.
2) Why would Twilight dream of being in a human spaceship? One movie viewing would not be enough to impress the look and feel of human technology onto her subconscious mind. If she was going to dream of being on a spaceship, then it would be on something built along the lines of Equestrian technology. The ‘Friendship Express’ in space? Maybe.
3) Okay, the part about the checklist was pure Twilight. But wouldn’t it be more realistic for Twilight to dream of solving the ‘problem’ with her checklist. She has so much confidence in them that dreaming about checklist failure should be impossible.
4) Finally, why Apollo-13? Seriously this was a very poor choice for a dream setting. We dream most often about those things which impact our lives and sometimes, those things which we worry about.
What elements then would a proper dream have?
● A true ‘Twilight’ dream should be about her friends and Spike and Princess Celestia. Those ponies who anchor her psyche and make her life meaningful. They are such a big part of her life that it would be difficult for her to have a dream where either their presence or absence was not felt.
● A true ‘Twilight’ dream might be about being lost and trapped, though not necessarily in our human universe. I say this because (in my story) that’s currently her biggest real-life problem and worry.
● Twilight might even dream about Mike. Because he’s her newest friend and she’s come to rely quite heavily on him. And because those new feelings that are starting to percolate in her subconscious mind might bubble their way up into her dreams.
Such would be Twilights dreams. Yet they must also contain sufficient elements of whimsy, illogic and discontinuity as to come across as dreams. It’s not so easy.
So, when you write a dream sequence, take a good hard look at it. Would your character really dream such things? Or did you just dump out a load of OOC garbage (like I did) and say to your readers ‘this is Twilight’.
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It’s been a very long time since any of you have heard from me. So I’m very sorry … yadda, yadda, excuse, excuse, yadda ... and it’ll never happen again. (Don’t you believe it.)
Having cleared that matter up, I would like to say that the next chapter is nearing completion. I am currently doing a re-write of the last section and then it needs to be reviewed for any errors (spelling, grammar, continuity, etc.) I expect to have it ready in a week or two.
//insert heavenly chorus
Looking forward to it grouchopony!
Thank you for the look into your righting process and for all your hard work.
4336396 Thanks for taking the time to read my blogs.
I always value my reader's comments about my story, and perhaps even more for my blogs.
Hey there, I was wondering how things are going on your end I know life has us in a curve ball but I'm a little worried for your story. This blog was posted august 23 2016 and its currently February 4th 2017 this story has so much potential to end, I hope it does not come that!
I wish you the best with whatever you are going through
4409749 Life has been competing with the story.
But don't worry, most of that is moving out of the way. The story is not abandoned.
4409948
That's very good to hear, because I only came across this story about a month ago, and I'm already eager for the next installment
4683480
Sigh, I'm gonna have to ask 'LIFE' to take one for the sake of the story.
I've been giving 'life' way too much leeway.
There! I've committed myself. Look for something in the next month or two.
A Christmas update? It would fit with the current events happening in the story. What does someone even get a purple Alicorn from a different universe for Christmas? A case of syrup?
While an interesting thought process, and totally what should be done in literature most of the time, my last dream contrasts the basic logic quite thoroughly:
Basically, it was just one of those dog things from Stranger Things chasing me down through a foggy forest.
This wouldn't be a problem, except...
1. The last time I thought about that show was months ago.
2. The last time I had a dream at all was years ago.
3. My daily life has me feel extremely safe and secure.
So why did I have a dream like that? By the literature standard, it's utterly nonsensical for me, even OOC perhaps. And yet it happened anyway.
If that's the case, then why do I still agree with the advice? Same reason Vikings have to have horned helmets: Reality is Unrealistic. People subconsciously expect dreams to have some level of meaning, even though intellectually we know that isn't usually the case.
5386221
Thank you for your message. You are right, dreams can come out of left field.
As long as we are swapping dreams, I had a strange one wake me up this morning (I usually never remember my dreams.)
I dreamed that I walked into my kitchen and discovered that my range had exploded - now it was just a pile of junk.
The only relevance I can figure, is that my subconscious was worrying about encountering an unplanned major expense.
But why the oven? No explanation.