Dream Sequences

I found awhile back that I really enjoy writing dream sequences.  I have friends who don't care for them and definitely don't care for stories that turn out to be all a dream.  One of the things I found in writing them, and one of the reasons I've fallen for writing them so much, is that it helped me grow visually as a writer.  For the longest time I felt I was good with dialogue and story setup but always felt my visuals needed work.  As I've stated in past posts I tend to draw more inspiration as a writer from other mediums such as film.  When I sit down to read a book, screenplay, or comic, I tend to be able to turn off the writer's brain and just immerse myself in it and enjoy while often times when I'm watching (a good film) I tend to see something very small in it and think "I'd like to write something the way that Looks".  Writing a dream sequence is what got me started in a better direction for visual writing.  Knowing it was a dream, it allowed me to free up any thoughts I would have of "Yeah, but would that really happen?  Does that make sense?"  So I took off boundaries knowing what I was writing and got to go nuts; warping the characters' world around them, twisting conventional visuals, and more.  It's like a writer's retreat on a page as well as it is like working out through words.  Branching off from writing dream or nightmare sequences, my visual storytelling in the rest of the work got better.  I was able to describe things more poetically just as I had done in the nonsensical dreamscapes which was far out even for a make believe story.  I'm NOT saying ONLY WRITE DREAM SEQUENCES -  I'm saying, if you're having an issue with visual storytelling, start off with some dream sequences and just let it all out, do what you will.  Once you see what you can do with that, apply it to the regular world in your story.  It worked for me anyway.


I've actually had some interesting things come about with this sci-fi book I'm working on because of dream sequences.  In the book, our lead has three or four dreams throughout; all different but strange nonetheless.  When I wrote the first draft, I had them in honestly because they were cool odd little scenes.  HOWEVER, recently, as I'm going back through the rewrites and fleshing them out, I had stopped for the night and was going to sleep.  Something hit me like a bucket of water: what they all individually meant to the character.  What I initially wrote because they "sounded cool" meant more than even I, the creator, knew.  I emailed my publisher immediately - to which I'm sure she thought I was nuts lol.  But they all pointed out something about her (the lead) that's important that, as I said, even I didn't catch.  So different things come out of dream sequences. 

You can even start writing one just to write one and then stretch it out into its own little fantasy world.  Or you can use them as I did, as a visual training ground. 

Push whimsy, start writing and just go crazy on the page like it was abstract art.  Ignore any realism and just write what you see in your head.  If you're not going to use it in a story or have no interest in said sequences or scenes, just do it for a writer's workout.  The further you push yourself in such a direction, the easier it will be for you to do your average visuals that you'd more than likely be using in a story.