[stylist] Questions- writing dreams

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

The great thing about dreams is that dreams allow our imagination to run
wild. The difficult thing about writing about dreams is that dreams are
like poetry; they come in forms of imagery often posing for metaphors,
whether real or not. Even the most mundane dreams are told in scattered
sequences moving as they will.

Most my fiction is based off my dreams or interpretations of my dreams.
I've learned to either use these dreams as inspiration for something
more concrete, to harness those images to create a more solid
foundation, or to reconstruct, retell, a dream but in dream form.

I'm not great at a lot, but I am pretty good when it comes to writing
dream sequences. I didn't do it often, but sometimes, in both my fiction
and nonfiction, I have included dreams or reported dreams, and I
received praise from my instructors for crafting realistic portrayals of
dreams. On more than one occasion, classmates were sent to me to help
them work on writing a dream for any given piece. I don't think it's so
much that I have some great talent for writing but more because I can
visualize and illustrate what I see in printed word in a format that's
chaotic and scattered like a dream. I don't try to interpret a dream but
just reflect it.

Like I said before, you an either use a dream as simple inspiration for
an actualized story, or you can attempt to recreate that dream in a
written form. If trying to render an actual dream, the key is to not
attempt to make it fluid and life-like. Dreams are not suppose to make
complete sense and they don't happen in a real-life way. If a dream is
simply a muse, it becomes the job of a writer to pick through the dream,
find what's useful and construct a story from it. Either use has it
challenges and rewards.

And I'm a firm believer that a story has a life all it's own; we are
simply the scribes, grin.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter, editor, Slate & Style
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"If we discover a desire within us that nothing in this world can
satisfy, we should begin to wonder if perhaps we were created for
another world."
C. S. Lewis

Message: 10
Date: Fri, 28 Dec 2012 23:50:56 -0600
From: "Barbara Hammel" <poetlori8 at msn.com>
To: "Writer's Division Mailing List" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] questions
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I wish I could do that, but I have such strange dreams that most of the
time 
it's hard to put into words the sequence of events that occurred.  But
every 
year, keeping a dream journal is one of my resolutions for the new year.
Barbara