So I'm writing a book. 1st book and 1st draft down. Phew! The story is from a dream I had. I didn't find a ton of resources on this topic myself, so I hope others out there find this helpful.
In my favor-I wrote down important plot details the same day I had the dream, these things can fade fast!
Not in my favor-I wrote those notes down years ago so some things just aren't as fresh.
I do think it's interesting how dreams vary in relation to reality. Sometimes I can absolutely peg a dream, or a part of it "Oh yeah, that was from the movie we watched last weekend, and also from what Susan said when we played Uno yesterday" but some are very "what...in...the...world are killer clown monkeys doing to haunt me when I don't watch horror films?" As I look back on this dream, it was very heavily influenced by something that was going on in my life. Since then, my situation is drastically different. It's actually pulled some real emotions out of me. Is it weird to cry when writing your own book? I'm a crier.....
That being said, here are some hurdles I have been learning to overcome that you will want to be prepared for:
A LOT of "Fill in the Blank":
And I mean a lot. When you're sleeping and dreaming, the concept of time is completely skewed. I had a unique situation in my life where I had a very tight daily schedule and I had a half hour every day to be home and have lunch. I was anemic and exhausted. I would take a 15 minute nap a lot of the time. They say you can't dream in that short of a nap, but there were times where I would have very vivid dreams, even a couple of them in a 15 minute session. They felt sufficiently long that I was afraid each time that I had slept in.
What I'm trying to say is, even if you somehow actually spent all 8 hours of your sleep period on a given dream (REM cycles and all....thinking that's not even close to being possible...) 70,000 written words it does not make. Our mind floats from one scene to another. For us it's epic, and fluid. But really, it's choppy and full of insider knowledge. Plot development, character building, you're doing to need to expound on what you were given.
Weak Characters & Insider Knowledge:
They're so bad. Like really really bad. What I'm calling "insider knowledge" is the unique intimacy you have with the story, and more specifically the characters. In your brain, things fall into place and make sense. My main protagonist....their motivations, their responses, the fact that I love them-it all made sense. In my dreams that is. As I was getting to the nitty gritty of creating scenes to get from A-Z, I had to stop and ask myself a lot of questions.
-Wait, why would they accept *insert event from story* so easily? There's a lot of mutual acceptance between characters and circumstances that was originally written whereas in real life it would be quite jarring, a cause for skepticism, and a task to win them over. Stories are about conflict and progression, not holding hands and singing (unless maybe it's a kid's book, because if it is, by all means, rock that). I had to add some tension.
-Why does their love interest like them? Cause in my dream it was just natural. On paper (or um...pixels) they're as boring as a cardboard cake. I may love them because we have a unique chemical bond from neurons during a REM cycle, but no one else is going to; unless I come up with some real answers and mold this person, even build them from the ground up. Why do we want this person to win? Or lose?
-Motivation and conflict...I'm currently in a tug-of-war between making the antagonist much harsher (can't be a major threat and then be a pansy without proper motivation, which can be hard to peg an antagonist's values when they're supposed to be mysterious.) -which would make my protagonists much more bold or brutal than I want them to be.....or make them softer, in which case there is a serious lack of struggle that is needed to feel a satisfactory victory. Basically: You can't gear up and train for a year to go slay the dragon and then he just hands over all of his gold because you said please, even if your favorite part of the protagonist is their ability to negotiate.
Beware Plot Whiplash:
Kind of related to my last bullet point, is the believability of resolution in my current story. While my book has no dragons, it's a fairly good illustration of the struggle.
On another part- going from "they found out this info, so naturally *mic drop* and then they moved on to XYZ" is kinda how the most important part of my book was laid out in my notes from my dream. But I had to ask myself (and I'm still working through the nuances of emotion on editorial notes for myself) why in the heck that would be believable? Never in life does something in the very core of your personality, motivations, and reason for existence change in the snap of a finger. Maybe in dreams, but it wouldn't make for compelling or believable writing.
Loyalty Can Hurt You:
Being loyal to your dream is a fault. We only got to scene 2 and we were switching things around drastically. In the end, no one else is going to know it happened differently in my dreams, because when it comes down to it, that part when written down, it was dull. Diverging from my original opening makes for a much more compelling introduction to every other character as well as enriching the story of the main protagonist. It in no way changes who the people are (it actually gave the opportunity to create a new beloved character) or the central plot/story arc.
I'm still resisting the feeling of betrayal on dropping some key details from my notes, or changing how they play out. When coming from a dream, it feels wrong to deviate. You feel like you're not being true to your vision. But you have to remember, you're not being judged on your level of accuracy compared to a dream no one else shared, you're being judged on a compelling story. In retrospect, my dream gave me a weak antagonist (and you know what, that's ok, my own mind probably let me cheat at candy land cause it just wants me to be happy) but I can't have a decent threat and a friendly pansy, unless they have a multiple personality built in...which I don't. I have consistent and cold.....so...well...we'll figure out how it works out yet. 1sts drafts are supposed to be rubbish, we'll iron it out.
Cliff Endings:
Maybe it's just me, but endings are not the strong part of my dreams. I wake up too early and wish I could finish it, or see what happened in the end. They fade out, or they ride off into the sunset without a proper resolution. Kinda goes back to that hold hands and sing thing I mentioned earlier. You certainly can write like that. "And then the bad guy was finally caught, and the world was ok and everyone was happy, the end". Kinda juvenile and unfulfilling. Tease at the things you never disclosed (at least that's where mine is going). And some of these things, you actually never will know. It won't be in any book, I just happen to know it. I'll expound on that more another time. But there are also key lead ins to another book if it will be in a series. The last two chapters (and even the very last paragraph) in my first book have key elements that will have readers in book two have lightbulbs flash on. Or it will have them yearning for a second book to know what we meant by that.
No matter how you're ending it, wrap that sucker up. You may answer every single thing they'll want to know with a beautiful bow on top, or leave a hint of mystery. But make it more fulfilling than the happy hormones in your head were kinda lazy about.
I'm sure there's more that could be said, feel free to add in the comments! Stay tuned for more writing ideas and tips for new authors :D
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