The Twilight Zone

A few days ago I'd been to Wichita Falls and was now on my way home, a twenty minute drive. I pulled onto the freeway from the exit ramp and entered the Twilight Zone. It was so weird. Of course I entered on the right hand lane. And as far ahead of me as I could see were motorcycles. As far behind me as I could see were motorcycles. A parade of them. They were traveling in one lane at a steady pace, not too fast, not too slow.

 Now to take my turn off of I-44 to 287, I needed to be in one of the two left lanes. So, I looked back to see if there was an opening. After all, I couldn't run down a motorcylist. That's when it got really bizarre.

No other cars were visible in any lane, in either direction. Nothing but guys and gals on motorcycles. I was spooked. The music theme from the old TV show Twilight Zone, echoed in my ears. I was the lone car. I wanted to go home.

Close to panic, I zipped between two motorcycles.  The guys probably were yelling "You silly old lady. What are you doing?" (Maybe not in exactly those words, but something similar.)

I took the 287 exit and soon was safely home.

My writing is a lot like this experience, which I laughed about later and tried to find out what they were doing. Anyway, when I start a new story, I have a good idea of where I'm going. Not all the details, necessarily, but a road map of sorts guiding me in the right direction to my end destination.

Like the parade of motorcycles, however, surprises sometimes await me and I have to adjust my thinking and my actions. Characters are notorious at popping up and telling me to do this or that. They delight in changing my direction. They often have other plans and want to do things their way. So I go along with them, even though I may question their reasons and ask them why they're interferring with my plans.

It turns out, most of the time my characters are right.

How about you? Do your stories ever go in totally opposite directions than you originally thought?

Dreams and Writing

“…Her view of enchanters had changed a lot in the past few days. …She sighed and, gently putting down the sleeping gryphon, returned to her room.

Just as she drifted toward sleep she thought if Harone got what he wished, in time he would be like them. He too would have that presence she felt more than saw, which Kataro had named the Semblance. It would surround him like a mantle, an aura that could disconcert, even terrify. She felt an inexplicable sense of loss.

Reflected light from the column of flame gleamed like copper on the polished-stone walls about her. Golden flashes sparkled on the pebbled floor like trapped seeds of lightning. Tongues of flame licked across the ceiling, searching for cracks in the hewn stone and obscuring it from view. She drew a step nearer and the column seemed to turn, as though aware of her approach. Threads of golden fire forked from the center of the shimmering inferno and approached her in turn. She lifted her hands, holding them out as if to clasp the exploring tendrils…

Cara awoke with a gasp, and sat up. She stared frantically at her hands, and was amazed to find they were not ash and scorched bone, but her own flesh. A presence within her seemed to flee, as though shy of her conscious thoughts. She felt its retreat and then its absence with regret and a piercing longing.

It was cool in the room, peacefully quiet. Empty. Drawing the coverlet about her, Cara lay back down.”

---- extract from SEABIRD: “Many Meetings”(chapter title, about 2/3 of the way through the book)

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Have you ever inserted dreams, visions, fragmented words from newspaper clippings or tattered billboard signs, sacred messages, half-forgotten memories, the words of seers, etc when writing stories?

Dreams and vague memories in particular can deepen the richness of character portrayal, by introducing us to aspects of the character with which she may have only a tenuous connection during most of each day. However, dreams (etc) can serve other functions—for example, setting the mood of a scene, delicately inserting back story and even furthering the plot in some cases.

In SEABIRD, teenager Cara Marshall (the protagonist) dreams so frequently that the people of Narenta come to the conclusion that she is a seer. Cara has a little trouble coming to terms with this pronouncement since she has never encountered a true seer on Earth and the Narentans themselves admit that seers are uncommon in their world. Their conflicting views on the importance of dreams add to the story’s tension, while the content of her dreams help us to learn more about Cara and about her role in the book’s plot. Cara reacts to some of her dreams with delight, others with horror or mystification, which helps strengthen the mood of various scenes and was a great tool for introducing foreshadowing.

But why so many dreams in SEABIRD? I just told you—Cara is a seer. Okay, you got me. Which came first: the idea of Cara being a seer or the compulsive insertion of dreams higgly-piggly into the first few chapters of Seabird? Yes, the latter.

SEABIRD and Cara are gifted with dreams because I think dreams are cool. In real life—whatever that is—I’ve always felt that dreams are kind of a bonus to our existence. A little bit of story that we get free of charge just by dint of sleeping. Oh, and making a tiny effort to remember the details when we wake up. Many people, of course, believe that they rarely dream but the fact is that we all do.

HOW TO REMEMBER YOUR DREAMS: The trick is taking a few minutes on awakening to try to recall what we dreamed. If you have never done this and decide to make the effort, I suggest attempting to be as non-verbal as you can be while you passively wait for impressions, visual images and sounds to return to you now that you’re awake.

What not to do? Thinking something like, “I think I dreamed about the pool guy. Now what happened after I dived into the water? Was there really a school of miniature dolphins?’ etc will only serve to obliterate the actual dream. Keep your mind blank. This part is actually fairly easy before coffee if you think of about it.

If the dream contents seem to be worth it, be sure to write them down at once! Otherwise they will fade on you, very possibly before you’ve finished measuring the coffee grounds.

What do I mean by a dream being “worth it”? Why go to all this trouble? Well, you never know where the next idea for a story may come from. Alternatively, a fragment of a dream may tell you something about a character that you hadn’t realized, or get you out of that plot hole in chapter five. If appropriate—sometimes even if not appropriate—you can try plugging part of a dream whole cloth right into one of your scenes. You always planned for that character to have hallucinations, right?

For one of the weirdest dreams I’ve ever experienced, may I suggest the following link:

http://tree-lady.livejournal.com/76811.html

Sherry Thompson, author of SEABIRD: The Narentan Tumults #1 and EARTHBOW: The Narentan Tumults #2.