to italicize or not to italicize---writing dream sequences 

Cut back on the dreams. As a reader, I tend to find they drag on too long and offer little to advance the story. So I wind up glazing over those bits. Fill the pages with stuff that moves the story forward where possible.

My recommendation: both.

Not to be too blunt, but the thing about dreams is that they're only really interesting to the person having them. I learned that years ago from my pathological dream-teller of a college roommate: "So then I couldn't find the bookcase, and then I went into the living room and for some reason you and Laura were breaking it, but then I decided that I could get better furniture at the corner store anyway..." zzzzz. If they're absolutely necessary, keep them short, and make sure they have a solid purpose -- they've got to move the story along.

Also, I think most readers agree big chunks of italicized text are annoying.

My first novel had a lot of dream sequences. I started off italicizing them then I changed it after realizing how hard it was to read long passages of italics.

Of course that was before I realized lots of long dream sequences in a novel were really a bad idea. This book is now buried deep deep deep in my closet.

Hope I didn't throw water on your fire.

I've seen dream sequences in italics like in Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz. Check out that book because it's a good example of how to make dreams gripping rather than draggy and boring. It's told as a story sometimes but also picks up in dreams, revealing a mystery from the past, always continuing where it left off.

Some writers switch to present tense since in our minds a dream unfolds in real time. We're either immersed or observing. I have one small dream fragment that shows a difference in a reoccurring nightmare a character experiences and then later I have the dream how it should be. The dream unlocks a small mystery I bring up in chapter 1. I switched to present/first because it needed that intimacy and immediacy.

I've read many agent blogs and beginning a novel with dream sequences is frowned upon since it's done so often. From an unpublished writer, it comes across as gimmicky. If you need to begin with a dream, keep it short and vivid. But honestly it's a risk. You must make it worth it.

For visions, you could also change up the rhythm and tone instead, like using fragmented pieces, as imagery rushes into your character's mind, rather than writing out complete sentences. This technique would always indicates a vision is unfolding, without needing a change in font.

Ditto the both. Unless the dream world is real, then dreams tend to stop a story cold. There's no stakes and nothing to overcome in a dream, so unless it offers the reader something they want to know, it can bore them. Long passages of italics are also hard to read.

If the dreams and visions are important, then find a way to keep them active and moving. Treat them the same as any other scene as far as structure goes. Goal, attempts to get the goal, stakes, complications, etc. That will help make the dream part of the story and not just a skimmable scene.

IMHO, when I see a long italicized section in a book, my immediate reaction is that it should have been written such that it hadn't needed to be italicized. I think I'm weird that way, though.

No italics. Myself, I write dream sequences in own paragraph and no italics.

I have one dream in my book. I wrote it in a bit of a different style to make it clear fairly early on that it was a dream. I didn't even think of using italics, and if I had, I probably would not have. <----confusing sentence alert

courtneyv said:

I've seen dream sequences in italics like in Dark Rivers of the Heart by Dean Koontz. Check out that book because it's a good example of how to make dreams gripping rather than draggy and boring. It's told as a story sometimes but also picks up in dreams, revealing a mystery from the past, always continuing where it left off.

Click to expand...

Koontz did the same thing in Whispers. The dream was intense, simple, short, but recurring, and was directly related to the big mystery in the end.

I agree with the others, cut the dreams to a minimum. No italics.