Starting With A Dream

You can start anyway you want. It's your book. That being said, there are certain tropes and familiar affectations that put readers off. When they see these (such as starting with a dream), their expectations immediately shoot through the roof. Readers forgive a lot of things, but when they're on guard, your job gets considerably harder.

Hi Joyce,
I teach creative writing and I cannot tell you the number of stories I see that begin with dreams. The big problem with starting with a dream, I think, is that it forces your protagonist into a passive position. She is asleep and so cannot be doing anything. But the way to involve readers in your story is to show them someone doing something, so that they can root for him or her. This is your story and you must do what feels right, but I would agree that you are making your life harder by starting with a dream.

Like Scribbler said it's your book and you know whats right for it.

Personally I dislike dreams in novels. Most of the time they seem fillers more than anything else.
I would say, the start is a bad place for a dream. But thats a personal opinion.

Susan Breen said:

Hi Joyce,
I teach creative writing and I cannot tell you the number of stories I see that begin with dreams. The big problem with starting with a dream, I think, is that it forces your protagonist into a passive position.

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A worse problem with 98% of all dream-sequences I've seen is that they are misused as a lazy way of feeding the reader information. Most of them, in fact, don't seem very "dreamy" to me. They tend to be far too logical and realistic than any of my real dreams ever are. I think, as a writer, you need to have a reeeeeeeeeal good and overriding reason for using a dream-sequence anywhere, one that can't be accomplished in some more normal way.

caw

Though, I should point out that the book I'm reading right now starts with a dream and it totally works. Matter of fact, this book does a handful of the things you aren't suppose to...funny thing is, I can't put the sucker down!

I immediately stop reading if there's a dream sequence at the beginning of a novel, or if I stick with it, I'm annoyed. I don't have any fancy technical literary jargon for why I feel that way. It just feels lame to me. Maybe I'm picky.

I don't have any qualms with novels starting with a dream sequence. As a matter of fact, my wip has one. If the author can get from point A to point Z, and keep me turning the pages then I say HALLELUJAH!! Don't get caught up in the rules of writing game. Readers not authors, I repeat for emphasis, READERS not authors (or wannabees like myself ), are only concerned with the author's ability to tell the story in a captivating way, not if chapter one has a dream-sequence.

The problem is if agents have seen so many of them that they have an automatic gag reflex, it does seem prudent not to try it with a first novel anyway. Once you're under contract for a second book, maybe.

My current WIP begins with a dream, and I would change that now that I know how much of a problem it seems to be - but, my MC is lucid dreaming and his actions in the dream directly cause his position in the plot - the story couldn't happen if it weren't for that dream. Given that he knows he's dreaming, and isn't in a passive position because of it, would this still put people off the same way?

One of my novels coming out starts with a dream but its of a past experience she's already had happen. I don't see that being a no no. If you can work it right it will be fine.

Like Robyn, I've written a novel that starts with a dream of past memory, although when I revise that one, I'm considering changing it to a more traditional flashback, perhaps dropping in after the first page or so. But it's after the prologue, so may not count... :O

Anyway, I think if you have a good reason to start with a dream, then start that way. I'm planning a fantasy novel that deals with people who change reality by controlling their dreams. It'll be ambiguous for the first two or three chapters whether or not the first scene was a dream, but I don't think there's anything really wrong with that.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it--dreams make me angry. They never seem surreal enough to me--they're usually just metaphorical info-dumps.

My only dream reference in my WIP is several chapters in:

Instead, I sleep. I dream about pandas.

Pandas have no personal significance to the character, and this is absolutely not foreshadowing for any upcoming plot. Because that's how dreams are in real life--they're random and inplausible, and in books dreams are rarely portrayed that way.

joyce said:

This is probably a stupid question, but after browsing around I noticed this subject being brought up as a "no no". I have written a paranormal thriller and I have started the first chapter with a dream. The dream only consumes the first two paragraphs and it is obvious that it is a dream. In my storyline it is through visions and dreams that my protagonists are shown the conflicts that are soon to be upon them...

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I think if it's paranormal and dreams and visions are important to your story, then it might be OK to start with a dream. There are some paranormal romances on the market that are about dreams and visions. For example, Shana Abe's The Dream Thief involves a heroine who has been having dreams about the hero, and this device is rather common. (Didn't Mary Stewart's Touch Not the Cat have dreams and visions in the plot? And that's still in print today!) And there are probably paranormal thrillers with dream elements as well.

The trick is making the beginning so compelling that even people who don't like the device will read it. I've read some romances where the dream element seemed like a tacked on way to get the hero and heroine together before they met. Bleh. But in a paranormal, I'm willing to give the author a chance because in a paranormal, I know dreams and visions might be more important.

This is why I don't like rules that say "Never start with a dream" or for that matter "Never use dreams in your story." Sometimes people get carried away. I'm not a huge fan of dreams in stories, but... There's always a but. In some stories, they've been an important and compulsively readable part of the story. I loved the Sandman graphic novel. In that series, the MC is Morpheus, the Lord of Dreams, so clearly that was an important part of the stories. It's a good thing Neil Gaiman didn't listen to the people who said "Never use dreams in your story!" Or Mary Stewart or for that matter Wes Craven (of Nightmare on Elm Street).

Dreams

Judg said:

The problem is if agents have seen so many of them that they have an automatic gag reflex, it does seem prudent not to try it with a first novel anyway. Once you're under contract for a second book, maybe.

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I think this is the real problem. Opening with a dream can cause an automatic gag reflex that stops an agent or editor from reading further. Doesn't matter how good the novel is overall if it isn't read.

Just from seeing how many are using dreams in this thread should suggest that it's far too common.

Miss Snark just posted a blog on this subject. Check out item 2:

http://misssnark.blogspot.com/2007/04/10-nitwiticisms.html

And I'd like to point out, seeing as the distinction seems to have got lost somewhere along the line, we are talking about STARTING with dreams and whether it's advisable, not about using dreams in the story at other points.