dream sequence and italics

Orianna2000 said:

This isn't necessarily true for everyone.

I used to have these nightmares about my teeth falling out....

Back on topic. . . . I'm going to agree with everyone who says that several pages of italics is going to be really annoying. But then again, several pages of a dream is going to be annoying, too. I would probably skim past it, if I was reading.

After all, how many people actually remember in vivid detail what they've dreamed about? I do, on occasion--in fact, I've turned several of my dreams into novels or short stories. But from what I understand, that's pretty rare. I actually have a sleep disorder, which is why I tend to remember my dreams, but most people forget their dreams as soon as they're awake.

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God, I hate those tooth falling out dreams!

This story is a fantasy, so the dream is a sort of magical thing. It's not "just" coming from the protagonist. It reveals important things about what she did in a past life, as it turns out, so there's a reason for their being more coherent/lucid than real dreams are (where I may be unsurprised if my cat turns into a book). It could be summarized upon the character waking, but as a reader, I'd feel cheated and rushed if the author did this, as it answers a how and why question that had been building for a while.

The question remains, though, if dreams/flashbacks/visions are important to the plot of the story in question and they're written well, what's the best way to establish that pattern or expectation on the part of the reader? I do sometimes find them jarring or unexpected the first time they appear in a story, and italics work well as a cue when they're reasonably short. But they don't work as well for the longer ones, obviously.

Some good thoughts here, I think But the best approach may depend on the nature of the story.

Come to think of it, this confusion can happen with non-linear plots too, or novels that take place in two or more time lines. I remember the first time I read a Margaret Atwood novel, I was confused until I got used to the way she handles those temporal jumps she's famous for. But now that I know she writes that way, I expect it.

In a similar vein, another friend is writing a story, and he's telling it in three timelines. It took me several chapters to get used to the pattern. It's the same issue as with the dream or flashback scenes, I suppose. You can't write an entire chapter in italics, so how is it best to make it crystal clear to the reader that there's been a temporal shift and the character in the story's real "here and now" is reminiscing, or remembering, or has somehow catapulted you into the secondary plot that's taking place in the past?

TheaBlowsKisses said:

I once read a book that was maybe 70% from the POV of one character and 30% from the POV of another character. Italics were used for the second character. I guess it was helpful, but I really didn't like reading page after page of italics.

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I've never seen this approach. I mean, most of the limited third novels I've read have more than one pov character, and they don't always get equal time. Generally, in the books I've read recently, it's handled with either scene or chapter breaks, and by making sure the pov character is established in the first sentence of a scene. It's actually one place where a little filtering may be in order.