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Unsure About Premise

I've been trying to find a story I can dedicate my time since I've decided to take an extended break on my horror WIP. I've been been passing around a lot of ideas but I have a problem with one idea that I really like.

So the premise is this: a theater that doesn't show plays or films but dreams. It would begin with people going to the theater, setting down and attaching themselves to these dream-viewer machines, and watching another person's dreams unfold. I have some ideas of an overlaying plot dealing with addiction to the dream machines, a romance, and a tragic story life story of someone told through cryptic dream logic. However, I want the plot to be intentionally very loose and mostly be, well, dreams.

That's where things get iffy for me. Will people be interested in reading just someone's dreams? Will they be able to be engaged when they know that the stakes aren't real, that what's happening is in someone's head? Like I said, I plan on telling a life story through little hints within the dream, sort of like a puzzle, but I have doubts that that's enough. And I know in general the premise wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, and I'm okay with it. Wanting an intentionally loose narrative is asking for trouble. I just want to make sure it isn't completely an unreadable idea.
 
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SpaceAmoeba

Acolyte
I think the premise is interesting, but you do raise a point in that it may be hard to build suspense and risk when the characters aren't really in danger. You can still make the story interesting despite that, however. If the characters, and the mystery behind the dreams are executed well enough, then it can make for something neat.

Probably the biggest problem you might face is trying to make all the "cryptic" dream logic connect together in a way that makes sense in the context you present it. It shouldn't be too loose as to confuse people, but it should be presented in a way that might raise a few questions.

Consider writing it as a mystery maybe?
 

CupofJoe

Myth Weaver
I have a memory of reading a William Gibson story about there being a black market for the dreams and memories.
These were either dramatic/traumatic events that would normally be edited out or the lives of famous people...
Imagine living Film Star's life or actually hitting the beach on a commando raid...
All the sensations... all the experiences... all the pain...
If I remember the story, people did get hooked on living inside the machines...
And there is always PKD's We can remember it for you wholesale [aka Total Recall - but not really]
 

ThinkerX

Myth Weaver
Simple enough: matters reach a point where the characters literally cannot distinguish between sleeping and waking states. Add something screwy going on in the waking world, something some of the characters are either involved with or at least know about. That something starts intruding upon the dream state.
 
Hi Myst,

My thought would be - why the loose narrative? My thought would be to make it crisp and sharp, and then show (definitely show not tell for this part) how the MC is loosing his sense of reality. So for example he goes up to a woman he's never met before but who was in the dreams he watched, kisses her because that was the dream relationship, and she slaps him since he's a stranger to her. And then he has to work out why she slapped him. Did he do something wrong he wonders? And it's only through more events that he realises he's never met her before.

You could have a lot of fun with that sort of plot device.

Cheers, Greg.
 
My thought would be - why the loose narrative? My thought would be to make it crisp and sharp, and then show (definitely show not tell for this part) how the MC is loosing his sense of reality.
I intentionally want a loose narrative because the idea that I find fun is writing dreams. I find dreams to be incredibly interesting and I like the idea of sort of writing whatever comes to mind in a surreal fashion. Like painting an abstract piece of art. This was the best idea I could come up with that I felt would allow me to do get away with it. The more strict narrative moments would come in through the waking moments, which I think would tie into the idea nicely.
Probably the biggest problem you might face is trying to make all the "cryptic" dream logic connect together in a way that makes sense in the context you present it. It shouldn't be too loose as to confuse people, but it should be presented in a way that might raise a few questions.

Consider writing it as a mystery maybe?
My original plan was that it would tell an emotion sad tale but broken up and twisted through the subconscious presented in the dream so I imagined it sort of like a mystery in that the reader would have to put together the pieces for themselves, but maybe I need a strong hook and to directly treat like a mystery.
 
Wouldn't using a framing strategy work? Let's say that the characters' real lives are where you do the hinting. Maybe that part would be written in a sort of third omniscient or third cinematic/objective. Then when they enter the dreams, the POV becomes much closer, intimate third or even first. But the dreams are written as if they are the vibrant reality. They can be weird, traumatic, sad, fun, exciting, whatever, and maybe leave the reader wondering just who the characters are in real life. You could piece together the IRL characters through use of the dreams. Maybe the dreams themselves, although starting out odd and seemingly disjointed, could ultimately be shown as being connected, a coherent narrative, that reveals something about the real world and the real characters.
 
My first instinct is that some kind of overlying plot could be told through the dreams.

Even though your characters won't be actually in danger in the dreams, dreams can have significance in relation to what's going on with someone emotionally, mentally. The dreams could be connected to conflict that's happening in the real world.

In fact, you could have a dark story going on in the waking world, that we only know about through the distorted lens of the dreams.

This could be really cool...
 
On the idea of using a framing strategy...

There is an excellent science fiction series called The Four Lords of the Diamond by Jack L. Chalker that uses a similar framing strategy. A synopsis:

There is a planetary system with four habitable worlds that are infected with a symbiotic microorganism. Anyone going to any of the planets will become instantly infected by the microorganism. This will give the person special powers (different depending on which of the four planets he first sets foot on), but also this traps the person in that planetary system because the organism will die if he leaves the system and this will also kill the host. Consequently, these four planets and their system are the perfect prisons for the Confederacy that spans this area of the galaxy.

But this causes a problem for the Confederacy when an android is sent from this system to infiltrate the Confederacy and steal vital information about its defenses: How can they possibly send law enforcement or investigators to those planets to determine who is behind this breach if anyone they send will become trapped like all the prisoners? So they come up with the idea of transferring an elite agent's consciousness into the bodies of four convicted criminals whose minds have been wiped and sending each of those bodies to one of the four prison planets. The "original" agent will remain outside of the Diamond system while his duplicates carry on the investigation and attempt to assassinate each of the four lords who have come to rule those planets.

So basically each of the first three books opens up at the same place, where the agent accepts the mission and settles in to have his consciousness copied over to another's body, and this intro is written in a distant third sort of way. This is the frame. Then, the main part of each book is what happens after "he" (his clone) wakes up on one of the prison planets in a new body and is written from a much closer POV. Each version of him has an individual story/character arc that is different from the others.

This example involves real places—all five versions of him exist simultaneously once each of the cloned consciousnesses have been created and wake up—but something similar could be done with dreams. The "real" person is shown making his or her way to the theater, but written in a kind of objective third (i.e., distantly), and once that person plugs into the dream then you launch into that dream as if it's the real story. Unlike Chalker's book, perhaps the dream version doesn't always know that there's a real version of itself somewhere else; i.e., he's lost in the dream, experiencing it as the reality and himself as that dream version. (I suppose some characters could lucid dream and actually be aware of what's going on?) You could have breaks/transitions where each person leaves the dream and you return to the distant third and show that character, oh, stumbling home or shooting up with drugs or whatever until he returns to the theater for another dream. Rinse/repeat.

Edit: I don't know if I've addressed the primary concern, of keeping the interest of the reader via real stakes...but the idea of using a framing strategy so that each dream experience is where the majority of the story takes place, and maybe having it so that the dreamer doesn't know he's dreaming at the time, could help you to shape stakes within the dreams. I mean, whenever I've had a nightmare and didn't realize I was asleep—big stakes for the dream-me, heh! Maybe it'd be a little like telling a series of short stories, with their own arcs and stakes. Even if the reader knows this is just a person dreaming, the fact that so much of the narrative happens in those dreams would perhaps put the readers there in the dreams themselves.
 
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skip.knox

toujours gai, archie
Moderator
I would call this an idea, not a premise, simply because there's no story there. It could be a convenient short story device, but I can't envision how different people's dreams would somehow intersect.

I might work if you changed the society. Have one where dreams are taken very seriously, as augurs or as direct advice. In normal dream state, it's just the usual jumble of images and disconnected scenes that comprise most dreams. But if you go to the dream house, the technology there helps you create coherent dreams, so what you get is something more "real". There could be communal dreams. The tech can hook up two or more minds, though the more involved, the muddier the results. Could be interesting for couples or families or friendship groups. Not so great as a corporate retreat. Of course, going down this road means you aren't really writing real dreams (which rarely have narrative coherence) and are really just writing stories in the guise of dreams.
 
I agree with skip.knox. This seems like an interesting idea to take place in maybe the context of a larger story about society or something along those lines. Alternatively, you could have the story play out a bit like Minority Report where the dreams do tell a story of some kind (even disconnected) but a coherent story.

I think the problem with making things too much like dreams is that dreams, usually, don't make any sense. If they do make sense its because they follow a logical progression much like a story even if the events themselves don't make sense.
 
This has been really helpful so far. Thank you for the responses.
Wouldn't using a framing strategy work? Let's say that the characters' real lives are where you do the hinting. Maybe that part would be written in a sort of third omniscient or third cinematic/objective. Then when they enter the dreams, the POV becomes much closer, intimate third or even first. But the dreams are written as if they are the vibrant reality. They can be weird, traumatic, sad, fun, exciting, whatever, and maybe leave the reader wondering just who the characters are in real life. You could piece together the IRL characters through use of the dreams. Maybe the dreams themselves, although starting out odd and seemingly disjointed, could ultimately be shown as being connected, a coherent narrative, that reveals something about the real world and the real characters.
That is a great idea, I hadn't thought of that.
My first instinct is that some kind of overlying plot could be told through the dreams.

Even though your characters won't be actually in danger in the dreams, dreams can have significance in relation to what's going on with someone emotionally, mentally. The dreams could be connected to conflict that's happening in the real world.

In fact, you could have a dark story going on in the waking world, that we only know about through the distorted lens of the dreams.

This could be really cool...
Those are definitely ideas that I've been considering. I want the setting to be pretty close to present day but toying with some dystopian elements. But that clash of harsh reality and the unlimited possibilities of dreams is definitely a theme I want to capture.
Edit: I don't know if I've addressed the primary concern, of keeping the interest of the reader via real stakes...but the idea of using a framing strategy so that each dream experience is where the majority of the story takes place, and maybe having it so that the dreamer doesn't know he's dreaming at the time, could help you to shape stakes within the dreams. I mean, whenever I've had a nightmare and didn't realize I was asleep–big stakes for the dream-me, heh! Maybe it'd be a little like telling a series of short stories, with their own arcs and stakes. Even if the reader knows this is just a person dreaming, the fact that so much of the narrative happens in those dreams would perhaps put the readers there in the dreams themselves.
That's the best case scenario, and it's possible that it really just comes down to execution. If I can write it well enough to keep the reader interested, then perhaps it doesn't matter that there are no stakes.
I would call this an idea, not a premise, simply because there's no story there. It could be a convenient short story device, but I can't envision how different people's dreams would somehow intersect.

I might work if you changed the society. Have one where dreams are taken very seriously, as augurs or as direct advice. In normal dream state, it's just the usual jumble of images and disconnected scenes that comprise most dreams. But if you go to the dream house, the technology there helps you create coherent dreams, so what you get is something more "real". There could be communal dreams. The tech can hook up two or more minds, though the more involved, the muddier the results. Could be interesting for couples or families or friendship groups. Not so great as a corporate retreat. Of course, going down this road means you aren't really writing real dreams (which rarely have narrative coherence) and are really just writing stories in the guise of dreams.
So how I imagine it working is that there is one dreamer and the audience. The audience goes to sleep and 'dreams', but they're experiencing the dreamer's dream. In order for the audience members to enjoy the dream as a form of entertainment, the dreams are much more sharp, not that it feels like reality, but the emotions the dreamer receives through the dreams are more prominent and the visuals are clearer so that the audience can remember and appreciate it as the dream happens.

And yeah I suppose it is more of an idea than a premise. Though I do have more details that I didn't write in the thread, but that's because I just wanted to keep what was relevant.
I think the problem with making things too much like dreams is that dreams, usually, don't make any sense. If they do make sense its because they follow a logical progression much like a story even if the events themselves don't make sense.
Dreams don't make sense, but they do pull things from the subconscious. I might watch a scary movie then go on with my day until I forget about the movie, then I'll have a nightmare involving the movie. It wasn't 'on my mind' but it was there and it had impacted me enough that day that my brain used it to stimulate me while sleeping. What happens when you're awake affects your dreams, it takes things within your life and scrambles it up in a series of images. Most of the time it's trivial, but people often dream of deceased loved ones, or about anxiety of doing certain things and that's because those things are there inside you. That's where the route of my idea is. If the reader can unscramble the dreams, they can roughly piece together a character or a story.
 
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