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DiscussionSurrealism in writing
Maybe surrealism is the wrong word. But I'm wondering how people balance keeping things not quite literal, for a weird or alien or spooky or uneasy effect, with keeping them interesting.
I'm thinking about how, despite the rich potential for symbolism, I generally hate dream-sequences, visions, and so on, in fiction. They make me switch off. So I wonder about how to write one that wouldn't make me switch off, and could actually capture something of the feeling of a dream.
So, over to you! Have you ever tried to tackle this? What did you do?
Keep it short. Dream sequences definitely get boring, so you don't want it to go on too long.
Make use of the fact that dreams often don't match up logically. You're in one place and now you're in another without transition or travel.
If you're going for uneasy, dreams can often feel spooky without anything actually scary being there. It's just this feeling of dread. So use emotion rather than an image.
Yeah, I think this is what I'm wondering how to do; how to convey the feel. And also like... How to approach it? I guess I'm trying to get down to the root of: when someone adds a dream sequence or similar, what does that add, why is that the right tool for the job? What are its strengths? Because then that gives a plan for what to emphasise and how. But then again I'm not necessarily thinking of dream sequences, it's more "how to write in a style reminiscent of the feel of a dream, that doesn't fall prey to the issues that tend to plague dream sequences in lit?" What's going on when they work and when they don't, the difference between "dreamlike" and "confusing waffle", you know?
I have a very rough idea that the issue may be that the whole deal with a dream, unless you're writing a twist, is that everyone knows it's not real. And so that removes a lot of the usual tension, and writers often don't realise and treat it like any other events they narrate, while the audience tap their feet waiting for them to get back to the point. And so if you're going to write something dreamy, it needs to acknowledge that things are not real, and play with that, instead of treating that as incidental. Or get the audience trying to figure out what is real, or... do a twist. :P
Gotcha. I think I misunderstood you before, sorry!
In my opinion, dream sequences should be scarce. However, they can be used effectively for a few things:
To delve into a character's inner feelings/psyche, especially if the character is not supposed to be aware of these feelings or is actively denying these feelings.
Foreshadowing
To mislead the audience
In every case, you have to be careful not to be heavy-handed during the sequence and you should use them sparingly. As you said, they are not always the right tool for the job.
If you don't want to write a dream sequence, by all means, don't. You can use emotion in your writing without a dream sequence.
Do you have a more specific example of what you're intending to convey? It doesn't have to be your actual scenario, just something like it. I could try to tell you how I'd insert emotion into it.
Edit: typo
Hahaha, no problem, I'm working things out as I type! My question read more like 'what devices do you use' when I was thinking something more like 'let's have an open discussion on surrealism(?) techniques in fiction' so it's my own fault.
I'm still playing around with ideas. To be very vague, I want something that looks like a straightforward fairytale setting on the surface. There are indications that something is not right but I want to keep it as more of a feel than a dramatic reveal. I'm fine if an audience works out what's going on (and I expect my intended audience to!) but it's more about the atmosphere. I want to be subtle and use double meanings if possible. I want it to end in such a way that you could read the whole thing as a straightforward fairytale adventure and be satisfied, whereas if you were focusing on the way language was used, or had a certain idea in mind, you'd get a completely different story, or a puzzle. So I want a 'something's not right' that doesn't get really really obvious, but acts as confirmation for a reader going looking. I was thinking one option would be to use a dreamlike tone so that the audience goes 'okay, this is a stylistic thing' , and later realise there's a logic to it, have a moment of 'this doesn't quite make sense... this doesn't quite make sense!' But... a lot of things that make things not make sense also make them boring. Or obvious. I keep thinking of things you can do with film, where a camera angle could mimic a shape accidentally, whereas if you put that on the page then you're obviously conjuring it up on purpose. So I think what I need to do is go a step back, and put other elements down so that the audience supply the allusion themselves. So they're getting a sense of something and they don't quite know why. That's the feel I want. I was considering making the narration a little too sickly sweet but I think that'd be very hard to pull off and might not be that good anyway.
So yeah, not very concrete! I want an audience to read back over my story and get a different story. I tried to do that on my last project but it wasn't subtle enough. I think to work, the overt story needs a fairly standard structure since I want weird stuff to happen, otherwise both 'weird stuff' + 'weird structure' might equal 'boring weird'...
Ooh, interesting! That sounds like a lot of fun (once you decide how you want to get it done).
Maybe try messing with time a bit?
Lost time that isn't explained and which the narrator or characters don't really address, but an astute reader would wonder about.
Or perhaps events told out of order which isn't made clear right away, but naturally becomes clear as the story progresses.
Juxtaposition.
Unexplainable things occurring.
It could be as simple as a character speaking a lie with no explanation of why they're lying and/or no one calling them on the lie (but the reader knows it's a lie).
A character doing something with no obvious motivation. It puts the reader off balance. Asking "why, what is the missing piece, what am I not seeing"?
Language/vocabulary choice
I think those kinds of things allow for more subtlety, but of course I don't know what you've already tried before. Maybe everything I'm saying is what you did last time and that was too obvious, lol.
I'm sorry I can't be of more help. But I really do think your idea is cool and I hope you can figure out how you want to implement it! :)
Thanks! It's useful to have a quick reference list. Yeah, I was thinking odd word choices and juxtaposition could be good if I can get them to look like a slight failure of execution at first (if I can keep it slight!). Word choices are harder to keep subtle, I think, but hopefully there are some that can work and juxtaposition may be a bit sneakier. I was thinking I'd like a moment where the reader goes "hm, did this character really 'weird verb'?" and it has a double meaning so asking that question works as a lightbulb moment. I'm also playing with the idea of having a landscape where the intensity of "off" varies depending on how near a character is to a certain landmark... Or maybe using a few words that rhyme with another that goes unspoken to prime a reader to think of it, or a cluster of words with similar shapes on the page? Weird experiments! :D
I like it!