I don't know if this is the write place but...I'll post it here anyway :P.
I'm writing a Literary Fiction thats kind of an alegorical autobiography, in that its based on events in my life but twisted a little and of course the names have been changed.
Anyway I am writing a dream sequence where the main character gets a glimpse of his future, though he doesn't know it yet, and I'm trying to figure out if I want to identify who's speaking in the dream or not. Its supposed to be really choppy with only snap shots of whats going on so not identifying speakers makes sense but if others read this scene they will think the same person is speaking through out the entire scene and that's not true.
What would others do in this situation?
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26,085 / 50,000
Nov 3, 2009 - 20 35
I I think a good bit of this is how important it is for the reader to realize exactly what is going on. I have a similar thing happening in my novel (it opens with a dream sequence like that, in which the person experiencing it is only identified as 'he' and it could get confusing exactly what is going on. ). If the most important part is for the reader to realize the 'who' then identify. In my case, the 'what' was more important than the 'who' so I chose not to identify.
40,569 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 15 31
Readers love questions.
If you can write the dream sequence so that the reader's question is "who is speaking this?" and then answer it at the end, that's good.
If you can write it so that they have this question right off, and further, that as they read through the dream sequence they have a series of _different_ answers to that question leading up to the final answer, then that's really good.
I don't mean just to keep the reader guessing pointlessly. The goal is to raise an interesting question in the reader's mind, because curiosity will keep a reader turning pages. But having raised the question, you have to write the rest so that through reading it, the reader can come to their own answer to that question.
Ultimately, while readers love it when books raise questions in their minds, they don't want to be _told_ the answer, they want to be _shown_ things that allow them to figure out the answer for themselves.
----------Lapochka (YA emotional journey / travel adventure):
A young woman searches for her missing father through clues hidden in Soviet-era Russian comic books.
Also check out my writing blog at: http://www.plottopunctuation.com/blog/
34,061 / 50,000
Nov 5, 2009 - 22 59
I did this in my novel last year, and I handled it by physically describing the voices but nothing else...and then, much later in the story, I used similar descriptions for the voices of characters. Of course, they were the characters who were in the dream - but whether the reader figured that out depended on whether they were paying attention :)
----------'07: Tall Heels (Lost 47k. Completed 51k.)
'08: Retribution (Won 51k. Completed 81k)
'09: Noli Me Calcare - Writing Blog
Cups of tea: 26... Coffee: 7... Characters killed: 1... Current chapter: 20..