How to write dreams

I wouldn't, but that's just me. If you're going to show the character waking up afterward, I don't think the italics are necessary.

There's no _stylistic_ difference between fanfic and an original novel. :P

That said, you can go either way depending on how long it is and how you want to handle it.

I don't think that there would really be an issue with putting it in italics, if it's only a paragraph like you said. If the dream were to take a whole chapter, reading pages of italics would probably be considered more irritating than anything else. But depending on the way you go about writing it, it could be unnecessary or it could clear things up. Just use whichever works.

Okay, well I also have one whole chapter that is a flashback, I have that in italics right now, but it DOES get annoying. I actually have several chapters like that. And I'm not quite sure how to handle it...

If you're starting your story with a dream I wouldn't do it in italics as it would most likely give the dream concept away. Better to just do it as a normal scene and then have the scene shift to where the character wakes up. Sometimes if it's a daydream have a person the MC knows suddenly show up or their voice in a dog or something.

If a character is describing a dream then I would use italics for the whole scene.

Personally, I disagree. It's just that the typesetting ideas of fan fiction tend to suck. Let me demonstrate it...

Author notes: BTW, everything in Italics are the character's thoughts.

Read and review (so I look popular).

*** <-- story is starting typesetting.

PALACE <-- because the writer can't write scenery.

Now I'm just making fun of the bad fan fiction writers who do things like have characters with cerulean blue orbs wake up with a start and flutter their eye lashes open from a disturbing dream then try to pretend they know something about Japanese culture by putting a Hummer on a Japanese road. *snickers*

Maybe it's just my fandom... but none of these conventions should be in your average original fiction. You don't start stories with dreams all of the time. You don't have orbs of desire pulsating as touches burn into flesh... and you do actual scene transitions without explaining them in the author notes.

For dreams, don't use italics, same with flashbacks. Just find a really good way to transition into it through words and context, not by type setting. It'll challenge you more to have to write out thoughts without italics, scene changes, without italics and it'll make your writing a lot stronger. Italics should be used only in the event of emphasis, and if you are sending it out to an editor, then all Italics should be underlined. Maybe you can use the convention of Italics for thought messages via telepathy... but other than that, I see Italics as laziness on the part of the author.

Using typography in your book will make the typesetters get upset at you. And you will be cheating yourself and your readers out of making your writing better. If you can write a transition in scenery in a sentence you can also make a transition in time, place, and if the person is awake or sleeping.

Is it really that difficult to write, "she moved the front hall". Or do you really need.

She thought about moving to the front hall.

FRONT HALL.

She moved to the front hall. But then decided to move back to where was before.

BACK WHERE SHE WAS BEFORE.

Now she stood in the doorway between the two pacing.

STANDING BETWEEN THE TWO PLACES PACING.

Then she fainted.

DREAM MODE.

She was floating in a white dress in the Middle of nowhere. A castle appeared and enveloped her.

DREAM MODE:Castle.

_She thought, "This is a strange place to be."_

(BTW, That's a thought because it's underlined. Aren't I clever?)

But then she saw a fire burning in her eyes and woke up.

OUT OF DREAM MODE.

But she remembered.

FLASHBACK (It's supposed to be in Italics, I know... but I'm lazy... ^.~)

There was once this guy with gemstone eyes in rainbow colors--ruby, sapphire and a whole bunch of other precious gems except for diamond 'cause white on white eyes looks nasty and stuff. He gave her a flower the scent of morning dew touching an irridecent morning.

END FLASHBACK.

So she paced again.

PLACE SHE WAS BEFORE.

FRONT HALL.

PLACE SHE WAS BEFORE.

FRONT HALL.

Do you get the point yet? This type of writing really sucks. Sure they are part of fan fiction convention, but for the most part they are lazy and quite stupid, especially demonstrated this way. Saying He thought with italics and then inserting author notes is quite overbearing.

"This is quite amusing," he thought.

Do you really think that was spoken out loud? Writers are supposed to trust the words they write on the page, the type setters are supposed to worry about the typesetting. Don't fall into visual cues to tell your story. It's lazy and sloppy.
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Telling someone you're a writer is like telling them you're an obsessive compulsive bipolar schizophrenic that goes to AA meetings once a week.

Perhaps I should have specified. ;) There's no stylistic difference between _good_ fanfic and original writing. :) Let's nevermind anything bad fanfic does, but most _good_ fanfic I've seen would be indistinguishable from many published novels if only for the fact that it didn't star Harry Potter and the author was not J.K. Rowling.

For FF, I do italicize my dreams... But not in my novel. o.O It just didn't look right, especially since I didn't want the reader to know it WAS a dream, so no italics.

I hate italics for the blocks of text.

No italics, just say that it's a dream at one point, or get it so bizarre that people would understand that it's a dream. Or think that you're writing something really really cool.

I don't know where you got the idea that you should always italicize dreams (or flashbacks) in fan fiction, but that is not the case. The person who commented that there is no stylistic difference between good fan fiction and good pro fiction is absolutely right.

None of the stuff you see in bad!fic, from the annoying "keys" that explain what type of quotation marks the writer is using for thoughts to the labeling of things like flashbacks with "FLASHBACK STARTS/ENDS", should be used in fan fiction OR pro fiction. Badfic writers use stuff like that because (a) they don't know any better and (b) they see other badfic writers doing it. Stop the madness! Break the cycle! ;)

If I never see another POV change labeled "Normal POV" or "Story POV", it will be too soon...

You're absolutely right. Thank you!

No, they're a part of bad writing. You don't see things like that in fan fiction written by good writers. Only badfic writers use those "conventions" (and one can only assume they got them from other badfic writers). Good fan fiction uses the same conventions as good professional writing.

Personally I don't put dreams in italics. Especially when I begin the story that way because when I begin the story that way I want the dream to feel "real" - just as real as it does to the characters. Think about it this way: how often do you dream and pause and say, in the dream, "This is just a dream." That's called lucid dreaming and it occurs rarely unless a person is trained or lucky. Most people don't realize it's a dream until they wake up. For the reader not to realize they're in a dream sequence instead of just another scene gives the story verasimilitude.

One of the best moments watching a well made TV programme or film is where a scene is getting weird, or creepy, and then you realise it is a dream. Why deprive yourself of the chance to do things like that?

Also remember the axiom "show don't tell", saying "italics = dreams" is the same as just heading the section DREAM. You can show a section is a dream through what happens ion the dream, dreams are not like real life - and as such your fictional dreams should be noticeably different from your fictional characters waking lives. - Showing, not telling.

For a line or two of a character's thoughts, italics are fine, but I adivse not doing it for dreams/memories that take up a large part of the story. If, say, a character entered a drug-induced delirium, maybe it could be used then... but it's another of those things that largely depends on the story, the writing, and the purpose of the dream.

My only other advise is with dreams, be wary! Don't make them too long, or too "this-is-so-not-a-dream", because then the reader feels a cop-out when the wake up. (Of course, this is Nano, and random dream sequences just eat up that word count...)

Alright, no italics. Got it. Of course I don't label everything -shudders- lol. I *hate* fanfic writers that do that! I've also never really used dreams/flashbacks in ANY of my writing, so I didn't know how to do it, which is why I asked you guys. Yay, thanks for answering!

Typography?
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NaNo #: 2
Nervous level: 50k

My Bad. Umm... Like Italics, caps, Bold, different fonts, different colors for your fonts, excessive underlines, etc in the *place of* actually typing out your story in complete sentences.

For example using Italics for thoughts instead of writing something like, He thought, "She kind of looks funny."

Or even, He reflected that she looked kind of funny.

Or even the third person narrative...

She walked across the room. He squinted at her. She looked kind of funny.

I advocate that over say... She looks kind of funny.

Though for mind speech stuff I can understand since one wants to separate that from regular thoughts and there isn't much of a good way to get around it.

That's using typesetting/typography to *visually* communicate to the reader rather than using words to communicate to the reader. It's the whole, "Our business is words, not type setting" thing.

^^;; I hope that wasn't too winded...
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Telling someone you're a writer is like telling them you're an obsessive compulsive bipolar schizophrenic that goes to AA meetings once a week.