romancingthebook:

But don’t worry, most writers are and I’m here to help because reading them is making me cRAzY.

I’m writing this because I’ve read three otherwise great romance novels back to back featuring characters dealing with PTSD (or PTSD symptoms) and each one of them made the same dream mistakes. I honestly can’t think of a fiction book I’ve read that didn’t make these mistakes, so I thought I’d compile a handy dandy list of mistakes and how to fix them. 

Lucky for you, I have PTSD and a ton of fellow veteran friends who deal with these symptoms. 

*This is based on my experience and things told to me by friends. This is not to say that the below doesn’t happen in real life, only that it’s not as common as you might think.

The issue with these dreams is twofold: on one side is the psychological accuracy of the dream and on the other side is how you’re using the dream within the narrative.

Oh an Black Sails spoilers-ish ahead. 

1) Stop writing the dream as a shot-by-shot accurate retelling of Traumatic Event.

Listen, not only do dreams seldom follow reality, but our own memories are tricky at best. I don’t remember getting beaten up because a) it was horrifying and we block stuff like that out and b) I was going in and out of consciousness. It would be pretty strange for me to dream something I don’t even fully remember. Our brains are simply not wired to do these vivid factually-accurate cinematic retellings.

My friend dreams things that did happen, but in his own words those dreams are always wrong in some noticeable or bizarre way. For instance, he’s getting chased through the streets of Iraq by a werewolf. 

2) Dreams are informed by reality, not direct reflections of it. 

It’s entirely likely my friend dreamt of a werewolf in Iraq because I got him binge watching Supernatural and the two ideas merged in his dreamstate. But see, that’s how dreams work. 

The trauma event exists as a constant in his subconscious, but he has all this other information right there in his conscious mind all day, every day. In dreams, there isn’t a clear delineation between that information.

My dreams are often dependent on whatever I’ve fallen asleep watching on television. The themes are consistent, but not the content.

In Black Sails, Captain Flint’s trauma dreams feature his dead partner and friend following him around his empty ship. You have an element of the trauma (the animated corpse of his friend) + his daily existence (his ship). The two things intersect to form these unsettling nightmares as expressions of his fears and grief. He never once relives the event itself in his dreams as shown on screen.

Speaking of…

3) Trauma dreams often revolve around feelings, not necessarily the events themselves.

The PTSD package generally includes heaps of shame, guilt, anger and fear. As someone who survived a beating when I should have had control of the situation, my dreams tend to revolve around fear that people will know I’m a fraud or being unable to act in a dangerous situation. 

Again, it’s entirely common for trauma victims to not remember large chunks (or the whole thing) of the trauma event. So why should their dreams be stunningly accurate? What we remember are feelings. Real strong feelings.

You cannot go wrong if you write your trauma dream around feelings, not a specific event.

4) If you present trauma dreams as expressions of themes, you can let go of the trauma dream as an exposition dump/way overused suspense trope.

You know you’ve read this: MC has dreams that are a shot-by-shot retelling of Traumatic Event that always cut off right before Traumatic Event, so that the Big Reveal must happen by a discovery later in the novel. 

If I were the MC in a book, the easy and common thing would be to use the “dream sequence” as an expository retelling of Traumatic Event as a way to give some backstory to why I might be surly, mistrustful, afraid to try something new, whatever, and to clumsily shoehorn in suspense where there doesn’t need to be.

The much more interesting thing might be if my dreams were inconsistent in content but consistent in theme. In one I’m on an alien planet (because I fell asleep watching the Science Channel again) and the ground opens up and I fall into a pit from which I can’t escape because I am helpless. In another a man is watching me while I sleep where I am again frozen and helpless. This would force the reader to think: what is the recurring issue in these dreams? Why is it important? What is this telling me about this character and what happened to her? 

It could be a personal preference, but I’d rather see the Traumatic Event either told in narrative flashbacks (not dreams) or verbally retold by the character in question. Let the dreams tell me something deeper about the character. It’s not that I was beat up, it’s that I feel like a failure because of it. One of these things is a shallow factual detail, the other tells you something about me as a person that I’m sharing with you, gentle reader, because talking about this stuff is healthy.

5) The Traumatic Event doesn’t have to be a big secret. 

In Black Sails, we know what happened to Captain Flint’s partner. It happened in real time in the show. That didn’t make his uber disturbing dreams less disturbing or mysterious. Fans still debate exactly what the symbolism was and what they were telling us about James Flint in those moments. We do know from the dreams that he was disturbed, obsessed, and also monumentally guilty and blaming himself for what happened. 

The mystery was perhaps more heightened by the fact that the dreams weren’t direct reflections of reality. We know who this person was, what she believed, and why she died. That Flint is imagining her screaming silently in his ear is horrifying and discordant with what we know to be factual. This adds emotional complexity to his character and the decisions he’s making while suffering these dreams. 

^^^this didn’t happen. It was a dream. A real unsettling dream.

Once you let go of the concept of the trauma dream as a literal retelling and exposition dump, you have the entire dreamscape to work in other narrative elements, like symbolism, metaphor, foreshadowing, etc. 

*1st gif source: @idontwikeit

a-sundeen:

Tips for Including Imagery

Hey everyone, Abby here! Today I want to talk about imagery and descriptions, and how to include them effectively in your writing.

What is imagery?

For the purpose of this post, imagery is defined as “[the use of] figurative language to represent objects, actions, and ideas in such a way that it appeals to our physical senses”. Put simpler, imagery is just a form of writing that helps the reader create vivid mental images of what’s going on.

Why is imagery important?

Do you remember in second and third grade, when your teacher would always ask you if the characters in your story were floating around in space? That’s why imagery is important. Your reader may not be that young, but having (even a vague) idea of where your characters are is better than nothing.

Neglecting imagery in your writing can sometimes make your readers think that a) you don’t care about this place or person, no matter what’s happening or b) this area or this person’s appearance has no relevance to the story at all. Let’s de-bunk these two.

You don’t care about this place or person, no matter what’s happening. This can often come of as unprofessional on your part. If you don’t care about the subject in question, why include it at all? You should probably try to include at least a phrase of description for everything you introduce.

This area or person’s appearance has no relevance to the story at all. Someone is going to find it relevant; many, many readers like to have a base for creating a mental image. As one of these readers, a lack of description of any sort is something I find highly annoying. And the same point above: if it’s completely irrelevant, why include it at all?

How much imagery should I use?

In order from least to most descriptive, I’m going to give four examples of imagery that I’ve seen before using an original character. Accompanying each one will be a quick description with some tips.

• She had dark hair, brown eyes, and glasses.

This is a good method of description if you want to give a baseline introduction to a side character. It also works if you want your readers to be (vaguely) aware of a character who’s going to play a larger role in the story later, but in that case I would go a level up.

• The phone in her lightly tanned hand reflected on the lenses of her glasses, hiding her dark brown eyes. There was a streak of electric blue in her shoulder-length brown hair.

This one is probably closer to the description level you would want to use for a character who will later be important to the story. You could also use this for major characters if you need the introduction to be a quick one, but if you have the time than you should probably step it up a little bit. Using this level of description for characters who play a very minor role in the story may be superfluous, depending on how they contribute.

• Oblivious to the world around her, she scrolled on her phone. The light from the screen reflected brightly on her glasses, hiding the deep brown of her eyes. The cord of a single earbud disappeared in her shoulder-length dark brown hair, almost entangled in the streak of electric blue. She had a light tan that showed on her arms and through the rips of her dark jeans. She had the broad shoulders of someone used to fighting for her way and wore a t-shirt from a band she was sure nobody had heard of.

This is the general way I would go about introducing a main character. It’s a good way to show a bit of this character’s personality while also giving the reader a good idea of what she looks like. I personally prefer not to go much farther than this, unless there are any details that are screaming out for attention.

• The phone in her hand lit up the lenses of her glasses in a cold light, masking the deep muddy brown of her eyes. Hidden behind those glasses were long, thick eyelashes, dark bags, and lightly applied makeup with a cat-eye wing. Her round, lightly tanned face was framed by dark brown shoulder-length hair, though the part at which she wore it revealed a streak of bright blue. She smiled down at the screen, revealing two wide front teeth and a dimple on one cheek. She wore an earbud in one ear, the cord dipping down below her phone before looping back up. Her black jeans, riddled with rips all the way to the upper thigh, were almost the ensemble of her outfit — they would have been if it weren’t for the leather jacket covering the t-shirt representing her favorite band. Masking brightly patterned socks were a pair of lace-up combat boots that climbed up to her mid-calf.

In all honesty, I cannot think of a regular situation in which this would be a suitable first impression. That is, unless your PoV character has a thing for recognizing every little detail or has an hour to spare to notice every single detail of this character. If you find yourself reaching this level of description, you wander into the dangerous info-dump zone.

Instead of introducing everything at once like this, try to include it all through context. Maybe at some point a wind picks up and she hugs her leather jacket tighter for warmth; that’s a lot better than just stating she’s wearing one.

Including Imagery in Your Writing

We got a little taste of the “levels” of imagery, but what else can we use hose levels for? Here’s a little set of guidelines that I like to follow in my own writing.

Level I Imagery

Use this one for:

• Bare basics introductions
• Moments when there’s not enough time for anything more
• Somewhat relevant details that you think the reader should be aware of in the moment
• Baseline description for a character that will be important later (usually in rare cases)
• Characters that have less than five lines or don’t play a large role in your story
• A quick run-down of a new place that the characters won’t be spending much time in
• Returning to already established details in your story
• Introducing details that are important to the story in the moment but may not play a large role later

Level II Imagery

Use this one for:

• Describing characters that will be important later
• Quick introductions of main characters
• Regular introductions of side characters
• An object or theme that will be important or recurring in the story
• A place that the characters will be spending a moderate amount of time in
• Introducing new details that may later become important in the story or that your PoV character would take the time to notice

Level III Imagery

Use this one for:

• Introducing main characters in regular situations
• A place that your characters will be returning to a lot or that will play a large role in the story
• Anything major in your story that you want to draw your reader’s attention to

You’ll notice that I didn’t include anything about new details in the third level of imagery; if a detail is important enough to warrant an entire paragraph of description, if should probably be included in the main introduction.

So, that’s all I’ve got for today! In the future I’m going to make a post about actually writing with imagery that branches off of this one. Now that I’ve talked about how to include it, I should probably give some tips for how to actually write it. (Great planning on my part.)

If there’s anything you want to see me talk about in my next post or if you have any questions about this one, please don’t hesitate to leave a message in my ask! Until next time, much love! <333