Fiction Writing and Dreams

I write fiction — mostly fantasy — and my dreams can be weird and vivid. I enjoy writing descriptions of my dreams, and sometimes I think they have potential as stories. I also dabble in visual art, and dreams can affect that, too, or vice versa.

I’ve heard a saying that nobody’s interested in other people’s dreams. When I first heard that, I felt sheepish, because I talk about dreams and all along I must have been boring people. Sometimes I reread my dream description and realize it’s only interesting to me, not something that would interest other people (especially if it’s something I’ve interpreted because of whatever is happening in my life at that time). Other times I begin writing a story based on the dream… and I realize the dream doesn’t have a plot like a story — not a plot that makes sense as a fictional story I want to try getting published.

A few times, I’ve had a dream featuring one of my fictional characters — a character I’ve already created and written about. In one case, it was a weird science fiction dream where the character (Margot) didn’t belong, because she lives in a gothic alternate version of Regency England. I haven’t tried turning that into a work of fiction.

But another time, I had a dream in which her cousin Vincent was the protagonist. That one had an actual plot and took place in that slightly different Regency…