He floated through the hallway quickly, several feet above the floor. He enters a large chamber, people standing on the walls all the way around. He stopped at a governemnt run ticket counter and tried to pay entry. He pulled out his wallet and could not seem to count the money, his eyes not quite focusing. He did not seem to have enough money. He tells the clerk that he will be right back. He leaps into the air and floats toward the center of the cieling. A couple twists to avoid people who were also crossing the space, he floats into the center of a bar with people standing upside down. He grabbed the circular handle of the air lock. He tugged, it runed him around. He put his feet against the wall
Would you read more?
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited April 08, 2009).]
posted
There is no more to this. which is why I posted it here.
There was a discussion about waking from a dream. They were saying that little happened once one woke, which was why these story starts don't work.
I got the idea of a way of having someone dreaming, and waking up, and make it worthy of reading farther. This string is titled exception to the rule, because the rule is still valid.
posted
Nothing in the first 13 tells me he's dreaming. Nothing tells me whether what he's doing (e.g. floating) is "normal" for him or not (could be an SF story in which people have personal gravity nullifiers...). Nothing explains the tense shifts, which are obtrusive. Nothing reveals character. The repetitive nature of sentence structure (all but one sentence begin "He..." makes this into a dull drone, a background buzz, not a lively foreground story.
posted
I think the problem with opening with a dream like this is that the reader doesn't know what 'reality' is in your story. Thus, if the dream is in opposition to that reality they have no frame of reference whereby to make that connection. Having read the dream sequence the reader has invested in it emotionally. To then have that reality dissolve and have to accept, learn and love a new reality in the story is asking the reader too much: They disconnect and you lose them.
Where dreams can work well in stories, in my opinion, is later on. Once a harsh reality is established, a dream can demonstrate its idyllic antithesis to the character. It thereby serves to show the yawning gulf separating their current grim reality and their utopia, providing the character an emotional motivation (deep longing, dissatisfaction etc) for progressing the story and providing the reader a sense of urgency following the character's revelation.
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