quote:

---

Cop had dreamed again last night. He forced himself to sit up even as consciousness threatened to slip away again. His clammy palm slapped around on the surface of the small aluminum bench near the head of his bed, blindly searching for his tablet. His therapist insisted he write his dreams down. It was part of his treatment, she said. He didn't buy it for a minute. While he waited for his tablet to wake up he could feel the dream slipping away.

---

Well first off, some will say, waking from a dream is cliche. But I am one for, if it works dont worry about it.

The good thing you do in the intro, is we can tell its in the future setting so, and the dreams are something important.

The only true nit I will offer at this point, would be the tablet waking up, I stumbled at first then caught the idea, of it powering its display up. I just might not use the word wake. I dont know why but I like the tablet whirring to life, even as the dream slipped away.

The other thing would be the tablet waking up. I do this myself, sometimes and the dreams do slip away, its hard to hold on to them...so I would lose them if I had to wait for a computer rather than a piece of paper I would lose them all.

Thanks for the feedback, I'm trucking along but I'd definitely be interested in getting grittier as I get more down on paper. I was trepidatious about starting with the waking-up, but after several abortive starts, it really does feel (to me) like a natural place to enter the story, and thematically appropriate to boot.

@enigmatic -

"Cop" is a nickname right now. I don't have names for any of my characters at this point, and to be honest I'm liking how it's turning out overall. But point well-taken that it could be a bit distracting as the first word of a story. As for the tablet issue, I will definitely look at revising how that part is described - paper is illegal where the story takes place (postmodern dystopia). What with solid-state memory being virtually instant and all, I may change the wording a bit to convey that it's the dream slipping away on its own that is key, not specifically anything to do with the fact that the tablet has to turn on.

I liked this piece a lot. It caught my interest and made me want to read more. I just think the wording could be tightened up a bit.

The first sentence seems awkwardly constructed and it makes me wonder if you couldn't just delete it and work the information into the next sentence. ("Cop woke from another dream and forced himself...") It just hits me that it's now morning, so the "had dreamed again last night" throws me off.

Consciousness is a so-so word here, but it makes me think of someone who is sick or has been drugged, rather than someone who's going back to sleep. If indeed you're trying to say something like that, then maybe allude to it more strongly (He forced himself to sit up even as sleep tightened its grip and threatened to pull him back into its dark embrace."

When I read "near the head of his bed," I pictured it at the end of the bed. That may be because I'm silly, though, so check it with someone else. For simplicity and compactness, I think you could say "at his bedside" and people will know it's in the nightstand position.

Some other ideas to tighten it up: The phrase "write his dreams down" could be "document his dreams". Also, you could probably lose "she said" since we know she's treating him. Or you could chop it to say "She said it was part of his treatment but he didn't buy it for a minute."

You might make the last line more urgent and active to show that now, not only is he fighting against losing consciousness and his therapist's lousy advice, now the darn tablet isn't waking up fast enough and he's feeling the dream slip away. It does throw me off that he's waking up and the tablet is also waking up. If that phrasing is necessary to the story, maybe draw some kind of comparison. ("It was hard enough to wake himself up, but then to wait on the darn tablet to wake up before the dream slipped away was nearly impossible.")

Hope this is helpful. Keep writing!