It can’t be. There’s just no way he could have been awake, no way he could have heard me; the closed eyes, the silence in the room, the rhythmic breathing, the absolute stillness I’ve come to know so well after weeks of being by his side… and yet, he repeated everything I said, every place, every detail. The account of his dream matched my story almost word for word except, in it, he was the main character instead of Caelan…
But, how’s this possible? Caelan doesn’t even exist. Not for anyone besides me anyway. Caelan is my creation, or… is he? Ever since I can remember I’ve had Caelan in my mind. I know his thoughts, his fears. I know everything he does and what he’s searching for. It’s as if I were inside his head or, is he inside mine?
Posted by redux (Member # 9277) on :
I enjoyed reading what you wrote, but I feel it's something that one would find later in the story and not at the very beginning. I say this because the prose is introspective in nature. Your narrator is thinking about something, rather than actively doing something, therefore it comes across as a passive start to your story.
Posted by Foste (Member # 8892) on :
I have a difficult time to imagining the scene, since there's barely anything happening in it, save for introspection. You might want to start in a different place (in my humble opinion).
[This message has been edited by Foste (edited January 20, 2011).]
Posted by J. N. Khoury (Member # 9361) on :
Sounds like there's a lot of intriguing stuff coming, but I agree with above comments.
Posted by Smiley (Member # 9379) on :
I very much like your writing style; your voice and pacing. But... this may not be the right beginning.
Posted by cborgia (Member # 9389) on :
I agree with the others for the most part, but I think you might be able to use the scene for an opening if you rewrote it using a more active voice; have the sleeper wake up, preferably in some distress and/or confusion, describe in a couple of sentences something riveting about the dream, and then transfer the tension to the narrator. Of course, it might be better just to use the scene as you wrote it a bit further into the story.
Posted by Reziac (Member # 9345) on :
I'm not sure I agree that this is from the middle. It could well be the start and we simply need to see a couple more paragraphs to understand why this is a problem, or where the problem started.
I am reminded of a story from my college lit class, where a fellow set out to dream himself a man, only to discover at the end that someone was dreaming HIM.
However, yours is more interesting.
Posted by ballesterosa (Member # 9385) on :
First of all, thank you all for the feedback, I hope it keeps flowing since this is why I joined the forum.
Every opinion is welcome and, believe me, well understood. Having said that, I want to add now some information and see what you think after you know more...
This is, hopefully, a full novel I am in the process of developing, with a storyline that's been "burning" me up for quite some time now.
What I wrote as the First 13, is what I would consider a kind of Introduction/Prologue type of thing. In fact, complete, this section wouldn't be that much longer than what you already read, and the main objective is to sort of plant a seed of interest/curiosity/intrigue as to what in the world this character (since we still don't know age, gender, name, etc.) is talking about...
