The Importance of Documenting Dreams When Writing a Book

By Frogg Corpse

Image credit:  https://writix.co.uk/

It’s no surprise that as book writers we sometimes face the problem of applying the proper amount of detail to our work. As a poet, I’ve learned that documenting dreams can assist in improving the descriptive settings of a story, poem, or screenplay. Yes, dreams. The ones we have when we sleep, the ones we wake up remembering, and the ones we have trouble recollecting.

This simple task can help pick apart the picture you wish to convey to the reader, fine-tune the descriptions, and provide emphasis on certain parts of a story. Do you want more detail on your character? More detail on an object? Improve the description of your settings? Documenting dreams can help when writing a book.

The first step is to recollect most of the dream that you can retain with memory and write what happened during that event. At first, it doesn’t have to be pretty or over imbibed of descriptive features, it could be something as simple as writing a list. For example:

• House at night

• Wooden rails on a staircase

• Hallway

• Ghost

• Being buried alive

Now, with your basic list written out, you have your first key points to a story or situation to build upon. The next process is to start individually describing each sequence until you have unfolded your dream into detail.

Take the house at night for instance. Can you see the color of the outside? Are there any details to make the home its own setting to stand out? Windows? Gardens? Plants? A Sidewalk? A Porch?

Take these features of your dream and start honing in on them. You can add slight details to improve the scenario, building your story. You may start to remember more details as you write or have a clearer vision of where to go.

Here is a written example of the basic list in its descriptive form:

The grey house stood in silence. Four windows beamed in glinting light shouting out into a voided sky. Perennials littered the front yard resting in the still breeze. Raindrops laid upon their leaves falling with weighted drips as a lone dead oak stood still under the cover of night.

The front door swung open. I was running for my life up towards the old house, gripping the cherry wood banister. I ascended with haste up the stairs, racing my feet across the crimson carpet. Losing balance, my hand slipped from the railing and my body contorted trying to regain its balance. As I gazed at the stairs below, a figure swept up the flight pushing towards me.

The old man was translucent and bore overalls and a frown hidden in a stubbled beard. Those eyes; those eyes burned in white light as he reached out for me, hunting me down the hallway.

I grabbed onto old copper door knobs, banging my fists on locked mahogany doors. With nowhere to turn, I saw a window at the end of the hall with the specter nipping at my heels.

I dove through the glass. I fell two stories into the side garden of yellow lilies, smacking my head upon the ground, fading in and out of consciousness; spitting dirt. I looked around in my pain, seeing that I was lying in a deep earthen hole. As my left eye looked up lifelessly unable to move my body, the old man hovered above me, shoveling dirt back onto me as I moaned, until what I witnessed became the deep sleep of nothingness.       

As you can see, adding on the details in-between your key features can help cover areas which will pull your story together, define your scenarios, and help improve upon other written works. This can assist you further in describing places, things. I hope that this neat exercise will help if you ever find yourself in a bind or want to improve your book writing. Documenting your dreams is also a great method to use when you find yourself inflicted with writer’s block. Sweet dreams!

Frogg Corpse is a poet, spoken word performer, vocalist and author from Louisville, Kentucky.

His poetry book, A Quick Guide to Suicide: Poetry to die by, will be coming soon.

You can reach Frogg Corpse at [email protected]

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