Tuesday's Inspiration - The Fictional Dream - Janet Lane Walters #MFRWauthor #BooksWeLove Author

You've been sitting and some people will say just staring but what you're really doing is fictionally dreaming. The scene in your head is perfect for what you want to put into your story. Then you sit down to write and the words won't come. They're never the right words. That aha moment you had seemed wonderful but now it's gone flat.

The problem is in your head. There's the censor in your head that stops the flow. Turning this off can be almost impossible. The mechanics of writing have taken over and become a huge ogre. Not that word but this one. . Panic sets in. "This is never going to be perfect." How can I find the words? What am I going to do. Before you know what has happened you've worked yourself into a state where you've lost the dream and can't write another word on the story. Happens all the time to me. Don't know about you. But what to do.

I've a drawer of bits and pieces that never went beyond the point where the fictional dream stopped being a dream. But I've gone back and turned many of these fits and starts into stories. Some succeed and some fall a bit flat but that's the life. I've learned which scenes in the fictional dream stop me so when trying to put the story on paper, I have this trick that usually works for me. Maybe it will work for you. I write the scene in a sentence. They kiss. They make love. The body is found. There is a fight. Choreograph the duel. Once the story's down and I know where the characters are really headed, I can go back and sketch in these scenes and then work on them until the direction is found. Suddenly the fictional dream scene is there and maybe the direction isn't what I initally saw but it works.