Be a Better Writer -- FANTASY

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RedBaron
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Re: Be a Better Writer -- FANTASY

Post by RedBaron »

And if people are interested in reading some really excellent Christian fantasy or SciFi (beyond C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkein lol), be sure to check out Stephen Lawhead. He does both quite well, as well as some historical fiction. He's one of my all time favorite authors.
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Re: Be a Better Writer -- FANTASY

Post by judi »

Oops! I wrote my fantasy straight from a dream I had earlier this week - I know that dream-writing has been over-worked, but I have such unusual dreams. I sleep with my GoBible feeding me all night, and this has enhanced my dreams with His flavor and favor. I haven't found my dream to fit in all the aforementioned categories. Help! How can my dreamscapes be embellished to reflect fantasy, without losing the gist of His messages? Love you, and thanks! :thankssign
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"And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory."


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Congratulations to all for your incredibly beautiful entries, who feel His Holy Spirit move within us as we write to honor Him through these wondrous heartbeats of praise to YHWH! I love you all.
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Re: Be a Better Writer -- FANTASY

Post by glorybee »

The problem is primarily with stories in which the resolution (and often, the "easy way out" of the main character's conflict) is "...but it was only a dream."

A story that is inspired by your own dreams is fine, as long as you avoid that cliched ending. You don't even have to state in the story that it's based on a dream. I could dream about purple unicorns tonight and write a story about them without ever mentioning the actual dream itself.

Putting dreams within stories is only slightly less problematical than the "it was only a dream" ending. The problem is that dreams by their very nature are odd, disjointed, and only inherently interesting to the dreamer. Dream reporting often has a feel of "It was really cool--I promise! I guess maybe you had to be there."

it can be done, of course, but it's not easy to do it well.

I guess I didn't really answer your question about how you can use your dreams to reflect God's messages. I'd start with the message, I think, and maybe an element or two from your dreams--but write it in a way that is LESS dream-like rather than more, because of the abovementioned problems with dream writing.
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