A good night's sleep

Have you ever had a good night's sleep, then awakened to a new understanding of your story and how certain things should move or how certain characters should act? Like, suddenly it's clear as day, after a few months of struggling with everything?

Yeah, it's really cool. Yesterday I woke up from a dream which I don't remember now, but I had a clear mental picture of how to "fix" my story. Something I couldn't see for months, but is now so obvious. And not just one plot element, but multiple. I'm not sure if they are epiphanies, but they sure unclog the drain. :)

Comments

Anonymous said…
Ray, that's great news.

I've often got story ideas from dreams, but never gotten fixes to current stories.

I didn't once dream of my book being published and freaking out because they published the first draft, with no edits.
Ray Wong said…
I have never had publishing-related dreams. But yeah, it's great to dream of a plot solution. LOL.
José Iriarte said…
I don't think I've ever had a solution come in a dream. On extremely rare occasions I've had stories come to me that way, though, and the best thing about those is they are less predictable than many of my other stories.

My best tool for working out story problems is either taking a long walk *without* my mp3 player or taking a long drive to nowhere, again, *without* music playing. It pretty much never fails. Even if I don't get *all* the solution I need, I'll at least get a piece of it. I suspect meditation would work as well.

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