David Meadows
Master
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Registered: 09-2003
Posts: 197
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 I dreamt a story
Seriously. I don't think this has ever happened to me before.
I woke up at 4.30am with a mostly-coherent dream in my mind. Worried that I would instantly forget it (as happens to most of my dreams) I wrote it down in a notebook. It didn't seem to have a beginning or an end, though, so I tried to go back to sleep and see how it continued. (This was probably a silly idea  .)
I actually lay awake for most of the next two and a half hours, trying to find an ending. I didn't find it, but I did find a beginning. And I figured out some proper characters and made sense of some of the more dream-like bits. At least, I think that's what I did...
When I finally woke up, I was convinced that the whole night was a dream
Except, I have three pages of notes... and a really clear picture of the whole story (minus the end, but that's ok, I'm starting to think it works better without an end...)
The thing that occurs to me is that dreams aren't created from nothing, they are an accumulation of your experiences sorting themselves out in your mind. In this case, I can see what my subconscious was trying to tell me... but I'm worried that the "plot" of the dream itself isn't original, and that I was projecting recent feelings onto somebody else's plot. In other words, I've actually stolen a story that I don't consciously remember reading. (Does that make sense?)
It's kind of a bleak, depressing story... it actually makes me sad to think about it  ...but I can't stop thinking about it. If I can properly convey it to paper I honestly think it might be the best thing I have ever written.
And I don't think I want to write it.
I think I need to tell the plot to somebody so that they can reassure me that it's actually rubbish and only seems good to me because it was a dream. Or, better still, tell me where I've stolen it from so I can stop obsessing over it 
---
"No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, 'Good food at it's best', you deserve to be struck by lightning."
-- Lynne Truss
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9/19/2007, 8:32 am
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QS2
Shepherd
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Registered: 03-2006
Posts: 576
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Re: I dreamt a story
Sadly bleak depressing stories really take a bite out of me so I'm afraid I can't help you with that, but maybe someone else is willing to take the plunge.
Oh yeah, Arrrrr... 
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9/19/2007, 10:17 am
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Loud G
Grand Master
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Registered: 01-2005
Location: Maryland, USA
Posts: 242
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Re: I dreamt a story
David, you should totally right it. This happened to me, very similar to how you described it, about 6 months ago. I woke in the middle of the night from a scary (to me) dream. It disturbed me enough that I couldn't sleep for thinking about it. So I wrote it down hoping that getting it on paper would distance it from me, fictionalize it. I didn't want to go back and finish it.
Mine didn't have an end either! Though it had a very solid beginning and it had backplot, several characters, and flashbacks and a dream (within my own dream).
The next day I started to write out the story of the dream from my notes. It is now a 20 page short story (8000+ words) which is finished and has been rejected from 2 separate publishers!
If you are curious it is posted in the "After Dark" private forum as 535.
Mine is also quite dreary, David. I don't know if we just remember the dreary dreams better, or what....
I would love to see what you come up with during your sleep, if only to have some comparison for my own warped and twisted brain.
--- Reading: Mistborn
Writing: Eriadhin
"Life is like a book, except it takes longer to get to the climax."
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9/19/2007, 4:23 pm
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BaneBlade
NaNo Winner
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Registered: 02-2006
Posts: 136
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Re: I dreamt a story
*chants* Write, write, write!
---
...waiting patiently for a few submissions to come back.
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9/19/2007, 9:15 pm
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