It Was Only Just a Dream

I don't know what it is with me and music references at the moment, but holy hecks, it is everywhere. 

I've been watching The Man In The High Castle recently and I am really enjoying it, in a strange way, but I know that the last series is either out now or out soon, and I'm wondering how on earth they are going to end it. I'm slightly scared it is going to end up being a deus ex machina, the worst of all deus ex machina of all deus ex machinas where someone wakes up and it is all just a dream. It has ruined things that I have read and watched before and part of me is worried that it is going to be some horrific sort of ending like that. Urgh, I don't want it to be that. 

So, why does the idea of an ending of 'It was only just a dream...' ruin endings of things? 

Dreams are fantastic for inspiration particularly for things like horror fiction, because when we are asleep our brains turn everything over and there are plenty of things that have popped straight out of people's dream worlds. Playing with dreams is pretty cool as well because things like Nightmare on Elm Street really work, but when that is the only way to write yourself out of a situation, it would be better if everyone just died, the world ended and the Nazi's took over the Multiverse rather than it just being the strange thing that someone's brain popped out whilst they were sleeping or on some form of medication that contributes to vivid dreaming, or it is just lazy. Even if your first draft is getting your characters into a dire situation, and then you go back and litter clues though the story as to how they're going to get out of it, provided it's not an alarm clock going off and someone waking up, you're a lot better off. 

The other thing that you want to avoid though is that awful thing of the world's most dire situation and then the person pulls Excalibur out of their backside and they took a sword-fighting class when they were seven and never mentioned it before this very point, and suddenly they have everything that they ever needed. You can't just throw in that sort of character development and act like it makes for a good story. 

These aren't exactly rules, and there are plenty of stories which break these rules, but they're the sort of half rules that are worth remembering, because whilst it is easier to write things quickly and break all of these rules, it depends on who you want to be as a writer. One of my favourite writers is S J Watson. He's not churning out books every other second, actually John Green as well. Their books are clever and considered and they have spent time pouring over them, and it is obvious. You might disagree with me on S J Watson with that one - a lot of people on Goodreads evidently do - but I really think that book is incredible. I did not see the end of that book coming and it was one of the most thrilling reads I have read in quite a while. Granted, Mills and Boon writers bash out a book a month and make a mint out of it, so it depends who you want to be. 

I'm not judging anyone for being either, by the way, I just know which I would prefer to be. 

Charlieswrite