The Symbolism Of Flowers

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Lost in a Dream

Pairings: Dream/Morpheus/Sandman x Reader Word Count: ~9.6k Warnings: NSFW, smut, p in v sex, fingering, slight praise kink, vanilla sex, reader almost gets mugged(?), female reader. A/N: DAMN IT! I said I wasn’t going to fall for Dream, and then I did. I swear, it wasn’t on purpose. I really hope this doesn’t flop, I put a lot of effort into this and this man is so precious, he deserves so much more!!! Anyway, thank you and enjoy!

You were running.

You were always running, longing for peace in the dream world so that you could escape your strife in the real world. But that wasn’t an option.

Because, here you were, running in a dream that’s meant to be of your own control. Every waking hour, you spend your days looking over your shoulder in fear that he may have crossed over, found you again to torment you and finally bring your time to an end. Every night, you fall asleep and run from the nightmarish creature that tortures you with a sadistic game of cat and mouse.

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No Lights Allowed by Ben J

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📝 Emotion, atmosphere and environment: A writing exercise for show-don't-tell

Before we go any further, I want to make it clear that I'm not aggressively against telling. Sometimes telling works for a whole bunch of valid reasons. If you know me at all, you'll be aware of where I stand on the issue of narrow, prescriptive writing rules (if you don't know me, hi, I despise narrow, prescriptive writing rules)

But "How do I show instead of telling?" is still a thing a lot of newer writers have difficulty with and that's what I'd like to dig into. So here's a writing exercise you could try to help build depth and atmosphere around the emotion your character is feeling...

🧠 First of all, pick an emotional experience.

For illustrative purposes, I'm going with LOSS. Then express that emotional experience in ways that can be perceived physically. The following are just suggestions, not an exhaustive list.

🎨 How could the emotion be expressed as a colour?

Grey, maybe. Slate grey. Or a muted petrol blue, perhaps.

🔊 How could the emotion be expressed as a sound?

Deep silence interrupted only by the sound of a ticking clock.

👋 How could the emotion be expressed as a physical action?

Your hand reaching to grasp for comfort out of habit and hope, fingers curling around something remembered, then dropping back to the coldness of the other side of the bed, empty.

🌄 How could the emotion be expressed as a weather condition or natural phenomenon?

The storm passed an hour ago, leaving only an occasional flurry of sleet that melts on contact with the window, sliding down the glass like tears. Outside, a tree that shed its leaves in autumn bows in tired silhouette against the halo of a single streetlight.

🏡 How could the emotion be expressed as a room?

Your nightstand holds the bottle of water you filled before trudging upstairs at midnight, your phone still plugged in even though the battery was full three hours ago, and the glasses you'll put on again as soon as you wake up after sleep eventually manages to swallow you. The nightstand on the other side of the bed holds a small tear-off calendar showing November eighteenth even though it's now January second and a book lying open and face-down with the spine sinking into itself. In the corner of the room, there's a chair with clothes carelessly draped over it a month and a half ago that you still can't bring yourself to put in the laundry. It's four o'clock in the morning and you'd give anything to hear breathing that wasn't your own.

You could try it for different emotions and different situations, in isolation and then connected to something you're in the process of writing.

How could anger, for example, be expressed differently in an office environment compared to a wilderness landscape? How could joy be shown in summer versus winter? How could fear be embodied in high fantasy compared to cyberpunk?

If relating environments to emotions doesn't click for you straight away, could you focus on single-sense experiences for a while? What colour is regret? What does anticipation taste like?

If you have synesthesia (hello, fellow synesthetes!) this could be a wild ride, but hopefully it'll also be fun and useful for anyone having difficulty connecting to the idea of show-don't-tell.

Happy writing! 💜

Few are the things more enticing, and at once terrifying, than a hand held out in invitation, when the mouth smiling at you bares fangs.

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"I just wish people would be more careful what they post here" AO3 is a site where lots of lots of people have written dark variants of good people/beings, and even more people read them and enjoy that stuff.

I wouldn't take the comment too hard, love and I wouldn't take is as criticism either. Good criticism sees what's in the story and helps you enhance or improve it (even things such as dark elements).

I think the commentor might have just been a poor pure soul who stumbled across the fic, for whatever reason decided to read it and didn't like what they read, which is down to just their interests.

They're on AO3 and you were very, very clear in the tags with what was expected in your story (reread those tags just to confirm that).

If you want to make people extra aware, maybe put a warning/disclaimer underneath your summary like: 'This story contains dark elements, please heed the tags.' because sometimes people for whatever skip over the tags. But see tags they like so they decide to read the story but don't see other tags which would warn them about things they may not like.

This commentor:

everyone else:

Dotie Rambles

I got an AO3 comment today on my fic A Small Act of Kindness that said "why would write Dream this way he is a good character, and I normally don't leave comments if I don't like the fic, I don't read it, but this fic upset me and this is not an attack on you, I just wish people would be more careful what they post here" those are just some of the things I could remember because I removed it immediately lol and one other thing where it was a waste of my writing abilities etc

Listen I know Dream of the Endless is a beloved character and despite his many flaws, he is in his heart, a character that cares deeply and tries to do good especially after that 100-year-long confinement.

That being said, I am torn between thinking ah maybe I didn't put enough tags on or maybe I could've been more specific with my summary and on the other hand, thinking I write what I want to write and I'm not at all attacking his character, that's just how I wanted to write him because...I can???

I like writing dark fics and dark characters, and maybe this type of feedback comes with the territory?

Like, is that a bad thing lol and no hate to that commenter and those who don't like their beloved characters portrayed in a darker manner, I get her point, I just want to know what I missed here because I'm new to writing fanfiction and this is the first comment I got in that vein...I'm probably not handling it too well either, am I?? 😅