creative writing of dream

24 Writing Prompts About Dreams

Let’s talk dreams!

Those crazy stories our minds cook up while we’re snoozing. They can be awesome, weird, or even downright scary, but they’re always interesting.

This post is all about writing prompts focusing on our dreams – the little ideas that spark a story within our minds.

So, if you’re a writer who needs a fresh idea or you’re just curious about dreams, buckle up!

We are about to dive into the wild world of your subconscious and see what weird and wonderful stories we can find.

A Dream That Comes True: Imagine a world where your dreams accurately predict the future . Your protagonist begins having a series of extraordinarily vivid dreams, each one becoming reality in a couple of days. However, one night , they dream of a catastrophic event. How will they handle the knowledge of this impending disaster , and how will they use their unique ability to alter the course of events?
The Interpreter of Dreams: Your main character is a therapist with an uncanny ability to interpret dreams with stunning accuracy. They’re well-known in their community , and people often seek them out for advice. One day, a client recounts a disturbing dream that seems to predict a major tragedy. How does your character deal with the ethical implications of this discovery, and what actions do they take?
A Lost Dream: In this story, the protagonist can no longer dream. They used to have the most vibrant and inspiring dreams which they turned into successful book plots. But one day, they just stopped. Explore how they cope with this loss and what lengths they are willing to go to retrieve their dreams.
A Shared Dream: Consider a world where two people can share the same dream. Your main characters have been best friends since childhood , experiencing shared dreams every night. One night, one of them dreams alone, discovering a secret the other had been keeping. How does this revelation affect their relationship in their waking lives, and what happens to their shared dream space ?
The Forgotten Dream: Your character wakes up from a dream that gave them an incredible idea or solution to a problem they’ve been struggling with. But they can’t remember it. They’re desperate to recall the dream because they know it holds the key to their troubles. Dive into the lengths they will go to uncover their forgotten dream and the effect this obsession has on their life .
Dreams as Escape: In this world, dreaming is a form of escapism, a vacation from reality. Your protagonist, a tired office worker , dreams of a magical world each night, full of adventures and exciting stories. One day, they find a hint in the real world pointing towards their dream world. How does this discovery blur the lines between their dreams and reality, and how do they reconcile their daily life with their dream escapades?
A Dream within a Dream: Your protagonist has a recurring dream where they meet a stranger who offers them life-altering advice. Each time they follow the advice, their life improves significantly. However, the stranger warns that the last advice they give will be the most critical but also the most dangerous. Explore the dilemma your character faces when they receive this final piece of advice, and whether they choose to implement it.
The Dream Healer: Imagine a world where healing and therapy take place in dreams. Your main character is a renowned ‘Dream Healer’ who enters patients’ dreams to help them overcome trauma. However, they must face their most challenging case yet, a patient whose dreamworld is so nightmarish, it threatens the healer’s sanity. Explore how the healer navigates this perilous dreamscape and the impact it has on them personally and professionally.
Dreams of the Past : Your protagonist has a peculiar ability to see their ancestors’ lives in their dreams. They’ve been using this as a means to understand their family history and roots better. However, one night, they witness a dark secret from the past that could disrupt their family’s harmony. How do they grapple with this newfound knowledge, and what decisions do they make moving forward?
The Dream Shop: In this world, dreams can be bought and sold. Your protagonist is an owner of a shop that sells these dreams. But when a dangerous criminal buys a dream that could potentially cause harm, the protagonist is faced with a moral dilemma. How does your character handle this situation, and what are the ramifications of selling dreams?
Dream Weaver: Your main character is a ‘Dream Weaver’, an individual who can manipulate dreams to change a person’s perspective or thinking. However, they become conflicted when asked to change someone’s dream for reasons that conflict with their ethical beliefs. What is the internal struggle they face, and what decision do they make?
A Dreamer’s Gift: In your story, people have lost the ability to dream except for your protagonist. Their dreams are vivid and meaningful, inspiring them to create beautiful works of art . Explore the protagonist’s journey of sharing their dreams through their art and how the world reacts to these ‘forgotten visions.’
In the Dream Realm: Consider a world where a parallel universe exists within dreams, an exact replica of our world but with different rules. Your character accidentally discovers a way to bring objects from the dream realm into reality. What consequences does this discovery bring, and how does this ability change their life?
The Dreamless Child: In a world where every child is born with a unique dream symbolizing their destiny, your protagonist is the only child born without a dream. Explore the challenges they face being ‘dreamless’, and how they strive to create their own destiny despite the societal norms.
The Night Terror: Your main character starts experiencing a night terror that seems too real to be just a dream. As the line between their dreams and reality begins to blur, they are forced to question their sanity. How does the character deal with this psychological horror , and what is the real truth behind these night terrors?
Dream Time Capsule: Your protagonist has a unique ability – whatever they dream of, they can send it back in time to their younger self. But when they dream of an upcoming disaster, they have to deal with the complexities of time manipulation and the potential paradoxes. How does your character navigate through these complexities, and what impact does this have on their timeline?
The Dream Portal : Your protagonist has a unique gift: every dream they have serves as a portal to a different time or place. However, they find themselves trapped in a dangerous era in history after a particularly vivid dream. What measures do they take to navigate this time and find their way back to their own reality?
Dream Detective: In this narrative , dreams can serve as crucial evidence in criminal investigations. Your protagonist is a detective who specializes in interpreting these dreams to solve otherwise baffling cases. How does your protagonist navigate through the complexities of such dream evidence to uncover the truth behind a high-profile crime?
The Recurring Nightmare : Your main character is haunted by a recurring nightmare involving the loss of a loved one. This dream is causing significant distress and begins affecting their personal and professional life. How does your character attempt to understand and overcome this nightmare and its emotional consequences?
Dystopian Dreamers: In a dystopian society where dreams are controlled by the state, your protagonist has an illegal dream, a vision of a free world. How do they react to this forbidden dream, and how do they use this vision to spark a rebellion against the controlling regime?
The Dream Architect: In this world, there are professionals known as Dream Architects who can design and implant dreams in people’s minds. Your main character is one such architect. When they’re commissioned to create a harmful dream, they’re faced with an ethical dilemma. What decision do they make, and what are the consequences of their actions?
Dreams and Reality Swap: In a strange twist of events, your protagonist wakes up to find that their dreams and reality have swapped places. Their dream world, full of magical creatures and extraordinary adventures, has become their new reality, while their mundane life is now only experienced in dreams. How does your character adapt to this new reality, and what challenges do they face?
The Last Dream: Your character lives in a world where everyone knows the dream they have on their 18th birthday will be their last dream ever. These dreams often carry significant meaning. On the eve of their 18th birthday, your protagonist is nervous and excited. Describe their last dream and how it influences their life choices and direction.
The Infectious Dream: A dream virus is spreading across the world, causing everyone to have the same disturbing dream. Your protagonist, a renowned dream scientist , is tasked with finding the cause and the cure. How do they approach this unprecedented situation, and how does this shared dream experience change society?

Founder and Chief Content Curator @ Digital Phrases

I'm a writer, words are my superpower, and storytelling is my kryptonite.

Search for creative inspiration

19,890 quotes, descriptions and writing prompts, 4,964 themes

dream - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing

a perfect wish
a shared dream
dream horse
falling asleep
Fantasy Land
imagination
reality breaking
Your worst nightmare

In the twilight yawn of heaven's black rose two tall trees of sombre peeking green, their tops a round as if drawn in mathematical precision. And as I gazed at them for a blessed moment, the kind that could be any length at all in the twinkle of eternity, I saw the eyes of an owl, great and wise. Before I could breathe another, before my brain was capable of any other notion, I was behind those green owl eyes in the sky looking down upon the black-cradled ground. For these were the eyes that watched all the galaxies in the dominion of love, the ones that belong to our guardian, our God. And to them I was a speck, safe and happy, so at home there in the sky, there in a place that touches our reality and yet belongs to another.

From the beauty of the dreamscape, in the place between the thoughts and the movies of the nighttime, came striding an elephant with butterfly ears. Each ear was as a great wing in pinks and baby blue, shimmering, and moving in the way butterfly wings do. When the great elephant had passed, there came a snake into view whom morphed into an eel, then grew fins down the length of its body and soon became a fish. And so the dream spoke of victory, of beauty always remembered and how the selfish snake self became beautiful too.

In the dream I am standing in a puddle, I am normal. Yet my reflection in the puddle, in the world of the upside-down, is a zombie. It is as if all this while I have been trying to achieve this very thing, to separate the good parts of me from the rotten.

To dream so snug within a cottage-cocoon, to feel the sunlight that comes in welcome soon-ness to the budding day, births dreams of Iron Man made butterflies.

Every wise hero realises that dreams come with price tags that have nothing to do with money. If heroic dreams were easy, if capes were free, everyone would have one and this world would be better already.

There are dreams that feel as nightmares yet are the way to a heavenly victory, and it feels as if this lifetime could be one of those. For the dream of the warrior is to fight the good fight, to take on any necessary suffering so that others have a greater chance at good health and wellness.

If I die in battle yet the ones I love are safe, then it is a greater dream than ever-safe while others suffer.

In my dream we were soldiers, you and I. We were dressed as soldiers are, in combat camouflage, guns at the ready. It was nighttime and we stared up a mighty cliff face, yet as we tried to climb the bullets came from all around. Together we fought them, shot dead each one, then resumed our task of reaching the higher ground.

I dreamt of a coin, old and covered in dirt, the engravings worn and the head of the king so tarnished as to be stolen from view. I held it in my left hand, watching the mud dirty my skin. So close to my face the coin had the aroma of stale blood. I turned to my right hand and in the palm was a new spring leaf, crowned by a perfect sphere of dew, reflecting an image of my face, softened and relaxed. When I turned back to the coin, the image of the king had freed himself and journeyed over to the leaf, igniting the growth of strong roots and new foliage that reached for the sunlight, robust, virescent.

The stain had vanished like it was never there in the first place, like the whole thing had been a visual joke. Tyler ran his hands over the fabric before holding it up to the brilliant early morning sun. There was no trace of red, black or any other colour. It was as clean as the day it was created and just as supple, just as beautiful. What had been there yesterday was already fading from his memory, as if it wasn't just erased from the silk, but from history all together. It had been words he was sure, but now that they were gone he felt himself begin to relax. Casting his eyes around him at the trees, listening to the birds, he quite forgot the fabric for a moment. Then when recalled he was holding something he looked down to find only white petals, which he instinctively released into the breeze and watched them float away.

After so long in the maze Shelly was confused as to which path to take. She'd sat there all day, lost, figuring she'd never get out, when Jess just walked right through the walls. She sat and stared as he passed through the maize stems into the still sunlit path. He smiles and beaconed her to come. "Follow me," he said with one of his sheepish grins. Shelly wrapped her fingers into his loose cotton shirt, her heart flooded with relief. She could have walked through them herself she supposed, but it was wonderful to have a guide.

I had thought my jail cell as real for so long that I never even checked to see if the walls were solid. I heard screams from other cells and they paralyzed me from even pushing on the door. Then one spring day when the brilliant light of dawn shone in, I stood and put my hand on the bars. With a prayer I pushed with all my might and a after a brief flash of pain the prison cell itself was left behind me on a hill. From the outside it was tiny, pathetic. After so long crouched in the dark I stood up and let the light warm my skin, my black hair flowing in a heavenly wind. Upon the walls written in stone were the words "fear" and "guilt." I threw my head toward the sky with relief, all I had to do was conquer those bullies all along, conquer them and be free.

In the dream I am sitting in a field of green wheat, the stalks bend lazily in the wind and I marvel at the grains. Each one is distinct and though different from the others, still perfectly formed. I run my hand along the edge to feel the combination of rough and smooth and then hold my face upward to feel the warm light of the mid summer day. The air smells just right and the birds fly in an almost cloudless sky. I start walking, the filed goes on forever and after a while my feet become roots, digging into the soil. My hands become green, soon I am also wheat, and I wave happily in the wind.

In the dream the sky is blue, the birds sing and there is a bee on clover nearby. The streams run clear and there are fish in the river. Next to me is a small boy and he tells me how he sees the world. His answers to my questions are so precious. I ask him if we should care for the world. He says "Yes" like he's surprised I should even have to ask. I ask him if we should be nice to animals, his response is the same. I ask him if we should kill or harm animals and his eyes fill with tears. I ask him if humans should kill one another and he runs, runs like he just saw a monster. I call after him but he won't return. He's a child, and like all children he's still able to see through the light of the creator - he was never taught the answers, he feels them within.

Have you ever had a dream so real you were confused when you woke up? Once when I was a little girl I dreamt that the grass in our backyard was blue. The blue grass rose up into the sky leaving perfect green grass underneath and painted the sky the same perfect shade those soft blades had been. That morning I didn't wake up sleepily, but instead like a switch had been flicked. I ran from my bed to the back yard. And you know what? The grass was green and the sky was blue. I told everyone where the blue grass had gone, but since I was five there was no suggestion I was crazy, just knowing smiles and nods. No-one could tell me it wasn’t real, I’d “seen it” happen and outside was the proof. Seeing is believing right? I guess that’s why I’m so comfortable talking to you. I can see you here with me. You aren’t quite solid yet, I don’t think you can be for a while, don't ask me why yet because you won't like the answer.

Authored by daisy , here .

The dream comes often and only the ending changes. Sometimes I win and sometimes I loose. If I loose it's because I betrayed of love and trust of someone I love more than myself. So long as I do what I know is right, the dream turns out well. I have woken up from the dream many times feeling wretched for my mistakes, only for the blessed relief to come that I didn't really do those things, it was just a dream. Then though my heart feels wretched at least I can face the day. When the dream turns out well I'm never elated, just cosy, happy to stay at home and potter. I don't fear the dream, even when it's bad I welcome the message it brings. Stay true to the ones who love you and the ones you love back.

In my dream there are lights, too many to count, dancing on an ocean too vast to envisage. Each one is brilliant, each one unique. I want to look at each one for the marvel it is, for no matter how many there are no two colours are the same. The light that comes from within is more pure than gold, more light than air - each one a small piece of heaven. I try to reach out to them, who wouldn't want to touch something so pure. But the lights recoil in fright, they don't even know who they are. They chant that they feel ugly on the outside and worse on the inside. I can't understand until I take a look at the water, it looks fine but smells like something I wouldn't want to drink. But they're swimming in it, bobbing in it like it's a fine day at the beach. I want to tell them it's poison but they'll never listen. They laugh and carry on just as before, each one just as beautiful as the last but disconnected even from their inner light and beauty.

In my dream I saw a building grow into the sky, many strands of steel and glass like the stems of a wild plant, organic in shape, coming together and parting. It was a vertical city. Standing underneath and looking left and right, with only soil beneath my feet, it was at least three football stadiums wide and went up as far as the eye could see. All around was nature, just nature... and it was beautiful.

Sign in or sign up for Descriptionar i

Keep track of your favorite writers on Descriptionari

We won't spam your account. Set your permissions during sign up or at any time afterward.

The Writer’s Field Guide to the Craft of Fiction
How to Find a Premise for a Story
How to Develop a Premise into a Story
How to Describe Setting
How to Create and Develop Characters
How to Write a Scene
How to Structure a Story
How to Move Through Time and Space
How to Write (Or Write Around) Plot
How to Raise the Stakes
How to Build Suspense
How to Write Dialogue
How to Write with Style
Interviews with Writers

How to Write a Dream Sequence

Paul Yoon's novel, Snow Hunters, was published by Simon and Schuster. It follows the travels of Yohan, a Korean who leaves his country after the Korean War to start over in Brazil.

Paul Yoon’s novel, Snow Hunters , follows the travels of Yohan, a man who leaves his country after the Korean War to start over in Brazil. The novel prompted a New York Times reviewer to write, “One of the gratifications of literature is to know a character in a book more completely than we can know people in real life.”

Some writing teachers make a rule for stories submitted in workshop: No dreams. No dream sequences. They make this rule because badly written dreams are all the same. They “show” a character’s inner torments/thoughts rather than artfully imbedding them into the narrative. But if fiction is, in any way, supposed to imitate life, then dreams are fair game. The question is how to write them well.

Paul Yoon has written one of the best dream sequences I’ve ever read in his new novel Snow Hunters . You can read the first chapter here . The dream begins at the bottom of page 16.

How the Story Works

The passage begin with Yohan falling asleep and hearing sounds through the open window:

“the tapping of the rain and voices and a car and then a ship’s horn. A single chime of a church bell. a door opening. A song on the radio. The steady punches of a sewing machine. He heard aircraft and the dust spraying from trucks and the wind against the tents”

We get a short reflection on this noise from Yohan (“it was faint and calm and he did not mind”), and then the dream begins.

“He was riding a bicycle. He felt a hand on the small of his back. Someone familiar spoke to him and he said, —I can go a little longer, and he lifted a shovel and sank it into the earth. A group of children whistled and clapped. And then he was running his hands through a girl’s hair and she took his wrist and they moved through a corridor where rows of dresses hung from the ceiling. Those dresses turned into the sea.”

Then the dream ends. So why does this dream work? First, it has no clear message. It’s not telegraphing crucial information about Yohan’s interior life. At best, the message is mixed: the desire and need to push himself and the desire for friendship and love. The images are not accidental. They reflect encounters and experiences from waking life. Second, the dream does not predict the future. It doesn’t attempt to move the plot forward. Though dreams sometimes cause us to act (dreaming that someone has an accident and then, upon waking, contacting that person), we tend to be skeptical of someone who claims that valuable information was gained in a dream.

So why does the dream work? Here are four reasons (and lessons to keep in mind):

It’s so beautifully and simply written.
It glides from image to image, never dwelling too long in one place.
It’s short.
The images reflect things we’ve already seen in the novel. The dream feels to us, the readers, the same as it does to Yohan. In other words, the dream feels like a real dream. And that is rare in fiction.

The Writing Exercise

Let’s practice writing a dream sequence, using Paul Yoon’s Snow Hunters as a model:

Choose a character whom you’ve already created and written about.
Bring the character home, to bed, after a long day—not after a life-changing event but simply a day in which things seem to be on the cusp of happening.
When the characters’ eyes are closed, let the sounds of the world drift in. Be specific and precise. You’re describing that odd state in which the mind is both idle and resting and also alert and aware of its surroundings.
Ease into the dream. If you’ve ever heard the voice/sound from the waking world in your dream (a spouse or child talking to you, a professor speaking, the alarm clock), then you know how permeable dreams can be.
Make the dream a reflection of the images of the waking world. Treat the dream’s reflective power like that of an almost-still lake. Remember, the mind is not directing traffic any longer but instead letting images trickle through unfiltered. Move from image to image. End on one that best seems to fit the mood of the day.

Now you have a dream sequence. If it seems inconsequential, that’s good. Beware dreams of great import—unless you’re writing about the Virgin Mary. Let the dream become part of the character’s fabric and, thus, the fabric of the novel.

Good luck and have fun.

31 Responses to “How to Write a Dream Sequence”

Great advice! Dreams are such a tricky thing to write. I love the example you’ve put up. Thanks for this!

Thanks so much.

Reblogged this on Creative Writing School .

Aaaaaah how nice. I was just trying to write a dream sequence into my story (in Dutch, since I’m like yeah from Holland) and Google brought me here. Great website. I was so glad to find that my projected sequence has a lot of similarities to your excellent exemple. But i stil have one question though: if your entire story use active present tense, I what tense would the dream play out?

Good question, Ron. I’d guess that the dream would play out in present tense. In Snow Hunters, Paul Yoon writes both the novel as a whole and the dream sequence in past tense. But there is a marked transition into the dream state, and it comes through a series of images that exist outside of time and tense: “A single chime of a church bell. A door opening. A song on the radio. The steady punches of a sewing machine.” Perhaps something similar would work in your story. Good luck!

Wow Michael, thanks for your quick reply. A transition is a clever trick. 🙂 But what if your story starts with a dream? I just wrote it and used present tense. Felt a bit awkward at first, because I thought that no one could ever do a live coverage of a dream. Your to busy dreaming the dream. But then I realised, this is only the case when you’re writing in first person and I’m not. So I just traveled out my main character’s head and wrote about the dream he was/is having. Haha, I’m getting confused again.

I think it was probably a smart decision to travel out of your character’s head to describe the dream. As for the tense, there’s no penalty for trying out another tense and seeing which one works best. You might also try making the dream as short as possible. Usually–but not always–dreams are not as interesting as the reactions that characters have to them. So, if you have a dream that makes you leave your spouse and kids and join the crew of a whaling ship, then that was a pretty interesting dream.

Hi Michael, I am 15 years old (turning 16 in 4 months time). I am currently trying to write a book by having a past dream and going into the future by the character waking up from the “past dream nightmare” but I don’t know how to do the past dream in 1st person. My opening dream starts off in a fictional world and then an unknown force takes over the planet but my main character gets rescued by some people who look after her and from then on she wakes up in a space ship and describes her mission and what she has to do but yeah I was wandering how you can describe a dream in first person past tense sort of thing you know? and transitioning to the present. Please can you give me an example as well as that would really help. Im sorry if all this text is all over the place but I hope you can understand what im saying. Thank you for taking your time to read my comment.

Thanks for this! I’m attempting a dream sequence in Chapter 2 of my novel I’m writing on my blog, so check back tomorrow if you want to see the fruits of my labour. 🙂

Thanks, Peter. Hope it goes well!

Brilliant! I’m so glad I did a quick search on writing dream sequences to find this, it helps so much for what I’m trying to do!

If you have some dream and you want to write about that then don’t think so much just do it. Love your post very nice it was. http://www.imantra.org/terms.php

Reblogged this on The Creative Kitty .

So right now i have an assignment in science to write about the arctic tundra and i chose to write it in a journal form, the main character (Evalynne) has a nightmare and i cant figure out how to write it. I want it to have something to do with her 8 year old sister (Gwenie) and her 10 year old brother (Theren) plz reply asap and thx

“Evalynne” your sister called. “Evalynne!’ you heard again and again. “Yes Gwenie.” you replied. Your sister’s voice sounded as if it was right in front of you but all you saw was an old house.

thats what i have right now but i dont like that part of my story. if it would help i can also post the rest of the story for some context. 🙂

Hmm, Riley. Intriguing assignment. The post above includes an exercise for writing a dream sequence. Perhaps it will help.

What if the character is dead and she’s looking back on her life in a dream sort of way?

I know my comment seems kind of late. But, I am really thankful I managed to land in this blog. I am currently writing a story in Wattpad. Somehow, I’m stuck with a bad case of Writer’s Block. I am trying to write a dream scene of a man who lost his memory. I wanted him to dream about his past conversations with his girlfriend. I’m not sure if i have to write so vaguely like what a dream should really be. Or, maybe if i should write the whole conversation clearly like a real scene in a waking life.

I’m thinking…..if the character has lost their memory would it be more interesting to have bits and pieces of conversations zinging through his view of the dream? Bits of conversations with greater significance that can be redressed in more of his dreams until the bits and pieces converge to become mostly whole conversations that eventually surface during his times being awake. He might hear someone having a conversation and connects with something said that resembles the dream sequence bits and pieces jogging his memory of past realities. I’m Rosalie. I got excited and created a run-on conversation. I hope your story turns out great!

I love it so much

Thank you, well written. Your example from Paul Yoon’s Snow Hunters was clear, to the point, and beautiful like poetry. I understand now.

I am writing a short story for a college creative writing course. I want to start the story with a dream sequence. Any ideas about how to start???

The playful momentum makes this writing exercise seem to be one to be accomplished with ease….what fun it is going to be. Thank you very much….Rosalie

Hi Michael – How does a “vision” sequence differ from a dream sequence? My college-age protagonist begins having visions as if she’s seeing memories/experiences through someone else’s eyes. Someone very significant (but she doesn’t discover this until much later in the story). These episodes hit her unexpectedly and have a dream like quality but she’s wide awake going about her day. Her reaction is vital to the story plot as it propels her on a quest for information about her past. Is the approach to writing a vision similar to writing a dream? How do you think they differ?

Sounds like they’re a little different, Dana. When a dream ends and a character wakes up, it negates everything that we learned in the dream (unless the dream can predict the future). But if the vision is a sight of something that is real or that will be, then it carries story weight.

Thank you, Michael. The visions do carry story weight but the protagonist doesn’t initially understand what is happening or what the visions mean. I want the reader to experience them alongside the protagonist. I used a modified version of your exercise (my protagonist isn’t sleep walking through the university library) as a guide to write a first draft. The sights and sounds drift in as they would before a dream and then the vision happens. I kept writing short and simple but sensory-rich. Her reaction brings her back to the present moment. Thanks again.

Like 👍 Good😃

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

[…] Write a short and fresh dream sequence that shows us something. https://readtowritestories.com/2013/08/20/how-to-write-a-dream-sequence/ […]

[…] How to Write a Dream Sequence […]

Follow via Email

Enter your email address to follow Read to Write Stories and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address:

Read to Write Stories

Michael Noll’s collection BULLHEADS named a finalist for the 2018 Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction

Check out the official announcement here !

Read Michael's story "Foreign Exchange" in the latest issue of Crazyhorse.

Want to read Michael's fiction? Find it in The Best American Mystery Stories 2016.

Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Subscribe Subscribed
Copy shortlink
Report this content
View post in Reader
Manage subscriptions
Collapse this bar

Kindle Unlimited Free Books
Writing Piggy Monk Square
Piggy Monk Square – Book Reviews
Practical Creative Writing Exercises Book
Authors Notes – Writing Fiction Street
The Sunshine Girl
Kindle Unlimited eBooks for Children
Writing About Ballyyahoo
Free Stories For Kids
The Witch Of Ballyyahoo
A Story For Cats And About Cats.
Bonkers In Ballyyahoo
The Little Book Of Swinging On A Gate
Free as a Ladybird
The Tree Hugger
Football Mad – A Funny Children’s Story
Football Crazy
Creative Thinking
Creative Writing – Flow
Walking and Inspiration

Dream a Little Dream

How To Increase Your Creativity in Five Easy Steps
On Confessing To Depression
Giving up the Day Job to Write
Don’t tell me nobody wants to read my stories.
Political Satire – Funny or Not?
Talking To Strangers
Go Set A Watchman – Her Choice?
Writing For The Market
Why Women Writers Use Initials
Ten worst things about social networks.
How Not To Deal With Criticism
Transparency and The Irish Film Board
What Do I Know About Bullying?
Valentine’s Day And My Green Heart
Too Many Experts
Be True To Yourself
The Glass Castle – Jeanette Walls
Small Great Things – Jodi Picoult
Just Friends – Elizabeth Grey
The Woman Who Walked Into Doors – Roddy Doyle
Cookie Policy

Do you use your dreams as inspiration?

I don’t usually have inspiring dreams – at least nothing I could write about but a few days ago I woke up after a long event-filled dream.

I had gone to bed early as I was feeling under the weather.

Instead of the sleepless night, I feared I might have had, I actually slept for almost ten full hours.

This is not like me as I usually get about six – to seven hours and any occasional early night is usually spent wide awake reading, or listening to audio-books.

This night was different and I woke up with my earphones still in my ears and my kindle under the covers with me.

The book I had been listening to was a non-fiction book and not particularly exciting as it was something I was reading for educational purposes rather than entertainment.

The book had simply played on until the end.

FULL-LENGTH DREAMS

I frequently have quite long drawn out dreams, but the dream I remembered after this night was like a full-length movie.

What was a bit strange was that I personally was in the dream.

What was even stranger was that I was watching the dream at the same time.

But, what was really, really strange was that the ‘full-length movie’ I was watching in the dream was a dystopian one.

I DREAM OF DYSTOPIA

The people in my dream society were divided into two distinct types with a large majority of one very particular type of person (in appearance and personality) and a tiny minority of others.

I was part of the minority of people and was trying to get to a place that I personally have never visited in my life unless you count television and movies, in which case I have visited this particular location quite often.

The dream was a lot more detailed than I am describing here, but I won’t get into those details because since that dream I have been experiencing a very strong urge to write a book based on the dream.

PLAYING TO MY STRENGTHS

Except for a film treatment which never actually got made I have never before written in the dystopian genre, having decided long ago to play to my creative strengths.

I don’t feel as experienced, or confident in this genre as I do in others, despite the fact that it is one of my favourite genres – to read.

Yet my dystopian dream story is turning into one of those ideas that never quite goes away.

My thoughts keep turning to this dream, even during swimming, which is one of the activities I use to ’empty’ my mind and relax.

In fact, I am thinking that another few hundred lengths down the swimming pool just might finish this story…

So what should I do? Take a chance and write something completely different? or not?

While considering the idea I googled ‘ books based on dreams’ and found this site which lists Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight , Stephen King’s Misery, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein among other books which were inspired by their author’s dream.

These authors seem to have been very inspired and highly motivated by their dreams and I must say following their dreams has certainly paid off for them.

I am still not sure – my gut is telling me I should write it but my brain is telling me not to waste my time on a project I may not be able to finish. I usually go with my gut, but…

Given my current indecisiveness what I will probably do is write a short outline and see how far that gets me. In the meantime, I will dream on…

Best wishes

If your dreams don’t inspire you, click here for some other ways to be inspired.

For some quick and easy creative writing exercises to help you get new ideas click here.

If you are feeling a bit blocked click here to learn how to beat the block.

PRACTICAL CREATIVE WRITING EXERCISES

Suffering from writer’s block? Stuck for ideas?

You won’t be able to stop writing because these beautiful and inspiring exercises will banish your writing block right now.

Never Be Stuck Again!

Get eBook from Amazon.com

Get eBook from Amazon.co.uk

Get paperback from Amazon.com

Get paperback from Amazon.co.uk

Dreams come true: How to use dreaming as a writing tool

What, to the Writer, Are Dreams?

Lauren acampora on the mythic links between dream life and creativity.

“Dream is the personalized myth, myth the depersonalized dream.” –Joseph Campbell

One morning, when I was younger, I gave a detailed description of my previous night’s dream to my mother. When I finished, she said, “I’m going to tell you something. Don’t ever share your dreams with anyone except your spouse. It’s boring to listen to other people’s dreams.”

I was offended at first. How could anyone, not to mention my own mother, fail to find my dreams as fascinating as I did? But of course she was right; it’s almost always deadly to hear other people talk about their dreams. As a rule, dreams die in the glare of the waking world, their shimmering aura evaporating in the harsh air outside the psyche. And yet, paradoxically, it’s the emotional aura of dreams that makes them feel so urgently worth sharing in the first place.

Needless to say, I didn’t listen to my mother. That is, I still share my dreams promiscuously—just not verbally.

Like so many other writers and artists, I employ dreams in my creative work. They’re an engine, a lending library. It’s a thrill to awake with a strange, arresting image in mind, or still grasping the thread of an allegorical dream story. Sometimes, a vision or scenario arrives as a package deal: the story is encased within the vision, packed up tight with a certain mood. For me, entire short stories have sprung from such vision: a woman alone in a pool, a finger touching a brain, a blindfolded child. A haunting dream of orange curtains in a hotel room has rolled into an entire novel (in which orange hotel curtains do not ever appear). And the power and mystery of dreams themselves inspired my novel The Paper Wasp , in which the narrator illustrates—and ultimately enters—her vivid, seemingly premonitory dreams.

There’s no shortage of literature and art that we know to have sprung from dreams. As legend has it, the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge transcribed the first lines of “Kubla Khan” from a dream; the idea for Frankenstein came to Mary Shelley in her sleep; Robert Louis Stevenson conceived of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in a consumptive fever dream; Stephen King came up with the idea for Misery while napping on a plane ; William Styron had a dream that inspired Sophie’s Choice . One of the most prolific dream miners of all was Edgar Allen Poe, who used his frequent nightmares in much of his work. And famously, Paul McCartney dreamed the tune for the song “Yesterday.” Upon waking, he asked his friends if they knew it. “It’s a good little tune,” he said, “but I couldn’t have written it because I dreamt it.”

Dreams can feel like messages from another place, so it’s no surprise that many ancient cultures believed dreams to be transmissions of divine knowledge. The Ancient Egyptians considered dreams to be oracular and held vivid dreamers in high regard. They practiced dream incubation and lucid dreaming, and employed dream guides called the “Masters of Secret Things” who lived in dream temples. The Greeks, too, incubated dreams, and thought that gods came to dreamers through a keyhole to deliver messages. The Aboriginal Australians and the Iroquois started their day by sharing dreams, which were considered a source of guidance for both the individual and the community. The Hindu religion, too, believes that in dreams one is given a glimpse of Vishnu, whose own dreaming mind creates our reality. It isn’t difficult to understand where such beliefs come from if you’ve ever dreamed of reading a book, sentence after lucid, elaborate sentence. “I couldn’t have written it,” you might think, “because I dreamt it.”

Brain science validates this phenomenon. Dreaming occurs during REM sleep, when the frontal lobe, the executive area of the brain, is shut down. Dreams are the mysterious activity of another part of the brain, beneath the scrutiny of the frontal lobe. Neurologically speaking, we really are receiving transmissions from a foreign entity; the unconscious, unobserved self slips through the keyhole when the guard is off duty.

Even during waking hours, the human brain is divided: the executive-desk frontal lobe and the inscrutable, intuitive limbic system are strangers to each other. In sleep, they are incommunicado. Because of this deep rift, the great majority of our dreams go unremembered, except on a buried emotional level. It’s difficult, even paradoxical, to try to bear total witness to them, akin to pinning down the present moment, halting the slippage of time. Just as the present can only be considered in retrospect, the unconscious mind can only be discerned via the remembered scraps of dreams. Any glimmers of awareness that may come during sleep, when a dream is fleetingly apprehended, are instances of the conscious half of the brain briefly observing and translating the activity of the submerged half: interpreting the enigmatic message of a stranger. These glimmers are rare and fleeting, occurring only during the hypnogogic and hypnopompic states, the liminal states between wakefulness and sleep.

In siphoning dreams for their work, writers and artists are tapping a valuable well. Dream logic and imagery carries an uncanny, allegorical quality that resonates deeply with readers and audiences. And it’s possible that dream recall actually enhances artistic output during waking hours. Scientific studies have confirmed a correlation between dream recall and creativity; those who recall dreams actually perform better on creativity evaluations. This may be because creative people are naturally better at recalling their dreams. It’s a chicken or egg situation: do creative people have more vivid and memorable dreams because they are innately creative, or can a brain become more creative through strengthening dream recall? Whatever the case, making use of dreams in art is a powerful way to reflect our foreign selves back to ourselves, while projecting that mystery self out to the world as archetypal image and story—dream as personalized myth, myth as depersonalized dream.

For writers, plugging into the unconscious provides a direct line to the human imagination in all its splendor and darkness. Indeed, in the midst of composing, it’s often unclear where the words are coming from. Sentences and imagery sometimes bubble up from a hidden well that surprises the conscious, transcribing mind. Some writers will tell you that they write in order to exorcise their demons, cleanse their psyches, to bring their fears and darkness into the light. Some will tell you that it’s better than therapy.

Writing at full tilt can be a euphoric state, tantamount to lucid dreaming. It’s half-awareness—one foot in, one foot out—a balance on the brink of consciousness. It’s not just in dreams that we can experience the ecstasy of flight and the exhilaration of omnipotence, but also when writing, when the words are flowing, the images appearing. Just as in a lucid dream, this exhilaration is paired with the knowledge that it can’t last, that it’s a temporary spell. Soon, we’ll become too aware of flying, and the spell will break and drop us to the ground. Still, we endeavor to capture and recapture this ecstasy of creative freedom, the ability to travel lightly anywhere at will, the bliss of floating to the treetops.

If writing fiction is analogous to dreaming, the experience of reading fiction can be, too. When we’re reading, another person is able to intrude into our psyches through the use of words alone, remotely projecting imagery onto the screens of our minds, suffusing them with atmosphere and mood. We are, in a way, sharing a dream with a stranger. And fiction, at its best, places a mirror before us, evoking terror and wonder. It affects us on an emotional level beyond language, and brings a frisson of recognition. There’s a momentary astonishment to encounter the familiar within the strange, something of our own inner lives on the page. There’s the eerie sense that the author has somehow entered and seen into us. The best art carries this sense of inevitability, of allegory, myth, dream—a truth that has always been there, that we already know in some deep part of ourselves.

This flare of astonishment is arguably the purpose of art. It’s the sudden thinning of the distance between us, the erosion of barriers that have been built and propped up by our conscious, waking lives. Like a flash of lightning, great art illuminates the human landscape in its breathtaking entirety and shows that the barriers are flimsy, false, only temporarily there. All at once, we are taken outside ourselves and given a glimpse of the Jungian collective unconscious, the subliminal wholeness of life, the enveloping dream of Vishnu. What is the purpose of all art, if not to puncture the illusion of fragmentation, to reveal the commonality of human experience, to return us—if briefly—to those collective waters?

__________________________________

The Paper Wasp by Lauren Acampora is out now via Grove Atlantic.

Share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Reddit (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)

Lauren Acampora

Previous article, next article, support lit hub..

Join our community of readers.

to the Lithub Daily

Follow us on Twitter

What David Bowie Borrowed From William Burroughs

RSS - Posts

Literary Hub

Created by Grove Atlantic and Electric Literature

How to Pitch Lit Hub

Advertisers: Contact Us

Support Lit Hub - Become A Member

Become a Lit Hub Supporting Member : Because Books Matter

For the past decade, Literary Hub has brought you the best of the book world for free—no paywall. But our future relies on you. In return for a donation, you’ll get an ad-free reading experience , exclusive editors’ picks, book giveaways, and our coveted Joan Didion Lit Hub tote bag . Most importantly, you’ll keep independent book coverage alive and thriving on the internet.

Become a member for as low as $5/month

🎉 Our next novel writing master class starts in – ! Claim your spot →

WEEKLY WRITING PROMPTS

Join (probably?) the world's largest writing contest. Flex those creative muscles with weekly writing prompts.

Showing 2144 prompts

Lost and found books with booktrib, your protagonist is a voracious reader. lately, they’ve been noticing odd synchronicities in the books he or she is reading. what does the protagonist discover is happening.

LIVE – Fantasy

Dream up a secret library. Write a story about an adventurer who discovers it. What’s in the library? Why was it kept secret?

LIVE – Adventure

Write a story about a future academic (or another influential person) “rediscovering” a book that, in its time, was dismissed. The book can be fictitious or real.

LIVE – Short Story

Your protagonist is a writer who discovers a new favorite author. How does their writing, or even their own personality, change as the protagonist falls under the writer’s influence?

LIVE – Narrative

Write a story about discovering a lost manuscript. It can be from a famous (or infamous) author, or an unknown one.

LIVE – Mystery

Introducing Prompted , a new magazine written by you!

🏆 Featuring 12 prize-winning stories from our community. Download it now for FREE .

Your teacher tasks you with writing a story based on an eavesdropped conversation. When the story is published, your subject isn’t happy.

A character overhears something at a black-tie event that puts the night in jeopardy., write a story in which someone can only hear one side of a conversation and must piece together the meaning of what they’ve heard., write a story about a child overhearing something they don’t understand., write a story in which someone is afraid of being overheard., subscribe to our prompts newsletter.

Never miss a prompt! Get curated writing inspiration delivered to your inbox each week.

Write a story about a character driving and getting lost.

Write a story about a tennis match between two rivals., write a story that begins with someone dancing in a bar., write a story around someone (literally) bumping into someone else., write a story about a character running late for a job interview., write a story titled 'persuasion'., write a story titled 'the wind in the willows'., write a story titled 'desperate remedies'., write a story titled 'paradise lost'., write a story titled 'a tale of two cities'., win $250 in our short story competition 🏆.

We'll send you 5 prompts each week. Respond with your short story and you could win $250!

Contest #251 LIVE

Enter our weekly contest.

This week's theme: Lost and Found Books with BookTrib

Prize money

Contest entries, closes at 23:59 - may 24, 2024 est, recent contests ✍️.

#250 – All Ears

#249 – Action Stations with Tom Bromley

#248 – From the Top

#247 – The Great Unknown

Recent winners 🏆

Dena Linn – read

Honey Homecroft – read

Madeline McCourt – read

Sarah Coury – read

Leaderboard 🥇

#1 Zilla Babbitt

32373 points

#2 Deidra Whitt Lovegren

28730 points

#3 Abigail Airuedomwinya

22421 points

#4 Graham Kinross

14534 points

#5 Scout Tahoe

13198 points

#6 Chris Campbell

11323 points

#7 Thom With An H

10620 points

#8 Rayhan Hidayat

10213 points

#9 Michał Przywara

9939 points

#10 Deborah Mercer

9610 points

Bring your short stories to life

Fuse character, story, and conflict with tools in the Reedsy Book Editor. 100% free.

Creative Writing Prompts

When the idea to start a weekly newsletter with writing inspiration first came to us, we decided that we wanted to do more than provide people with topics to write about. We wanted to try and help authors form a regular writing habit and also give them a place to proudly display their work. So we started the weekly Creative Writing Prompts newsletter. Since then, Prompts has grown to a community of more than 450,000 authors, complete with its own literary magazine, Prompted .

Here's how our contest works: every Friday, we send out a newsletter containing five creative writing prompts. Each week, the story ideas center around a different theme. Authors then have one week — until the following Friday — to submit a short story based on one of our prompts. A winner is picked each week to win $250 and is highlighted on our Reedsy Prompts page.

Interested in participating in our short story contest? Sign up here for more information! Or you can check out our full Terms of Use and our FAQ page .

Why we love creative writing prompts

If you've ever sat in front of a computer or notebook and felt the urge to start creating worlds, characters, and storylines — all the while finding yourself unable to do so — then you've met the author's age-old foe: writer's block. There's nothing more frustrating than finding the time but not the words to be creative. Enter our directory! If you're ready to kick writer's block to the curb and finally get started on your short story or novel, these unique story ideas might just be your ticket.

This list of 1800+ creative writing prompts has been created by the Reedsy team to help you develop a rock-solid writing routine. As all aspiring authors know, this is the #1 challenge — and solution! — for reaching your literary goals. Feel free to filter through different genres, which include...

Dramatic — If you want to make people laugh and cry within the same story, this might be your genre.

Funny — Whether satire or slapstick, this is an opportunity to write with your funny bone.

Romance — One of the most popular commercial genres out there. Check out these story ideas out if you love writing about love.

Fantasy — The beauty of this genre is that the possibilities are as endless as your imagination.

Dystopian – Explore the shadowy side of human nature and contemporary technology in dark speculative fiction.

Mystery — From whodunnits to cozy mysteries, it's time to bring out your inner detective.

Thriller and Suspense — There's nothing like a page-turner that elicits a gasp of surprise at the end.

High School — Encourage teens to let their imaginations run free.

Want to submit your own story ideas to help inspire fellow writers? Send them to us here.

After you find the perfect story idea

Finding inspiration is just one piece of the puzzle. Next, you need to refine your craft skills — and then display them to the world. We've worked hard to create resources that help you do just that! Check them out:

How to Write a Short Story That Gets Published — a free, ten-day course by Laura Mae Isaacman, a full-time editor who runs a book editing company in Brooklyn.
Best Literary Magazines of 2023 — a directory of 100+ reputable magazines that accept unsolicited submissions.
Writing Contests in 2023 — the finest contests of 2021 for fiction and non-fiction authors of short stories, poetry, essays, and more.

Beyond creative writing prompts: how to build a writing routine

While writing prompts are a great tactic to spark your creative sessions, a writer generally needs a couple more tools in their toolbelt when it comes to developing a rock-solid writing routine . To that end, here are a few more additional tips for incorporating your craft into your everyday life.

NNWT. Or, as book coach Kevin Johns calls it , “Non-Negotiable Writing Time.” This time should be scheduled into your routine, whether that’s once a day or once a week. Treat it as a serious commitment, and don’t schedule anything else during your NNWT unless it’s absolutely necessary.
Set word count goals. And make them realistic! Don’t start out with lofty goals you’re unlikely to achieve. Give some thought to how many words you think you can write a week, and start there. If you find you’re hitting your weekly or daily goals easily, keep upping the stakes as your craft time becomes more ingrained in your routine.
Talk to friends and family about the project you’re working on. Doing so means that those close to you are likely to check in about the status of your piece — which in turn keeps you more accountable.

Arm yourself against writer’s block. Writer’s block will inevitably come, no matter how much story ideas initially inspire you. So it’s best to be prepared with tips and tricks you can use to keep yourself on track before the block hits. You can find 20 solid tips here — including how to establish a relationship with your inner critic and apps that can help you defeat procrastination or lack of motivation.

NEW VIDEO COURSE 🎉

How to Write a Novel

Join Tom Bromley for a writing master class and finish your first draft in 3 months . Learn more →

Explore more writing prompt ideas:

Adults Writing Prompts ⭢

Adventure Writing Prompts ⭢

Angst Writing Prompts ⭢

Character Writing Prompts ⭢

Christmas Writing Prompts ⭢

Dark Writing Prompts ⭢

Dialogue Writing Prompts ⭢

Dramatic Writing Prompts ⭢

Dystopian Writing Prompts ⭢

Fall Writing Prompts ⭢

Fantasy Writing Prompts ⭢

Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Fluff Writing Prompts ⭢

Funny Writing Prompts ⭢

Halloween Writing Prompts ⭢

High School Writing Prompts ⭢

Historical Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Holiday Writing Prompts ⭢

Horror Writing Prompts ⭢

Kids Writing Prompts ⭢

Middle School Writing Prompts ⭢

Mystery Writing Prompts ⭢

Narrative Writing Prompts ⭢

Nonfiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Novel Writing Prompts ⭢

Poetry Writing Prompts ⭢

Romance Writing Prompts ⭢

Sad Writing Prompts ⭢

Science Fiction Writing Prompts ⭢

Short Story Writing Prompts ⭢

Spring Writing Prompts ⭢

Summer Writing Prompts ⭢

Teens Writing Prompts ⭢

Thanksgiving Writing Prompts ⭢

Thriller and Suspense Writing Prompts ⭢

Valentine's Day Writing Prompts ⭢

Vampire Writing Prompts ⭢

Winter Writing Prompts ⭢

Oops, you need an account for that!

Or enter your email:

Privacy Policy
Create a Website
$1,000 Blog Tour
Happiness Tour
5/11 Blog Tour
Guest Posts
Writing Prompts
Writing Exercises
Writing Tips
Holiday Writing
Writing Contest
Comedy Channel
Prompts eBook
Kids Writing Book
9 to 5 Writer Book
Writing Tips eBook
Happiness Book
TpT Reviews
Read These Books
Motivation Help
Time Management
Healthy Living
Grades 9-10
Grades 11-12
First Grade
Second Grade
Third Grade
Fourth Grade
Fifth Grade
1,000 Character Writing Prompts
1,000 Creative Holiday Prompts

Free Creative Writing Prompts #74: Dreams

Here are 10 free creative writing prompts about your awesome and scary slumbering dreams. When most people have a dream of interest, they do their best to try to figure out what it might mean. Why was I with this person from my past in such a random location? Why was I upset to be doing this activity when I usually love doing it? There are dream interpretation guides, dream classes and there even those who teach lucid dreaming so that you can craft your dreams at will. This much about dreams is true, when you have an extremely wacked out or seemingly prescient dream, it can stick with you for a lifetime. Free Creative Writing Prompts: Dreams

1. You've just witnessed it. The end of the world. These kind of dreams are the ones you like to push out of your mind, but there's only one problem. Everything that happened in the beginning of your dream, from your trip to work to your conversations with co-workers, are word for word in line with the apocalyptic dream you just had. What happens next and what do you do about it?

2. Imagine that you had the chance to get your "dream" everything. Your dream job. Your dream partner. Your dream house. What would it be like if everything and person in your life was dreamily ideal? How would your typical day change?

3. Think back to all of your most memorable dreams and single out the scariest recurring dream you ever had. What do you think it symbolized? If you had complete control over the dream, how do you think you would have conquered such a fearful night of slumber?

4. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream that all people, regardless of race and creed, could come together as one. If you were placed behind a podium in front of thousands of people with the entire world watching, what do you think your dream would be for a better tomorrow and why?

5. Upon working for a mad scientist, you realize that you've been helping him to create a device that lets you go into other people's dreams! You take the technology out for a test drive one night. Whose dreams do you go into and what do you do while you're in there?

6. We've all had them and whether or not we talk about them, we probably enjoy our naughty dreams thoroughly. Describe your first risqué dream, why you think you had it and what your reaction was afterward. Did it cause you to feel happy, ashamed or a completely different emotion?

7. The world has been plunged into one large collective dream, with every person having the ability to control everything that affects his own skills, appearance and persona, but with no control over other people. How would this new order of things change your life in particular?

8. Have you ever had a dream that felt so completely real, you even convinced yourself that it was reality? What felt so genuine about the dream and what do you remember the most about it? What would it take for such an event to happen in real life?

9. Joseph, famous for his Technicolor dream coat, was also a killer dream interpreter. List five of your most confusing dreams and do your best to write an explanation of what they might mean. Which of these dream interpretations is the most important to your life and why?

10. Imagine that in your dream you could have a one-on-one meeting with the true inner-you: your subconscious. You can ask this inner-you any questions you want to find out about your identity, your desires and your destiny. What questions do you ask and how does your subconscious respond? Done with Free Creative Writing Prompts about Dreams? Go back to Creative Writing Prompts.

Related Articles to Free Creative Writing Prompts

Expository Writing Prompts
Essay Writing Prompts
Fiction Writing Prompt
Short Story Topics
Narrative Writing Prompts

Related Products to Free Creative Writing Prompts

First and Second Grade Writing Practice
Third and Fourth Grade Writing Practice
Fifth and Sixth Grade Writing Practice
1,000 Creative Writing Prompts

Would you prefer to share this page with others by linking to it?

Click on the HTML link code below.
Copy and paste it, adding a note of your own, into your blog, a Web page, forums, a blog comment, your Facebook account, or anywhere that someone would find this page valuable.
Latest Posts

Write a Story Based on These Prompts or This Article!

Use the above prompts or article as inspiration to write a story or other short piece.

Enter Your Title

Add a Picture/Graphic Caption (optional)

Click here to upload more images (optional)

Author Information (optional)

To receive credit as the author, enter your information below.

Submit Your Contribution

Check box to agree to these submission guidelines .
I am at least 16 years of age.
I understand and accept the privacy policy .
I understand that you will display my submission on your website.

(You can preview and edit on the next page)

What's New?

Additional Info

10 of the Best Poems about Dreams and Dreaming

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

What are the best poems about dreams? The word ‘dreams’, of course, is ambiguous: it can refer to both the imaginative stories and visions our unconscious creates for us while we sleep, but it can also refer to our ambitions and aspirations. Here, we’ve taken ‘dreams’ to mean both these things when compiling this list of ten of the greatest poems about dreams.

We’ve tried to limit ourselves to relatively short poems – the kind that can be read in a five-minute break – and so there’s no ‘ The Dream of the Rood ’ here, one of the earliest poems in English. But we hope you enjoy the poems we have included here.

1. John Donne, ‘ The Dream ’.

Dear love, for nothing less than thee Would I have broke this happy dream; It was a theme For reason, much too strong for fantasy, Therefore thou wak’d’st me wisely; yet My dream thou brok’st not, but continued’st it …

So begins this poem from the first great metaphysical poet. What if you were dreaming about someone, only to be woken up by the very person you had been dreaming about?

This scenario is the focus of this lesser-known John Donne poem, which – as in a number of other John Donne poems – sees the poet trying to seduce the woman to coming to bed with him (well, they’re already in bed – but you know what we mean).

2. William Blake, ‘ A Dream ’.

Once a dream did weave a shade O’er my angel-guarded bed, That an emmet lost its way Where on grass methought I lay.

Troubled, wildered, and forlorn, Dark, benighted, travel-worn, Over many a tangle spray, All heart-broke, I heard her say:

‘Oh my children! do they cry, Do they hear their father sigh? Now they look abroad to see, Now return and weep for me.’

So begins this poem published in Blake’s 1789 book Songs of Innocence , ‘A Dream’ is about Blake’s vision of three insects: an ant (‘emmet’), a beetle, and a glow-worm, which is in fact a kind of beetle. Not only that, but these are talking insects: the emmet confides that she has lost her children, and the bright glow-worm offers to light the way for her through the night, so she can recover them.

3. Edgar Allan Poe, ‘ A Dream within a Dream ’.

How can we separate reality from illusion? What if, to quote from Poe’s poem, ‘All that we see or seem / Is but a dream within a dream’?

One of Poe’s more famous poems, ‘A Dream within a Dream’ muses on the fragility and fleetingness of everything, and asks whether anything we do has any lasting or real effect. As Poe concludes:

O God! Can I not grasp Them with a tighter clasp? O God! can I not save One from the pitiless wave? Is all that we see or seem But a dream within a dream?

4. Walt Whitman, ‘ I Dreamed in a Dream ’.

I dream’d in a dream, I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth; I dream’d that was the new City of Friends; Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love—it led the rest …

As the repetition of ‘dream’ in Whitman’s title suggests, this poem combines the two principal meanings of ‘dream’ which we mentioned at the beginning of this post. Whitman dreamt of a utopian city where ‘robust love’ triumphed and flourished, above all else. A wonderful short poem about the perfect society – if only, if only…

5. Christina Rossetti, ‘ I dream of you, to wake ’.

I dream of you, to wake: would that I might Dream of you and not wake but slumber on; Nor find with dreams the dear companion gone, As, Summer ended, Summer birds take flight. In happy dreams I hold you full in night. I blush again who waking look so wan; Brighter than sunniest day that ever shone, In happy dreams your smile makes day of night …

So begins this sonnet is addressed to the speaker’s lover, and contrasts the wonderful, perfect dream world that sleep brings with the less perfect reality that we wake to. If only she could dream all the time, then things would be all right!

One of the finest Victorian love sonnets, and, for our money, one of the best poems about dreams and dreaming. Not one of Rossetti’s most famous poems , but a marvellous poem nevertheless.

6. Emily Dickinson, ‘ We dream – it is good we are dreaming ’.

We dream—it is good we are dreaming— It would hurt us—were we awake— But since it is playing—kill us, And we are playing—shriek …

So begins this lesser-known Emily Dickinson poem, which also favours the world of dreams over the more painful reality of the waking world. Like many of Emily Dickinson’s greatest poems, the American Civil War may have fed into this vision of a life lived best in the protective arms of dreams, rather than the bloody horrors of reality.

7. W. B. Yeats, ‘ He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven ’.

But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams …

The gist of this poem, one of Yeats’s most popular poems, is straightforward: if I were a rich man, I’d give you the world and all its treasures. If I were a god, I could take the heavenly sky and make a blanket out of it for you. But I’m only a poor man, and obviously the idea of making the sky into a blanket is silly and out of the question, so all I have of any worth are my dreams.

And dreams are delicate and vulnerable – hence ‘Tread softly’.

8. Lola Ridge, ‘ The Dream ’.

I have a dream to fill the golden sheath of a remembered day…. (Air heavy and massed and blue as the vapor of opium… domes fired in sulphurous mist …

Lola Ridge (1873-1941) was born in Ireland but lived much of her adult life in the United States. She’s not read much now, but she was a pioneer of what some call ‘Anarchist poetry’, though her style might be co-opted more broadly under the banner of modernism. This short poem by Ridge shows why she’s worth reading.

9. Langston Hughes, ‘ Dreams ’.

This short, simple lyric by one of the major figures in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s entreats us to hold fast to our dreams, for a life without dreams is barren and cold, like a bird with broken wings that cannot fly.

Dreams, Hughes’ poem suggests, give us freedom and comfort – whether we mean ‘dreams’ in the sense of ‘aspirations’ or ambitions, or those dreams which provide a refuge from waking reality.

10. Pablo Neruda, ‘ Cat’s Dream ’.

As well as being one of the best dream poems, ‘Cat’s Dream’ is also a fine poetic depiction of a cat, describing the animal’s physical appearance but then imagining what a cat’s dreams must be like.

Neruda’s arresting description of the night flowing through the cat’s dreaming mind ‘like dark water’ makes it worth reading on its own – but there are many other things to admire here.

Discover more from Interesting Literature

Subscribe to get the latest posts to your email.

Type your email…

7 thoughts on “10 of the Best Poems about Dreams and Dreaming”

<3<3<3<3

I love Lola Ridge’s ‘The Dream’ – there’s something striking and profound in the way that she writes.

Wonderful poem, isn’t it? She deserves to be rescued from the literary oblivion into which she’s sunk – as you say, striking and profound. The Internet Archive has some free scans of volumes of her early work :)

Oh wow, I will definitely check these out! Thank you for bringing her to some light :)

Sonnet 43 is mostly read as if it were addressed to the fair youth, however there is no evidence for this in the sonnet. Another possibility is that it is addressed to a deceased infant child, with the reunion in line 13 referring to a reunion in heaven. Two main elements suggest this reading: the naive quality of the language – as if from a father to an infant; the imagery of death in “dead night” (line 11), and the many references to shadow and shade, both of which carried strong connotations of ghosts. The effect of this poem is quite different when read as intended for a lost child.

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see, For all the day they view things unrespected; But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee, And darkly bright, are bright in dark directed. (4) Then thou, whose shadow shadows doth make bright, How would thy shadow’s form form happy show To the clear day with thy much clearer light, When to unseeing eyes thy shade shines so! (8) How would, I say, mine eyes be blessed made By looking on thee in the living day, When in dead night thy fair imperfect shade Through heavy sleep on sightless eyes doth stay. (12) All days are nights to see till I see thee, And nights bright days when dreams do show thee me.

Pingback: Sunday Post – 26th February 2017 | Brainfluff
Pingback: How to Harness Your Dreams to Create Poetry - Read Poetry

Comments are closed.

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Skip to main content
Skip to primary sidebar

Writing Tips Oasis - A website dedicated to helping writers to write and publish books.

How to Describe a Dream in a Story

By Isobel Coughlan

The topic of this article is how to describe a dream in a story. Read on to learn about 10 adjectives you can use to illustrate a dream a character in your novel is having.

Something that makes people anxious or worried because they don’t know what’s coming next.

“The dream was tense . Every time she woke up, her heartbeat was raised, and her thoughts were jumbled.”

“The tense dream left him wondering about the future. It didn’t seem so bright anymore.”

How it Adds Description

If you want to show worry or anxiety in connection to a dream, “tense” is a helpful adjective to use. This word explains your character’s mindset and hints that the events of the dream were unpleasant. A “tense” dream can also foreshadow negative future events, especially if these events are featured in the dream.

Something that lacks details or confuses people.

“He expected another hazy dream, the kind that lacks any focus or sense.”

“She was tired of meaningless and hazy dreams. She wanted to visit new lands while asleep.”

Not all dreams are clear and detailed. If you want to showcase how mundane or unclear your characters’ dreams are, “hazy” can help. This adjective shows the characters forget aspects of the dream when they wake up, and it also shows the dreams don’t involve any excitement.

3. Exhilarating

Something that makes characters feel extremely excited or happy.

“She rushed to bed in the hopes of another exhilarating dream.”

“It was an exhilarating dream. As soon as he shut his eyes, he could fly, speak to animals, and was rich beyond belief!”

“Exhilarating” gives a clear image of an exciting dream, and these positive connotations can imply that the character wishes they could experience it again. A character with “exhilarating” dreams might be more likely to try to escape reality in favor of their wonderful dreamland.

Something that is mysterious, wondrous , or produces magic-like effects.

“He laid in bed and wished for a magical dream to take him far away from the real world.”

“In her magical dreams, she was a fairy princess with control over a whole kingdom. But in real life, she was a shy student with only one friend.”

Dreams are often described with mysterious or fantastical qualities, and the word “magical” emphasizes these characteristics. If a character has “magical” dreams, they may even have special insights or other magical abilities, which can help to build the wonder of your fictional world.

Something that makes people smile or laugh .

“In his amusing dreams, all colors were inverted, and you could taste sounds.”

“She awoke from another amusing dream, and she couldn’t stop giggling as she ate breakfast.”

Some dreams are light-hearted or funny, and you can show this to your reader via the adjective “amusing.” This word shows the dream was funny or entertaining, and it could put your character in a good mood. “Amusing” also has connotations or humor, and you use these dreams to show your character’s positive attitude.

Something that’s strange or odd.

“Ok — that dream was bizarre . Why was everything orange and fluffy?”

“His bizarre dreams weren’t funny anymore. Their odd plots were starting to creep him out.”

“Bizarre” describes dreams that are strange and different from normal. If a character experiences “bizarre” dreams, it might imply that they’re going through some personal conflict or have doubts about the future. “Bizarre” dreams may also scare your character or leave them feeling unsettled when they wake up.

7. Soothing

Something that has a relieving or calming effect.

“She slipped into a soothing dream about tiny animals and love. It was exactly what she needed after a long day of work.”

“I drink lavender tea every night for soothing dreams. It does wonders, I promise!”

Sleep should be restful, and “soothing” dreams can help your characters rest and repower after a stressful day. “Soothing” also has connotations of pleasant subjects, hinting that your character doesn’t suffer from nightmares. A “soothing” dream can also show your character is an overall calm person.

8. Passionate

Something that involves strong feelings or beliefs about a particular subject.

“He had passionate dreams for the future, and it was his life’s goal to make a change in the world.”

“Her secret, passionate dream was to be a world-renowned artist. But she had no clue how to get there.”

If your character’s dreams are meaningful, the word “passionate” can show their desire to make the dreams a reality. A character with “passionate” dreams might be strong-willed and determined, which can make other characters look to them for strength and inspiration. This shows your reader they have great leadership skills and a will to make things happen.

9. Chilling

Something very frightening .

“She didn’t dare to go to sleep. Her chilling dreams were painful experiences that left her feeling glum all day.”

“He feared another chilling dream. He cursed his mind for torturing him with such horrible thoughts.”

If you want to portray a nightmare or scary dream, “chilling” can showcase the negative nature of the dreams to your reader. “Chilling” also emphasizes how unpleasant the dreams are for your character, and this can evoke pity or sympathy from other characters in your story.

10. Prophetic

Something that describes events that happen later in time.

“She was sick of prophetic dreams. Why did she have to be the chosen one?”

“As he grew older, his prophetic dreams became more accurate. He dreaded sleeping every night in case he saw a loved one in peril.”

If your character’s dreams are predicting the future, “prophetic” is a great adjective to use. This signals that your character might have special abilities, and it draws attention to the contents of their dreams. In addition, “prophetic” dreams might cause other characters to seek them out for advice.

Writing About Dreams and Nightmares

Dreams and nightmares can play a large part in people’s lives, but because of their unstructured and confusing nature, it can be difficult to include them in a story. To make it even more difficult, the majority of a dream is forgotten within the first few minutes after waking up! How are you supposed to write about something when your own experience with it is only ever a fleeting memory?

There are many ways to write about dreams in fiction, but they generally must serve a different purpose than dreams in real life. Some people could argue that real dreams have deeper meanings, but in a story, they really have to have a clear purpose. You shouldn’t just use a dream to break up a story or create comic relief. Keep that in mind before you decide to include a dream in your story.

Is Writing About Dreams a Bad Idea?

Of course not. Writing about dreams is not an inherently bad idea. A good writer can make anything interesting to read, so if your story needs a dream sequence for some particular reason, you absolutely should write it.

However, the people that vehemently stand by the assertion that it should never be done do have good reason to be grumpy about it. It is extremely easy to mess up a dream sequence, in an absolutely infinite number of ways. In fact, a good majority of attempted dream sequences are poorly executed.

Dreams are confusing by nature, so when you try to write about them, you risk confusing your readers. No one wants to read a story when they have no idea what’s even going on. No amount of fantastical imagery can keep a confused or frustrated reader holding on for too long—they’re bound to skip ahead, or stop reading altogether. Acknowledging that is the first step towards crafting a memorable dream sequence that won’t drive your readers mad.

What Makes a Dream Sequence Good or Bad?

A poorly executed dream sequence can take many different forms. They can be frustratingly vague or too overwhelming, or they can just be downright boring. Although dreams should be confusing, bad dream sequences usually take that too far and construct a narrative that is so confusing that it is rendered completely pointless. And if something in your story doesn’t serve a purpose, it shouldn’t be included.

Another thing that really bothers readers is trickery regarding dreams. It’s just a really really bad idea to disguise a dream as being part of the true narrative. When something significant happens and the character later wakes up to reveal that it was all just a dream, that can be upsetting for a reader. If you need to use a dream to trick the character, make the fact that it’s a dream obvious to the reader—or at least vaguely hinted at.

A good dream sequence is one that serves a legitimate purpose in the context of the story. Dreams can be a powerful tool for giving insight into a character’s personality and struggles, creating meaning from a scene, or emphasizing something else in the narrative. A shocking situation could leave a character fixated on an event, in which case it can be a great technique to use dreams to show how they were affected. In other words, the dream has to mean something. It must be symbolic, haunting, or revealing, and it should contribute to the plot or character in some way.

There are many other ways to make or break a dream sequence, but I’ll get to more specific examples later on.

Is There a Better Way?

There are times when it is more appropriate to use a dream than other times. If dreams play a large storytelling role in the narrative, it’s fine to go a bit overboard with them. However, in most normal situations, there’s almost always a better way to present information than with dreams.

Try to think about what you want to achieve. If you’re using it to reveal backstory for a character, then you might want to hold off. Using dreams as flashbacks can make it unclear what parts of the dream are real, and what parts are just the usual dream nonsense. Dreams can be memories, especially if they’re recurring nightmares from a traumatic experience, but you should establish that outside of the dreamscape beforehand.

As a general rule, using dreams in your story should be a last resort. If you’re considering using a dream in your story, try to think about other ways the same information could be given to the readers. If you can’t come up with anything, then go ahead and move forward with using the dream.

Common Mistakes Writers Make When Writing About Dreams

The biggest way that writers can mess up a dream sequence is by leaning too far into the extremes.

Sometimes, a written dream sequence comes across as indistinguishable from reality. Sure, some dreams can feel sort of real while you’re experiencing, but it’s generally a bad idea to write it like that without some sort of indication that it’s a dream. Making a dream feel too much like a character’s waking life doesn’t make for a very convincing dream. Worse yet, readers could misunderstand and assume it isn’t a dream at all.

Other times, writers really crank up the craziness of dreams, to a degree that is too difficult to understand to be meaningful. Writers try to cram as many weird and conflicting details into a dream as possible, rendering it confusing, uncomfortable, and just downright unpleasant for readers to try to decipher. If a dream doesn’t make sense, then it does not help your story at all. And if something isn’t necessary, it needs to be taken out.

Writing the Transition from Awake to Dreaming

Falling asleep can be a difficult thing to write, but it’s probably best not to overthink it in most cases. Avoid the cliches, and don’t overcomplicate it. Unless you have a good reason to focus on the process of falling asleep, you could just have the character lay down and then skip right to being asleep.

For the first few minutes of being asleep, the character will be in stage one of the sleep cycle, which means they will be mildly alert and easy to wake up. Sometimes dreams occur in this stage, but they more closely resemble passing thoughts or daydreams. If other sounds are happening around the character as they are in this stage, they may incorporate into the character’s dreams.

As the character descends further into unconsciousness, that alertness begins to fade, and they enter the second stage of the sleep cycle. Brain waves begin to slow down in preparation for deep sleep. No dreams occur in this stage of sleep, and it is still relatively easy to wake someone up at this stage.

For a deeper explanation of how to write about a character falling asleep, take a moment to look at my other article: How to Write a Character Falling Asleep in First-Person .

How People Dream

When someone falls asleep, they don’t just dream the entire time . A sleeper cycles between Non-REM, or deep sleep, and REM sleep, which is the dream sleep. Those are the third and fourth stages of the sleep cycle. The average person cycles in and out of REM sleep about six times per night, but that varies from person to person, as well as how long the individual is asleep. In addition to producing dreams, the brain uses REM sleep to organize the experiences of the day and store them in long-term memory.

This cycle of deep and dream sleep often results in dreams having a sort of fragmented quality, where the scene seems to shift suddenly or change altogether. A dream with a more linear narrative is common, but some elements still tend to change between REM cycles. Another consequence of the dream cycle is that the entire dream, or sections of it, could simply repeat itself. Some things may change in the repetitions, the character could become aware that they are dreaming, or they may forget that the repetitions even occurred.

Another thing to keep in mind with dreams is the passage of time. When a person is asleep, their perception of time is altered, and they may experience a dream that feels quite brief or drawn out. The length of the dream has very little to do with the amount of time actually spent asleep.

Now, this of course only applies to natural sleep. There are many other ways dreams can be induced, like with drugs, psychosis, hypnosis, and a multitude of other options. The dreams experienced in these altered states are going to operate differently from regular REM sleep, and you may need to do some additional research on those topics to be able to craft a dream that fits the situation.

The Dream’s Purpose in Your Story

Once you have decided to move forward with writing a dream, you need to consider what you want it to achieve. What do you want it to do for the story? What impact should it have on the character? How do you want the readers to feel about it? How is it going to complicate the narrative?

There are several different kinds of dreams you can utilize for different purposes, but each one can be tailor-fit to the vibe you want to convey. Any of these categories can also apply to nightmares, or they can evolve from or into a nightmare. A dream can also serve more than one purpose at a time, so don’t feel as though any of these categories are limiting you and the things your writing can achieve.

Foreshadowing

Dreams are often utilized to foreshadow an event taking place later on in the story. This can take the form of a premonition, a telekinetic message, or heavy symbolism, but no matter how you choose to convey it, you should be cautious about how explicit the message is. Being too obvious about the foreshadowing ruins the effect and makes the dream feel more magical—which can be problematic if you’re writing realistic fiction.

If the dream is a result of some magical element, then the character could receive a more explicit warning about something, but that is usually for the effect of avoiding something and is not necessarily foreshadowing.

This type of dream can easily apply to nightmares as well. In fact, it lends itself better to being a bad dream than otherwise. A character could have a dream that symbolizes their impending doom. Which, you know, probably isn’t a fun dream to have.

Realization

REM sleep is a time when the brain synthesizes all the information it gathered throughout the day. If a character has been mulling over a problem, things may fall into place after they begin to dream. For storytelling’s sake, you could illustrate them solving a problem in their dreams that is representative of the problem they have to deal with in their waking life. Then, they could jerk awake with the sudden realization, having finally discovered a solution to their problem.

This also applies to anything that could be confusing for the character. If they are a researcher trying to translate an ancient tome, they could have some revelation about cross-referencing the tome with a different artifact when the artifact comes to them in their dream. If the character is debating what birthday gift to get for a friend, the idea could come to them in their sleep because of a memory of the friend. If the character is trying to write a scene for their book, they could potentially dream a scene that perfectly fits into their story.

To turn this dream into a nightmare, the realization could be something more horrifying, instead of a convenient solution. The character may realize after they fall asleep that their new roommate fits the description of a wanted criminal. Or, they might dream of a house fire and wake up with the realization that they left the oven on.

Internal Conflict

This kind of dream also results from the character experiencing a problem, like with the realization dream, except they aren’t quite lucky enough to get a convenient solution presented to them in a neatly packaged dream. Instead, the internal conflict dream usually occurs when there is a difficult decision that the character has to make, or if they have to do something that they are not looking forward to.

Usually, this dream is a nightmare. Characters will dream about the event or decision, and the dream will play out all the ways the situation could possibly (or impossibly) go wrong. If the character is dreading making a decision, the dreams are bound to reflect all the reasons why each choice is bad. This could be the case if a character is considering breaking up with their significant other. On the one hand, they could continue to be miserable in their relationship and life, but on the other hand, they could end up dying alone.

If, however, the character is dreading a particular event, like having to make a speech, then they will likely dream of all the worst things that could happen during that speech. The audience may laugh, they could trip on their way to the podium, or maybe they’ll even get shot! Regardless of how unlikely a situation is to actually happen, it could still be a source of anxiety for the character.

Recurring

Recurring dreams are dreams that repeat at any interval. A character could experience a recurring dream every single night, every week, or even years apart. These dreams are also often used in conjunction with the foreshadowing type since a recurring dream can have serious narrative implications.

There are a few reasonable explanations for recurring dreams. The first is an obsession of some kind. People develop fixations on items, events, people, or locations, and then those fixations can reinforce (and be reinforced by) a specific recurring dream. This is great if you want to show a character’s slow descent into madness since constantly being bombarded with the same dream could make an obsession even harder to manage. Consider a character that is obsessed with another person, and continues to have the same dream of them getting married every single night. That’s a great recipe for driving the character to kidnapping.

Another reason for recurring dreams is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) . A character that experienced or witnessed something traumatic or dangerous may have recurring nightmares about the traumatic event. This layers with the flashback type of dream, even if the dream deviates a bit from actual history.

Flashbacks should generally not be presented in the form of dreams, but if you want a way to present them more naturally than simply cutting to the past, you could give it try. Flashbacks are a way of giving the readers some backstory to support the main narrative, but they can also be a way of exploring the psyche of the dreaming character.

When a character experiences a flashback dream, it is commonly something traumatic, or involving memories that they would rather not acknowledge. If you wanted to put an interesting spin on the flashbacks, you could make the memories something the character had effectively repressed, either as a coping mechanism or with some sort of magical intervention. The character would therefore not think of the dream as representing a real memory, which could be an interesting plot point.

Sleep Paralysis

When a person falls asleep, the brain essentially paralyzes the sleeper so their body doesn’t move as a reaction to whatever they are dreaming. This is called “ atonia ,” and it is an evolutionary reaction that prevents the person from hurting themself while they are asleep. However, some people experience this paralysis in the minutes before or after being asleep as well, which is part of the reason they might experience a phenomenon known as “sleep paralysis.”

During an episode of sleep paralysis, the character would be unable to move or speak. This is accompanied by a terrifying hallucination, often described as a demon approaching the immobile person. The hallucination can also take the form of another person that the character fears or some other thing that they are afraid of, like a swarm of spiders.

Although sleep paralysis is a hallucination and not a dream, it is still closely related to the topic of nightmares.

A lucid dream is a dream in which the person experiencing it is aware that they are dreaming. Sometimes, as a result of that, the dreamer gains some sort of control over the way the dream plays out. Sometimes that means only controlling their own reactions in the dream, and other times it means exercising control over the main narrative and setting.

A lucid dream can become a nightmare if the character has control over their own body, but not the setting around them. Even if the character is aware of the fact that it is a dream, they may see grotesque or haunting images, or situations that force them to face things they are afraid of. At times, a lucid nightmare can be worse than a regular nightmare, since the character would know that the nightmare would end if they could only wake up.

Telepathic dreams are when magical influence allows one character to send dreams to another, or to experience the same dream at the same time. Since this type of dream purely exists within the realm of magic, there are no hard and fast rules. Traditional understandings of dreams do not apply, so… go nuts.

How to Make Dreams Stand Out in Your Story

When writing a dream, it is important to format the text differently from how you ordinarily would write the rest of the story. This is especially important if dreams are going to play a large part in the story, or if you have more than one.

Having a recognizable format for writing dreams can be helpful for a few reasons. For one thing, it allows you to include multiple dreams in a story without having to explain that it’s a dream every time, and makes it obvious that the dream is removed from the character’s reality. More importantly, however, it allows you to manipulate the way the dream feels.

There are several ways to manipulate the format of the text to make a dream stand out. If the dream is supposed to be fuzzy and sort of numb, try adding… ellipses… to give readers the sense that the dream… lags. This can emphasize that… dreamy feeling… and it… makes it obvious that the character isn’t… really… fully aware.

A simpler way of setting dreams apart is to put them in italics. This works better if the tone of the dream isn’t meant to be slow or dreamy, making it great for nightmares or premonitions. However, using italics is a popular method of showing thoughts or writings, so if you’ve already decided to use italics to format something else, don’t use it for dreams.

You could also set dreams apart by using a noticeably different font. This can also be a helpful tool for setting the tone of the dreams, since some fonts can appear rigid, playful, or timid. However, you should be aware that deviating from traditional fonts might make your text more difficult for some people to read.

You could also try bolded text, or bolded and italicized text, to try to set the dream apart. This could work well if nightmares are the focus, but it doesn’t work as well for most other dreams, since it’s a little too bold to properly represent the subconscious. Also, like with italicization, be aware that this is often used to format other things.

Another option is to change the point of view. If the POV is typically in first-person, try jumping into third person for the duration of the dream. If the POV is in closed third-person, try shifting to an omniscient perspective, or vice versa. This can dramatically change the way a scene is perceived.

How to Write a Character Waking Up from a Dream

In real life, people begin to forget their dreams within minutes of waking up. However, most characters in fiction don’t forget their dreams, otherwise it wouldn’t serve much of a purpose. They can forget bits and pieces of the dream over time, though, which can be helpful for building tension. That can be a great way of having the character blunder through something they don’t remember when the readers know they were warned about the situation in their dream.

If the character does remember the majority of their dream, spend some time to write about their reaction to it as they are waking up. Do they jolt awake, and is it because of a nightmare or revelation? Are they used to having strange or frightening dreams? How do they interpret it? Do they tell someone else about their dream after the fact? If the dream is going to be an important part of the story (which it should be, if you chose to include it), then give the character some space to try to interpret it outside of the dream itself.

For a more comprehensive explanation of writing about waking up in various cases, check out my article When and How to Write a Character Waking Up .

Dreams as Recollections

If writing the dreams themselves are causing you too much trouble, don’t let that get in the way of you finishing your story. Skipping over the dream sequence and interpreting it only from what the character remembers is just as viable of an option, if not more so. You cut out the risk of boring or confusing your readers, and you can reveal things about the dream over time as it is convenient or relevant.

Presenting only a character’s recollections of the dream can also be useful if the character has recurring dreams. There’s no need to show the dreams themselves over and over if they are the same every time. And often, showing what effect the dreams or nightmares have on the character can be a more interesting plot point than the actual content of the dream.

One Final Suggestion

It is important to keep in mind that people dream primarily in images, so make sure there is a lot of descriptive language and many visual details in the dreams you write. Play with the setting, and use the visual details to hint at the kind of dream the character is about to experience. Characters may also have a difficult time remembering what anyone in the dream says, so focus less on dialogue and more on what the character sees.

Good luck, and remember to keep dreaming, writers!

11 Writing Prompts about Dreams

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had some pretty imaginative and weird dreams over my lifetime.

Naturally dreams can get pretty creative, so let’s see how they might inspire some creative thinking, and writing!

If anything can help get the neurons firing and have us wondering what the answers are to questions which we don’t normally ask, the topic of dreams can.

So without further ado, it’s into our writing about dreams and dreaming…

How to use these:

Pick one at random, and write 500 words on it right now!

Try picking a random number each day for a week, and write about the corresponding prompt each day in your journal.

Sit down with the entire list, and write a concise response to each prompt.

Or maybe you have a way that to use these in your own writing, or students writing that feels like a better fit – go for it!

The Prompts:

Why do you think we dream when we sleep?
Do you often recall what your dreams were about when you wake? What could help with remembering our dreams?
Do you think dreams can help us in any way? How?
Do your pets ever dream? What do you think they might dream about?
Have you ever come up with a creative solution to a problem using an idea you had in a dream?
What foods or activities result in you having the strangest dreams?
Why do you think sometimes when you try and describe a very vivid amazing dream to someone, it can just sound weird and not that meaningful?
Does dreaming help you get a good night’s sleep? Why?
Have you ever played a sport or had an adventure, and then dreamed about it that night?
Is it possible to dream in the style of a videogame, like minecraft for example?
Lucid dreaming is a rare situation where someone realizes they are dreaming and takes control over what is happening in their dream. Describe what that might be like.

Found these helpful? Lots of you do!

That is just awesome, and we’re so happy we’re helping thousands of you in our positive and thriving community.

And in case you’re weren’t aware already, we have HEAPS of other free writing prompts, picture prompts, and other resources and printables for you to use. Take a look around, and don’t forget to bookmark right now!

If you can share this page with someone who would find it useful, that would be fantastic. Thank you to those of you who do! We really appreciate it.

Stay tuned for more!

Yours, Matt & Hayley

What is Creative Writing? A Key Piece of the Writer’s Toolbox

Not all writing is the same and there’s a type of writing that has the ability to transport, teach, and inspire others like no other.

Creative writing stands out due to its unique approach and focus on imagination. Here’s how to get started and grow as you explore the broad and beautiful world of creative writing!

What is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is a form of writing that extends beyond the bounds of regular professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature. It is characterized by its emphasis on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes or poetic techniques to express ideas in an original and imaginative way.

Creative writing can take on various forms such as:

short stories
screenplays

It’s a way for writers to express their thoughts, feelings, and ideas in a creative, often symbolic, way . It’s about using the power of words to transport readers into a world created by the writer.

5 Key Characteristics of Creative Writing

Creative writing is marked by several defining characteristics, each working to create a distinct form of expression:

1. Imagination and Creativity: Creative writing is all about harnessing your creativity and imagination to create an engaging and compelling piece of work. It allows writers to explore different scenarios, characters, and worlds that may not exist in reality.

2. Emotional Engagement: Creative writing often evokes strong emotions in the reader. It aims to make the reader feel something — whether it’s happiness, sorrow, excitement, or fear.

3. Originality: Creative writing values originality. It’s about presenting familiar things in new ways or exploring ideas that are less conventional.

4. Use of Literary Devices: Creative writing frequently employs literary devices such as metaphors, similes, personification, and others to enrich the text and convey meanings in a more subtle, layered manner.

5. Focus on Aesthetics: The beauty of language and the way words flow together is important in creative writing. The aim is to create a piece that’s not just interesting to read, but also beautiful to hear when read aloud.

Remember, creative writing is not just about producing a work of art. It’s also a means of self-expression and a way to share your perspective with the world. Whether you’re considering it as a hobby or contemplating a career in it, understanding the nature and characteristics of creative writing can help you hone your skills and create more engaging pieces .

For more insights into creative writing, check out our articles on creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree and is a degree in creative writing worth it .

Styles of Creative Writing

To fully understand creative writing , you must be aware of the various styles involved. Creative writing explores a multitude of genres, each with its own unique characteristics and techniques.

Poetry is a form of creative writing that uses expressive language to evoke emotions and ideas. Poets often employ rhythm, rhyme, and other poetic devices to create pieces that are deeply personal and impactful. Poems can vary greatly in length, style, and subject matter, making this a versatile and dynamic form of creative writing.

Short Stories

Short stories are another common style of creative writing. These are brief narratives that typically revolve around a single event or idea. Despite their length, short stories can provide a powerful punch, using precise language and tight narrative structures to convey a complete story in a limited space.

Novels represent a longer form of narrative creative writing. They usually involve complex plots, multiple characters, and various themes. Writing a novel requires a significant investment of time and effort; however, the result can be a rich and immersive reading experience.

Screenplays

Screenplays are written works intended for the screen, be it television, film, or online platforms. They require a specific format, incorporating dialogue and visual descriptions to guide the production process. Screenwriters must also consider the practical aspects of filmmaking, making this an intricate and specialized form of creative writing.

If you’re interested in this style, understanding creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree can provide useful insights.

Writing for the theater is another specialized form of creative writing. Plays, like screenplays, combine dialogue and action, but they also require an understanding of the unique dynamics of the theatrical stage. Playwrights must think about the live audience and the physical space of the theater when crafting their works.

Each of these styles offers unique opportunities for creativity and expression. Whether you’re drawn to the concise power of poetry, the detailed storytelling of novels, or the visual language of screenplays and plays, there’s a form of creative writing that will suit your artistic voice. The key is to explore, experiment, and find the style that resonates with you.

For those looking to spark their creativity, our article on creative writing prompts offers a wealth of ideas to get you started.

Importance of Creative Writing

Understanding what is creative writing involves recognizing its value and significance. Engaging in creative writing can provide numerous benefits – let’s take a closer look.

Developing Creativity and Imagination

Creative writing serves as a fertile ground for nurturing creativity and imagination. It encourages you to think outside the box, explore different perspectives, and create unique and original content. This leads to improved problem-solving skills and a broader worldview , both of which can be beneficial in various aspects of life.

Through creative writing, one can build entire worlds, create characters, and weave complex narratives, all of which are products of a creative mind and vivid imagination. This can be especially beneficial for those seeking creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Enhancing Communication Skills

Creative writing can also play a crucial role in honing communication skills. It demands clarity, precision, and a strong command of language. This helps to improve your vocabulary, grammar, and syntax, making it easier to express thoughts and ideas effectively .

Moreover, creative writing encourages empathy as you often need to portray a variety of characters from different backgrounds and perspectives. This leads to a better understanding of people and improved interpersonal communication skills.

Exploring Emotions and Ideas

One of the most profound aspects of creative writing is its ability to provide a safe space for exploring emotions and ideas. It serves as an outlet for thoughts and feelings , allowing you to express yourself in ways that might not be possible in everyday conversation.

Writing can be therapeutic, helping you process complex emotions, navigate difficult life events, and gain insight into your own experiences and perceptions. It can also be a means of self-discovery , helping you to understand yourself and the world around you better.

So, whether you’re a seasoned writer or just starting out, the benefits of creative writing are vast and varied. For those interested in developing their creative writing skills, check out our articles on creative writing prompts and how to teach creative writing . If you’re considering a career in this field, you might find our article on is a degree in creative writing worth it helpful.

4 Steps to Start Creative Writing

Creative writing can seem daunting to beginners, but with the right approach, anyone can start their journey into this creative field. Here are some steps to help you start creative writing .

1. Finding Inspiration

The first step in creative writing is finding inspiration . Inspiration can come from anywhere and anything. Observe the world around you, listen to conversations, explore different cultures, and delve into various topics of interest.

Reading widely can also be a significant source of inspiration. Read different types of books, articles, and blogs. Discover what resonates with you and sparks your imagination.

For structured creative prompts, visit our list of creative writing prompts to get your creative juices flowing.

Editor’s Note : When something excites or interests you, stop and take note – it could be the inspiration for your next creative writing piece.

2. Planning Your Piece

Once you have an idea, the next step is to plan your piece . Start by outlining:

the main points

Remember, this can serve as a roadmap to guide your writing process. A plan doesn’t have to be rigid. It’s a flexible guideline that can be adjusted as you delve deeper into your writing. The primary purpose is to provide direction and prevent writer’s block.

3. Writing Your First Draft

After planning your piece, you can start writing your first draft . This is where you give life to your ideas and breathe life into your characters.

Don’t worry about making it perfect in the first go. The first draft is about getting your ideas down on paper . You can always refine and polish your work later. And if you don’t have a great place to write that first draft, consider a journal for writing .

4. Editing and Revising Your Work

The final step in the creative writing process is editing and revising your work . This is where you fine-tune your piece, correct grammatical errors, and improve sentence structure and flow.

Editing is also an opportunity to enhance your storytelling . You can add more descriptive details, develop your characters further, and make sure your plot is engaging and coherent.

Remember, writing is a craft that improves with practice . Don’t be discouraged if your first few pieces don’t meet your expectations. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, enjoy the creative process.

For more insights on creative writing, check out our articles on how to teach creative writing or creative writing activities for kids.

Tips to Improve Creative Writing Skills

Understanding what is creative writing is the first step. But how can one improve their creative writing skills? Here are some tips that can help.

Read Widely

Reading is a vital part of becoming a better writer. By immersing oneself in a variety of genres, styles, and authors, one can gain a richer understanding of language and storytelling techniques . Different authors have unique voices and methods of telling stories, which can serve as inspiration for your own work. So, read widely and frequently!

Practice Regularly

Like any skill, creative writing improves with practice. Consistently writing — whether it be daily, weekly, or monthly — helps develop your writing style and voice . Using creative writing prompts can be a fun way to stimulate your imagination and get the words flowing.

Attend Writing Workshops and Courses

Formal education such as workshops and courses can offer structured learning and expert guidance. These can provide invaluable insights into the world of creative writing, from understanding plot development to character creation. If you’re wondering is a degree in creative writing worth it, these classes can also give you a taste of what studying creative writing at a higher level might look like .

Joining Writing Groups and Communities

Being part of a writing community can provide motivation, constructive feedback, and a sense of camaraderie. These groups often hold regular meetings where members share their work and give each other feedback. Plus, it’s a great way to connect with others who share your passion for writing.

Seeking Feedback on Your Work

Feedback is a crucial part of improving as a writer. It offers a fresh perspective on your work, highlighting areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. Whether it’s from a writing group, a mentor, or even friends and family, constructive criticism can help refine your writing .

Start Creative Writing Today!

Remember, becoming a proficient writer takes time and patience. So, don’t be discouraged by initial challenges. Keep writing, keep learning, and most importantly, keep enjoying the process. Who knows, your passion for creative writing might even lead to creative writing jobs and what you can do with a creative writing degree .

Happy writing!

Brooks Manley

Creative Primer is a resource on all things journaling, creativity, and productivity. We’ll help you produce better ideas, get more done, and live a more effective life.

My name is Brooks. I do a ton of journaling, like to think I’m a creative (jury’s out), and spend a lot of time thinking about productivity. I hope these resources and product recommendations serve you well. Reach out if you ever want to chat or let me know about a journal I need to check out!

Here’s my favorite journal for 2024:

Gratitude Journal Prompts Mindfulness Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Anxiety Reflective Journal Prompts Healing Journal Prompts Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Journal Prompts Mental Health Journal Prompts ASMR Journal Prompts Manifestation Journal Prompts Self-Care Journal Prompts Morning Journal Prompts Evening Journal Prompts Self-Improvement Journal Prompts Creative Writing Journal Prompts Dream Journal Prompts Relationship Journal Prompts "What If" Journal Prompts New Year Journal Prompts Shadow Work Journal Prompts Journal Prompts for Overcoming Fear Journal Prompts for Dealing with Loss Journal Prompts for Discerning and Decision Making Travel Journal Prompts Fun Journal Prompts

Inspiring Ink: Expert Tips on How to Teach Creative Writing

You may also like, morning routines: secrets to success.

How to Start and Keep a Pregnancy Journal

47 mental health journal prompts, leave a reply cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Productivity
Favorite Journals

What Is Creative Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)

Creative writing begins with a blank page and the courage to fill it with the stories only you can tell.

I face this intimidating blank page daily–and I have for the better part of 20+ years.

In this guide, you’ll learn all the ins and outs of creative writing with tons of examples.

What Is Creative Writing (Long Description)?

Creative Writing is the art of using words to express ideas and emotions in imaginative ways. It encompasses various forms including novels, poetry, and plays, focusing on narrative craft, character development, and the use of literary tropes.

Bright, colorful creative writer's desk with notebook and typewriter -- What Is Creative Writing

Table of Contents

Let’s expand on that definition a bit.

Creative writing is an art form that transcends traditional literature boundaries.

It includes professional, journalistic, academic, and technical writing. This type of writing emphasizes narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes. It also explores poetry and poetics traditions.

In essence, creative writing lets you express ideas and emotions uniquely and imaginatively.

It’s about the freedom to invent worlds, characters, and stories. These creations evoke a spectrum of emotions in readers.

Creative writing covers fiction, poetry, and everything in between.

It allows writers to express inner thoughts and feelings. Often, it reflects human experiences through a fabricated lens.

Types of Creative Writing

There are many types of creative writing that we need to explain.

Some of the most common types:

Short stories
Screenplays
Flash fiction
Creative Nonfiction

Short Stories (The Brief Escape)

Short stories are like narrative treasures.

They are compact but impactful, telling a full story within a limited word count. These tales often focus on a single character or a crucial moment.

Short stories are known for their brevity.

They deliver emotion and insight in a concise yet powerful package. This format is ideal for exploring diverse genres, themes, and characters. It leaves a lasting impression on readers.

Example: Emma discovers an old photo of her smiling grandmother. It’s a rarity. Through flashbacks, Emma learns about her grandmother’s wartime love story. She comes to understand her grandmother’s resilience and the value of joy.

Novels (The Long Journey)

Novels are extensive explorations of character, plot, and setting.

They span thousands of words, giving writers the space to create entire worlds. Novels can weave complex stories across various themes and timelines.

The length of a novel allows for deep narrative and character development.

Readers get an immersive experience.

Example: Across the Divide tells of two siblings separated in childhood. They grow up in different cultures. Their reunion highlights the strength of family bonds, despite distance and differences.

Poetry (The Soul’s Language)

Poetry expresses ideas and emotions through rhythm, sound, and word beauty.

It distills emotions and thoughts into verses. Poetry often uses metaphors, similes, and figurative language to reach the reader’s heart and mind.

Poetry ranges from structured forms, like sonnets, to free verse.

The latter breaks away from traditional formats for more expressive thought.

Example: Whispers of Dawn is a poem collection capturing morning’s quiet moments. “First Light” personifies dawn as a painter. It brings colors of hope and renewal to the world.

Plays (The Dramatic Dialogue)

Plays are meant for performance. They bring characters and conflicts to life through dialogue and action.

This format uniquely explores human relationships and societal issues.

Playwrights face the challenge of conveying setting, emotion, and plot through dialogue and directions.

Example: Echoes of Tomorrow is set in a dystopian future. Memories can be bought and sold. It follows siblings on a quest to retrieve their stolen memories. They learn the cost of living in a world where the past has a price.

Screenplays (Cinema’s Blueprint)

Screenplays outline narratives for films and TV shows.

They require an understanding of visual storytelling, pacing, and dialogue. Screenplays must fit film production constraints.

Example: The Last Light is a screenplay for a sci-fi film. Humanity’s survivors on a dying Earth seek a new planet. The story focuses on spacecraft Argo’s crew as they face mission challenges and internal dynamics.

Memoirs (The Personal Journey)

Memoirs provide insight into an author’s life, focusing on personal experiences and emotional journeys.

They differ from autobiographies by concentrating on specific themes or events.

Memoirs invite readers into the author’s world.

They share lessons learned and hardships overcome.

Example: Under the Mango Tree is a memoir by Maria Gomez. It shares her childhood memories in rural Colombia. The mango tree in their yard symbolizes home, growth, and nostalgia. Maria reflects on her journey to a new life in America.

Flash Fiction (The Quick Twist)

Flash fiction tells stories in under 1,000 words.

It’s about crafting compelling narratives concisely. Each word in flash fiction must count, often leading to a twist.

This format captures life’s vivid moments, delivering quick, impactful insights.

Example: The Last Message features an astronaut’s final Earth message as her spacecraft drifts away. In 500 words, it explores isolation, hope, and the desire to connect against all odds.

Creative Nonfiction (The Factual Tale)

Creative nonfiction combines factual accuracy with creative storytelling.

This genre covers real events, people, and places with a twist. It uses descriptive language and narrative arcs to make true stories engaging.

Creative nonfiction includes biographies, essays, and travelogues.

Example: Echoes of Everest follows the author’s Mount Everest climb. It mixes factual details with personal reflections and the history of past climbers. The narrative captures the climb’s beauty and challenges, offering an immersive experience.

Fantasy (The World Beyond)

Fantasy transports readers to magical and mythical worlds.

It explores themes like good vs. evil and heroism in unreal settings. Fantasy requires careful world-building to create believable yet fantastic realms.

Example: The Crystal of Azmar tells of a young girl destined to save her world from darkness. She learns she’s the last sorceress in a forgotten lineage. Her journey involves mastering powers, forming alliances, and uncovering ancient kingdom myths.

Science Fiction (The Future Imagined)

Science fiction delves into futuristic and scientific themes.

It questions the impact of advancements on society and individuals.

Science fiction ranges from speculative to hard sci-fi, focusing on plausible futures.

Example: When the Stars Whisper is set in a future where humanity communicates with distant galaxies. It centers on a scientist who finds an alien message. This discovery prompts a deep look at humanity’s universe role and interstellar communication.

Watch this great video that explores the question, “What is creative writing?” and “How to get started?”:

What Are the 5 Cs of Creative Writing?

The 5 Cs of creative writing are fundamental pillars.

They guide writers to produce compelling and impactful work. These principles—Clarity, Coherence, Conciseness, Creativity, and Consistency—help craft stories that engage and entertain.

They also resonate deeply with readers. Let’s explore each of these critical components.

Clarity makes your writing understandable and accessible.

It involves choosing the right words and constructing clear sentences. Your narrative should be easy to follow.

In creative writing, clarity means conveying complex ideas in a digestible and enjoyable way.

Coherence ensures your writing flows logically.

It’s crucial for maintaining the reader’s interest. Characters should develop believably, and plots should progress logically. This makes the narrative feel cohesive.

Conciseness

Conciseness is about expressing ideas succinctly.

It’s being economical with words and avoiding redundancy. This principle helps maintain pace and tension, engaging readers throughout the story.

Creativity is the heart of creative writing.

It allows writers to invent new worlds and create memorable characters. Creativity involves originality and imagination. It’s seeing the world in unique ways and sharing that vision.

Consistency

Consistency maintains a uniform tone, style, and voice.

It means being faithful to the world you’ve created. Characters should act true to their development. This builds trust with readers, making your story immersive and believable.

Is Creative Writing Easy?

Creative writing is both rewarding and challenging.

Crafting stories from your imagination involves more than just words on a page. It requires discipline and a deep understanding of language and narrative structure.

Exploring complex characters and themes is also key.

Refining and revising your work is crucial for developing your voice.

The ease of creative writing varies. Some find the freedom of expression liberating.

Others struggle with writer’s block or plot development challenges. However, practice and feedback make creative writing more fulfilling.

What Does a Creative Writer Do?

A creative writer weaves narratives that entertain, enlighten, and inspire.

Writers explore both the world they create and the emotions they wish to evoke. Their tasks are diverse, involving more than just writing.

Creative writers develop ideas, research, and plan their stories.

They create characters and outline plots with attention to detail. Drafting and revising their work is a significant part of their process. They strive for the 5 Cs of compelling writing.

Writers engage with the literary community, seeking feedback and participating in workshops.

They may navigate the publishing world with agents and editors.

Creative writers are storytellers, craftsmen, and artists. They bring narratives to life, enriching our lives and expanding our imaginations.

How to Get Started With Creative Writing?

Embarking on a creative writing journey can feel like standing at the edge of a vast and mysterious forest.

The path is not always clear, but the adventure is calling.

Here’s how to take your first steps into the world of creative writing:

Find a time of day when your mind is most alert and creative.
Create a comfortable writing space free from distractions.
Use prompts to spark your imagination. They can be as simple as a word, a phrase, or an image.
Try writing for 15-20 minutes on a prompt without editing yourself. Let the ideas flow freely.
Reading is fuel for your writing. Explore various genres and styles.
Pay attention to how your favorite authors construct their sentences, develop characters, and build their worlds.
Don’t pressure yourself to write a novel right away. Begin with short stories or poems.
Small projects can help you hone your skills and boost your confidence.
Look for writing groups in your area or online. These communities offer support, feedback, and motivation.
Participating in workshops or classes can also provide valuable insights into your writing.
Understand that your first draft is just the beginning. Revising your work is where the real magic happens.
Be open to feedback and willing to rework your pieces.
Carry a notebook or digital recorder to jot down ideas, observations, and snippets of conversations.
These notes can be gold mines for future writing projects.

Final Thoughts: What Is Creative Writing?

Creative writing is an invitation to explore the unknown, to give voice to the silenced, and to celebrate the human spirit in all its forms.

Check out these creative writing tools (that I highly recommend):

Essays About Dreams In Life: 14 Examples And Topic Ideas

Dreams in life are necessary; if you are writing essays about dreams in life, you can read these essay examples and topic ideas to get started.

Everyone has a dream – a big one or even a small one. Even the most successful people had dreams before becoming who they are today. Having a dream is like having a purpose in life; you will start working hard to reach your dream and never lose interest in life.

Without hard work, you can never turn a dream into a reality; it will only remain a desire. Level up your essay writing skills by reading our essays about dreams in life examples and prompts and start writing an inspiring essay today!

Writing About Dreams: A Guide

Essays about dreams in life: example essays, 1. chase your dreams: the best advice i ever got by michelle colon-johnson, 2. my dream, my future by deborah massey, 3. the pursuit of dreams by christine nishiyama, 4. my dreams and ambitions by kathy benson, 5. turning big dreams into reality by shyam gokarn, 6. my hopes and dreams by celia robinson, 7. always pursue your dreams – no matter what happens by steve bloom, 8. why do we dream by james roland, 9. bad dreams by eli goldstone, 10. why your brain needs to dream by matthew walker, 11. dreams by hedy marks, 12. do dreams really mean anything by david b. feldman, 13. how to control your dreams by serena alagappan, 14. the sunday essay: my dreams on antidepressants by ashleigh young, essays about dreams in life essay topics, 1. what is a dream, 2. what are your dreams in life, 3. why are dreams important in life, 4. what are the reasons for a person to dream big, 5. what do you think about dreams in life vs. short-term sacrifice, 6. what is the purpose of dreaming, 7. why are dreams so strange and vivid, 8. why do dreams feel so real, 9. why are dreams so hard to remember, 10. do dreams mean anything, what is a dream short essay, how can i write my dream in life.

Writing about dreams is an excellent topic for essays, brainstorming new topic ideas for fiction stories, or just as a creative outlet. We all have dreams, whether in our sleep, during the day, or even while walking on a sunny day. Some of the best ways to begin writing about a topic are by reading examples and using a helpful prompt to get started. Check out our guide to writing about dreams and begin mastering the art of writing today!

“Everyone has the ability to dream, but not everyone has the willingness to truly chase their dreams. When people aren’t living their dreams they often have limited belief systems. They believe that their current circumstances and/or surroundings are keeping them from achieving the things they want to do in life.”

In her essay, author Michelle Colon-Johnson encourages her readers to develop a mindset that will let them chase their dreams. So, you have to visualize your dream, manifest it, and start your journey towards it! Check out these essays about dreams and sleep .

“At the time when I have my job and something to make them feel so proud of me, I would like to give them the best life. I would like to make them feel comfortable and see sweet smiles on their faces. This is really the one I like to achieve in my life; mountains of words can’t explain how much I love and appreciate them.”

Author Deborah Massey’s essay talks about her dreams and everything she wanted to achieve and accomplish in her life. She also tells us that we must live our values, pursue our dreams, and follow our passions for the best future.

“Fast-forward 5+ years, and my first published book is coming out this May with Scholastic. And now, let me tell you the truth: I don’t feel any different. I’m extremely grateful for the opportunity, proud of the work I’ve done, and excited for the book’s release. But on a fundamental level, I feel the same.”

In her essay, author Christine Nishiyama shares what she felt when she first achieved one of her goals in life. She says that with this mindset, you will never feel the satisfaction of achieving your goal or the fulfillment of reaching your dream. Instead, she believes that what fulfills people is the pursuit of their dreams in life.

“My dream is to become a good plastic surgeon and day after day it has transformed into an ambition which I want to move towards. I do not want to be famous, but just good enough to have my own clinic and work for a very successful hospital. Many people think that becoming a doctor is difficult, and I know that takes many years of preparation, but anyone can achieve it if they have determination.”

Author Kathy Benson’s essay narrates her life – all the things and struggles she has been through in pursuing her dreams in life. Yet, no matter how hard the situation gets, she always convinces herself not to give up, hoping her dreams will come true one day. She believes that with determination and commitment, anyone can achieve their dreams and goals in life.

“I have always been a big dreamer and involved in acting upon it. Though, many times I failed, I continued to dream big and act. As long as I recollect, I always had such wild visions and fantasies of thinking, planning, and acting to achieve great things in life. But, as anyone can observe, there are many people, who think and work in that aspect.”

In his essay, author Shyam Gokarn explains why having a big dream is very important in a person’s life. However, he believes that the problem with some people is that they never hold tight to their dreams, even if they can turn them into reality. As a result, they tend to easily give up on their dreams and even stop trying instead of persevering through the pain and anguish of another failure.

“When I was younger, I’ve always had a fairytale-like dream about my future. To marry my prince, have a Fairy Godmother, be a princess… But now, all of that has changed. I’ve realized how hard life is now; that life cannot be like a fairy tale. What you want can’t happen just like that.”

Celia Robinson’s essay talks about her dream since she was a child. Unfortunately, as we grow old, there’s no “Fairy Godmother” that would help us when things get tough. Everyone wants to succeed in the future, but we have to work hard to achieve our dreams and goals.

“Take writing for example. I’ve wanted to be a professional writer since I was a little boy, but I was too scared that I wouldn’t be any good at it. But several years ago I started pursuing this dream despite knowing how difficult it might be. I fully realize I may not make it, but I’m completely fine with that. At least I tried which is more than most people can say.”

In his essay, author Steve Bloom encourages his readers always to pursue their dreams no matter what happens. He asks, “Would you rather pursue them and fail or never try?”. He believes that it’s always better to try and fail than look back and wonder what might have been. Stop thinking that failure or success is the only end goal for pursuing your dreams. Instead, think of it as a long journey where all the experiences you get along the way are just as important as reaching the end goal.

“Dreams are hallucinations that occur during certain stages of sleep. They’re strongest during REM sleep, or the rapid eye movement stage, when you may be less likely to recall your dream. Much is known about the role of sleep in regulating our metabolism, blood pressure, brain function, and other aspects of health. But it’s been harder for researchers to explain the role of dreams. When you’re awake, your thoughts have a certain logic to them. When you sleep, your brain is still active, but your thoughts or dreams often make little or no sense.”

Author James Roland’s essay explains the purpose of having dreams and the factors that can influence our dreams. He also mentioned some of the reasons that cause nightmares. Debra Sullivan, a nurse educator, medically reviews his essay. Sullivan’s expertise includes cardiology, psoriasis/dermatology, pediatrics, and alternative medicine. For more, you can also see these articles about sleep .

“The first time I experienced sleep paralysis and recognised it for what it was I was a student. I had been taking MDMA and listening to Django Reinhardt. My memories of that time are mainly of taking drugs and listening to Django Reinhardt. When I woke up I was in my paralysed body. I was there, inside it. I was inside my leaden wrists, my ribcage, the thick dead roots of my hair, the bandages of skin. This time the hallucinations were auditory. I could hear someone being beaten outside my door. They were screaming for help. And I could do nothing but lie there, locked inside my body . . . whatever bit of me is not my body. That is the bit that exists, by itself, at night.”

In her essay, Author Eli Goldstone talks about her suffering from bad dreams ever since childhood. She also talks about what she feels every time she has sleep paralysis – a feeling of being conscious but unable to move.

“We often hear stories of people who’ve learned from their dreams or been inspired by them. Think of Paul McCartney’s story of how his hit song “Yesterday” came to him in a dream or of Mendeleev’s dream-inspired construction of the periodic table of elements. But, while many of us may feel that our dreams have special meaning or a useful purpose, science has been more skeptical of that claim. Instead of being harbingers of creativity or some kind of message from our unconscious, some scientists have considered dreaming to being an unintended consequence of sleep—a byproduct of evolution without benefit.”

Author Matthew Walker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience, shares some interesting facts about dreams in his essay. According to research, dreaming is more than just a byproduct of sleep; it also serves essential functions in our well-being.

“Dreams are basically stories and images that our mind creates while we sleep. They can be vivid. They can make you feel happy, sad, or scared. And they may seem confusing or perfectly rational. Dreams can happen at any time during sleep. But you have your most vivid dreams during a phase called REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when your brain is most active. Some experts say we dream at least four to six times a night.”

In his essay, Author Hedy Marks discusses everything we need to know about dreams in detail – from defining a dream to tips that may help us remember our dreams. Hedy Marks is an Assistant Managing Editor at WebMD , and Carol DerSarkissian, a board-certified emergency physician, medically reviews his essay.

“Regardless of whether dreams foretell the future, allow us to commune with the divine, or simply provide a better understanding of ourselves, the process of analyzing them has always been highly symbolic. To understand the meaning of dreams, we must interpret them as if they were written in a secret code. A quick search of an online dream dictionary will tell you that haunted houses symbolize “unfinished emotional business,” dimly lit lamps mean you’re “feeling overwhelmed by emotional issues,” a feast indicates “a lack of balance in your life,” and garages symbolize a feeling of “lacking direction or guidance in achieving your goals.”

Author David B. Feldman, an author, speaker, and professor of counseling psychology, believes that dreams may not mean anything, but they tell us something about our emotions. In other words, if you’ve been suffering from a series of bad dreams, it could be worth checking in with yourself to see how you’ve been feeling and perhaps consider whether there’s anything you can do to improve your mood.

“Ever wish you could ice skate across a winter sky, catching crumbs of gingerbread, like flakes of snow, on your tongue? How about conquering a monster in a nightmare, bouncing between mountain peaks, walking through walls, or reading minds? Have you ever longed to hold the hand of someone you loved and lost? If you want to fulfill your fantasies, or even face your fears, you might want to try taking some control of your dreams (try being the operative). People practiced in lucid dreaming—the phenomenon of being aware that you are dreaming while you are asleep—claim that the experience allows adventure, self-discovery, and euphoric joy.”

In her essay, Author Serena Alagappan talks about lucid dreams – a type of dream where a person becomes conscious during a dream. She also talked about ways to control our dreams, such as keeping a journal, reciting mantras before bed, and believing we can. However, not everyone will be able to control their dreams because the levels of lucidity and control differ significantly between individuals.

“There was a period of six months when I tried to go off my medication – a slowly unfolding disaster – and I’d thought my dreams might settle down. Instead, they grew more deranged. Even now I think of the dream in which I was using a cigarette lighter to melt my own father, who had assumed the form of a large candle. I’ve since learned that, apart from more research being needed, this was probably a case of “REM rebound”. When you stop taking the medication, you’ll likely get a lot more REM sleep than you were getting before. In simple terms, your brain goes on a dreaming frenzy, amping up the detail.”

Author Ashleigh Young’s essay informs us how some medications, such as antidepressants, affect our dreams based on her own life experience. She said, “I’ve tried not to dwell too much on my dreams. Yes, they are vivid and sometimes truly gruesome, full of chaotic, unfathomable violence, but weird nights seemed a reasonable price to pay for the bearable days that SSRIs have helped me to have.”

In simple terms, a dream is a cherished aspiration, ambition, or ideal; is it the same as your goal in life? In your essay, explore this topic and state your opinion about what the word “dream” means to you.

This is an excellent topic for your statement or “about me” essay. Where do you see yourself in the next ten years? Do you have a career plan? If you still haven’t thought about it, maybe it’s time to start thinking about your future.

Having dreams is very important in a person’s life; it motivates, inspires, and helps you achieve any goal that you have in mind. Without dreams, we would feel lost – having no purpose in life. Therefore, in your essay, you should be able to explain to your readers how important it is to have a dream or ambition in life.

What are the reasons for a person to dream big?

Dreaming big sounds great; however, it’s easier said than done. First, you’ve got to have reasons to dream big, which will motivate you to achieve your goals in life. If you’re writing an essay about dreams in life, mention why most people dare to dream big and achieve more in life. Is it about freedom, money, praise from other people, satisfaction, or something else entirely?

For example, you could watch movies, play video games, relax every night, or give up all of them to learn a complex skill – what would you choose, and why? In your essay about dreams in life, answer the question and include other examples about this topic so your readers can relate.

There are many answers to this question – one is that dreams may have an evolutionary function, testing us in scenarios crucial to our survival. Dreams may also reduce the severity of emotional trauma. On the other hand, some researchers say dreams have no purpose or meaning, while some say we need dreams for physical and mental health. Take a closer look at this topic, and include what you find in your essay.

Weird dreams could result from anxiety, stress, or sleep deprivation. So, manage your stress levels, and stick to a sleep routine to stop having weird dreams. If you wake up from a weird dream, you can fall back asleep using deep breaths or any relaxing activity. You can research other causes of weird dreams and ways to stop yourself from having them for your essay about dreams and sleep.

The same areas of the brain that are active when we learn and process information in the actual world are active when we dream, and they replay the information as we sleep. Many things we see, hear, and feel in our everyday lives appear in our dreams. If you want to write an informative essay about dreams and sleep, look into more details about this topic.

Tip: When editing for grammar, we also recommend taking the time to improve the readability score of a piece of writing before publishing or submitting it.

People may not remember what happened in their dreams. Studies show that people tend to forget their dreams due to the changing levels of acetylcholine and norepinephrine during sleep. This will be quite an exciting topic for your readers because many people can relate. That being said, research more information about this topic, and discuss it in detail in your essay.

Although some people believe that dreams don’t mean anything, many psychologists and other experts have theorized about the deeper meaning of dreams. Therefore, your essay about dreams and sleep should delve deeper into this topic. If you’re stuck picking your next essay topic, check out our round-up of essay topics about education .

FAQS on Essays About Dreams in Life

There are many great short essays about dreams; you can write your own too! Some great examples include Do Dreams Really Mean Anything? by David B. Feldman and Dreams by Hedy Marks.

Writing about your dreams in life is a fantastic creative outlet and can even help you plan your future. Use a prompt to get started, like “What are your dreams in life?” or “What do you aspire to be in ten years?” and begin writing without thinking too much about it. See where the pen takes you and start mapping out your future with this writing exercise.

Meet Rachael, the editor at Become a Writer Today. With years of experience in the field, she is passionate about language and dedicated to producing high-quality content that engages and informs readers. When she's not editing or writing, you can find her exploring the great outdoors, finding inspiration for her next project.

View all posts

'At first I wanted to be a pilot': A Dartmouth teen's creative thinking leads to dream job

N EW BEDFORD — For some professions, the path to get there is somewhat obvious. Other times, one must think outside the box and get creative with what's available.

That's what 17-year-old Dartmouth resident Elizabeth Santos did when she picked diesel service technology as her shop at Greater New Bedford Regional Vocational Technical High School. Ultimately, Santos' vision is to use the skills gained working on diesel trucks and apply them to aircraft.

Santos showed her dedication to her dream recently when she took the bronze prize in the SkillsUSA diesel equipment technology competition in Shrewsbury, where she was one of 12 competitors. This came after Santos took the gold prize at the district round back in March.

"I was nervous," Santos said of her time waiting for the bus to arrive and bring her to Shrewsbury for the competition late last month. "I'm one of those people who say I'm going to place and I don't place, and I'd if I say I'm not going to place, I do place. So I didn't want anything in my mind."

At the competition, contestants had 15 minutes to complete tasks at each activity station, Santos said, which included work related to air brake systems, precision measurement, electrical circuitry and more.

"I didn't think I knew as much about hydraulics as I did," Santos said.

Eyes to the skies

Santos traces her dream of being an aviation technician back to fond childhood memories at New Bedford Regional Airport , where she's now employed through GNB Voc-Tech 's co-op partnership.

Stay current: New Bedford's half-billion-dollar budget will deliver more school, police money

"When I was younger, my grandparents used to take me to this airport all the time to look at planes and I was always obsessed with them," she said while working in the hangar of New Bedford Regional Airport on Wednesday. "At first I wanted to be a pilot, but as I grew up I realized I could be a mechanic — I like to build things, I like to break things.

"Then at Voc I realized if I learn how to understand tool ID and how tools work in trucks, I can eventually correspond them to planes and that's pretty much what I'm doing now."

Big plans taking shape

Just days before speaking with The Standard-Times, Santos says a recruiter who visited GNB Voc-Tech from WyoTech in Wyoming piqued her interest relative to post-high school plans.

"They have a nine-month course there where I'd receive a lot of diesel certifications, so I think I might end up doing that, and then from there I might do aviation or diesel long-term," Santos said.

But on the other hand: "I was contemplating Embry-Riddle [Aeronautical University] but I'm not sure I want to uproot my life and go to Florida. However, it is right next door to the Daytona Speedway, so that might be a factor in that choice."

Women on the rise in diesel field, teacher says

Asked if she expects any added challenges given the vastly male-populated nature of her chosen field, Santos — one of two female students in her shop class — says she's not too worried.

"I grew up with three brothers, so being around men doesn't affect my will to work or anything," she said. "Hey, if someone wants to hold my tools for me, go right ahead — I don't want to hurt my back — but don't tell me I can't do something because I'm a woman."

"One of the best parts about Liz is she's got some thick skin," diesel shop instructor Serge Moniz said. "She's a kid that can be kind of in a tough space, but she can dish it right back."

Be a nosy neighbor: Freetown Colonial overlooking Assonet Bay sells for over $1 million: Weekly home sales

Moniz, who graduated GNBVT in 1998, says Santos and her female shop classmate appear to be part of a new, more diverse age dawning in the diesel/mechanics industry, although there's still a ways to go.

"It's pretty rare but we do have some companies that are kind of turning the tide ... doing the right things, giving people opportunities," Moniz said, however noting the "industry is still behind the eight-ball on equity."

"But women like Liz are proving themselves in the industry and ultimately when these ladies are in the field that's going to be the game-changer."

"I usually just say: don't be afraid to get your hands dirty and do what you love," Santos said of her advice to anyone considering what they want to do in life, observing her own grease-stained hands. "That's what I do every day."

This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: 'At first I wanted to be a pilot': A Dartmouth teen's creative thinking leads to dream job

GNB Voc-Tech junior Elizabeth Santos, 17, is seen at New Bedford Regional Airport where she participates in a work-study program. Santos was the Bronze prize winner in the statewide SkillsUSA Diesel Equipment Technology competition earlier this month.

History, Facts & Figures
YSM Dean & Deputy Deans
YSM Administration
Department Chairs
YSM Executive Group
YSM Board of Permanent Officers
FAC Documents
Current FAC Members
Appointments & Promotions Committees
Ad Hoc Committees and Working Groups
Chair Searches
Leadership Searches
Organization Charts
Faculty Demographic Data
Professionalism Reporting Data
2022 Diversity Engagement Survey
State of the School Archive
Faculty Climate Survey: YSM Results
Strategic Planning
Mission Statement & Process
Beyond Sterling Hall
COVID-19 Series Workshops
Previous Workshops
Departments & Centers
Find People
Biomedical Data Science
Health Equity
Inflammation
Neuroscience
Global Health
Diabetes and Metabolism
Policies & Procedures
Media Relations
A to Z YSM Lab Websites
A-Z Faculty List
A-Z Staff List
A to Z Abbreviations
Dept. Diversity Vice Chairs & Champions
Dean’s Advisory Council on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Affairs Website
Minority Organization for Retention and Expansion Website
Office for Women in Medicine and Science
Committee on the Status of Women in Medicine Website
Director of Scientist Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity Supplements
Frequently Asked Questions
Recruitment
By Department & Program
News & Events
Executive Committee
Aperture: Women in Medicine
Self-Reflection
Portraits of Strength
Mindful: Mental Health Through Art
Event Photo Galleries
Additional Support
MD-PhD Program
PA Online Program
Joint MD Programs
How to Apply
Advanced Health Sciences Research
Clinical Informatics & Data Science
Clinical Investigation
Medical Education
Visiting Student Programs
Special Programs & Student Opportunities
Residency & Fellowship Programs
Center for Med Ed
Organizational Chart
Leadership & Staff
Committee Procedural Info (Login Required)
Faculty Affairs Department Teams
Recent Appointments & Promotions
Academic Clinician Track
Clinician Educator-Scholar Track
Clinican-Scientist Track
Investigator Track
Traditional Track
Research Ranks
Instructor/Lecturer
Social Work Ranks
Voluntary Ranks
Adjunct Ranks
Other Appt Types
Appointments
Reappointments
Transfer of Track
Term Extensions
Timeline for A&P Processes
Interfolio Faculty Search
Interfolio A&P Processes
Yale CV Part 1 (CV1)
Yale CV Part 2 (CV2)
Samples of Scholarship
Teaching Evaluations
Letters of Evaluation
Dept A&P Narrative
A&P Voting
Faculty Affairs Staff Pages
OAPD Faculty Workshops
Leadership & Development Seminars
List of Faculty Mentors
Incoming Faculty Orientation
Faculty Onboarding
Past YSM Award Recipients
Past PA Award Recipients
Past YM Award Recipients
International Award Recipients
Nominations Calendar
OAPD Newsletter
Fostering a Shared Vision of Professionalism
Academic Integrity
Addressing Professionalism Concerns
Consultation Support for Chairs & Section Chiefs
Policies & Codes of Conduct
First Fridays
Fund for Physician-Scientist Mentorship
Grant Library
Grant Writing Course
Mock Study Section
Research Paper Writing
Establishing a Thriving Research Program
Funding Opportunities
Join Our Voluntary Faculty
Child Mental Health: Fostering Wellness in Children
Faculty Resources
Research by Keyword
Research by Department
Research by Global Location
Translational Research
Research Cores & Services
Program for the Promotion of Interdisciplinary Team Science (POINTS)
CEnR Steering Committee
Experiential Learning Subcommittee
Goals & Objectives
Issues List
Print Magazine PDFs
Print Newsletter PDFs
YSM Events Newsletter
Social Media
Patient Care

INFORMATION FOR

Residents & Fellows
Researchers

Celebrating Health Profession Students' Poetry, Prose, and Visual Arts

Program for Humanities in Medicine 2024 Health Professions Creative Writing and Art Contest Awards Ceremony

Lenique Huggins - First place in Art category

Created by MD student Hang Nguyen. Second place in Art category

WInston Trope - Honorable Mention in Art category

Zeynep Inanoglu - Honorable Mention in Art category

2024 PHM Health Professions Creative Writing and Art Contest Award Ceremony - Student Winners

Winning artwork

Black Motherhood in Medicine

Created by MD student Lenique Huggins. First place in Art category

These Small Things

These are the titles of the poetry, prose, and visual artworks that received first-place in the annual Yale School of Medicine (YSM) Program for Humanities in Medicine (PHM) Health Professions Students' Creative Writing & Art Contest. On May 2, the student winners were celebrated at a gathering where they shared and often provided context for their creations. A supportive and appreciative audience applauded enthusiastically after each presentation.

Professor and PHM Director Anna Reisman, MD, welcomed everyone to the celebration, sharing that the contest began more than two decades ago. It originally was a poetry and prose contest just for medical students; the family of Marguerite Rush Lerner, MD, established and endowed the contest to honor her. Lerner was a dermatologist at YSM, as well as a children’s book author. (Lerner’s husband, Aaron Lerner, MD, PhD, was the first chair of Yale’s Department of Dermatology, and two of their four sons, Ethan Lerner, MD, PhD ‘82 and Michael Lerner, MD ’81, attended YSM.) Reisman explained that several years ago the contest expanded to include visual arts, and also students from across the health profession schools and programs—MD, MD-PhD, Physician Associate, Physician Assistant Online, Nursing, and Public Health.

This year, almost 100 students participated in the contest. MD student winners receive the Marguerite Rush-Lerner prize; the other Yale health professions students receive the Program for Humanities in Medicine prize. See the list of winners under "Related Links."

While second-year MD student Lenique Huggins had been thinking about creating Black Motherhood in Medicine for a few months, it only took two evenings to do so, once she began.

She explains that the inspiration for the piece started in her first week of medical school, when she learned that the maternal mortality rate for Black mothers is 2.6 more than non-Hispanic white mothers. “As a young Black woman, this statistic especially pained me and my close friends.” Additionally, she says that in classes throughout the year, she was part of formal and informal discussions about being a mother in medicine. “I heard from classmates across racial backgrounds about their real fears of balancing pregnancy with their medical training and pregnancy complications among medical professionals.” That led her to begin to think about “my intersection as a future Black mother in medicine and the challenges I may face because of these identities. Now, as a second-year student, I created a piece that captures something I have thought much about these past two years.”

Huggins grew up in a Caribbean household close to art and culture from all over the world. “I’ve always been surrounded by music, dance, storytelling, and visual art, and my family hosted international students throughout my childhood. I started playing the piano at age three, and have been singing, dancing, and doodling for as long as I can remember.” However, it was not until she was an undergraduate at Duke University and participated in community service that she “began to understand the therapeutic value of art.”

Through her involvement in different programs at that time, including Families Moving Forward, a shelter for families without homes, and Reflections, a weekly art program for adults with dementia at Duke Nasher Museum, Huggins says, “I saw how encouraging self-expression could bring peace during uncertain times, reduce stress, and empower communities. When I went through a rough time in my sophomore year, I found myself using painting for a lot of healing.”

Huggins continues, “I will continue practicing art. It’s a self-care practice that helps me combat burnout and show up better for patients who need me.”

Class of 2025 MD student Hang Nguyen started painting at age 11, when her family immigrated to America from Vietnam. She explains, “I did not speak English at the time, so art was a vessel through which I could communicate my tumultuous adolescent mind.”

Currently, she paints often and says her favorite subject is “surreal, tranquil, and, occasionally, liminal landscapes, such as a classroom at midnight, an overgrown, abandoned church, and a long corridor that leads nowhere. For me, these landscapes represent a longing for a space that exists tranquilly, where one can be one's true self.”

Nguyen painted Submerged specifically for this contest; “In other words, this contest inspired me to look inward and reflect on — instead of simply overcome and move forward from — the challenges that I have encountered in medical school.” Through the work she wanted “to convey the various feelings that I experienced while studying for board exams using motifs that are near and dear to me like water and fish in a surreal, tranquil, and liminal ambience.” She painted it during time dedicated to Step 1, over the course of a week, working on it for an hour to two at night.

Hunger , On Chinese Medicine , and On the First Day of Anatomy Lab

First-year Physician Associate (PA) student Kelly Dunn was honored with three prizes: A tie for first place in prose for Hunger , a tie for second place in poetry for On Chinese Medicine , and honorable mention in prose for On the First Day of Anatomy Lab , each of which she shared with the audience. While Dunn, who “always considered the humanities to be a part of my life,” has been an avid reader and artist for as long as she can remember, she did not start writing until the COVID-19 pandemic. She says she mostly wrote nonfiction, and only semi-frequently, “whenever something momentous transpired, or I suddenly felt called to it,” explaining, “so much of my love and appreciation for writing comes from the fact that it’s a medium to better articulate an experience through. Having something so fresh and felt so acutely is a wonderful impetus to begin writing.”

The contest was one of Dunn’s first times writing poetry, “I’ve always been intimidated by it. Learning the different poetic forms and metric lines, as well as how to be economical with my words, seems like something I’ll never be able to achieve.” She continued, “I’m grateful for this contest for giving me an opportunity to try”

For Dunn, writing in PA school has been “incredibly helpful processing all that has happened. Every day I vacillate between feelings of immense wonder, humility, and gratitude— and these words in themselves don’t even do the moments I’ve witnessed justice.”

Acknowledgements

Reisman thanked PHM Manager Karen Kolb for her work coordinating the contest, and the 16 YSM faculty and staff members who served as judges:

Aba Black, MD, MHS, Anne Merritt, MD, MS, Terry Dagradi, Sarah Cross, MD, Lorence Gutterman, MD, Melissa Grafe, PhD, Randi Hutter-Epstein, MD, MPH, Kenneth Morford, MD, Sharon Ostfeld-Johns, MD, Vincent Quagliarello, MD, Lisa Sanders, MD, Nora Segar, MD, Elizabeth Marhoffer, MD, Rita Rienzo MMSC, PA-C, Sharon Chekijian, MD, PhH, and Cynthia McNamara, MD.

Featured in this article

Aba Black, MD, MHS
Sharon Anoush Chekijian, MD, MPH
Sarah Cross, MD
Terry Dagradi
Randi Epstein
Melissa Grafe, PhD
Lorence Gutterman, MD
Lenique Huggins
Karen P Kolb
Elizabeth Marhoffer, MD
Cynthia Frary McNamara, MD, FACP
Anne Merritt, MD, MS
Kenneth Morford, MD, FASAM
Hang Nguyen
Sharon Ostfeld-Johns, MD, IBCLC
Vincent Quagliarello, MD
Anna Reisman, MD
Rita Rienzo, MMSc, PA-C
Lisa Sanders, MD, FACP
Nora Segar, MD

Creative Writing Program Marks Three Decades of Growth, Diversity

Black and white photo shows old American seaside town with title 'Barely South Review'

By Luisa A. Igloria

2024: a milestone year which marks the 30 th anniversary of Old Dominion University’s MFA Creative Writing Program. Its origins can be said to go back to April 1978, when the English Department’s (now Professor Emeritus, retired) Phil Raisor organized the first “Poetry Jam,” in collaboration with Pulitzer prize-winning poet W.D. Snodgrass (then a visiting poet at ODU). Raisor describes this period as “ a heady time .” Not many realize that from 1978 to 1994, ODU was also the home of AWP (the Association of Writers and Writing Programs) until it moved to George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

The two-day celebration that was “Poetry Jam” has evolved into the annual ODU Literary Festival, a week-long affair at the beginning of October bringing writers of local, national, and international reputation to campus. The ODU Literary Festival is among the longest continuously running literary festivals nationwide. It has featured Rita Dove, Maxine Hong Kingston, Susan Sontag, Edward Albee, John McPhee, Tim O’Brien, Joy Harjo, Dorothy Allison, Billy Collins, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sabina Murray, Jane Hirshfield, Brian Turner, S.A. Cosby, Nicole Sealey, Franny Choi, Ross Gay, Adrian Matejka, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Ilya Kaminsky, Marcelo Hernandez Castillo, Jose Olivarez, and Ocean Vuong, among a roster of other luminaries. MFA alumni who have gone on to publish books have also regularly been invited to read.

From an initial cohort of 12 students and three creative writing professors, ODU’s MFA Creative Writing Program has grown to anywhere between 25 to 33 talented students per year. Currently they work with a five-member core faculty (Kent Wascom, John McManus, and Jane Alberdeston in fiction; and Luisa A. Igloria and Marianne L. Chan in poetry). Award-winning writers who made up part of original teaching faculty along with Raisor (but are now also either retired or relocated) are legends in their own right—Toi Derricotte, Tony Ardizzone, Janet Peery, Scott Cairns, Sheri Reynolds, Tim Seibles, and Michael Pearson. Other faculty that ODU’s MFA Creative Writing Program was privileged to briefly have in its ranks include Molly McCully Brown and Benjamín Naka-Hasebe Kingsley.

"What we’ve also found to be consistently true is how collegial this program is — with a lively and supportive cohort, and friendships that last beyond time spent here." — Luisa A. Igloria, Louis I. Jaffe Endowed Professor & University Professor of English and Creative Writing at Old Dominion University

Our student body is diverse — from all over the country as well as from closer by. Over the last ten years, we’ve also seen an increase in the number of international students who are drawn to what our program has to offer: an exciting three-year curriculum of workshops, literature, literary publishing, and critical studies; as well as opportunities to teach in the classroom, tutor in the University’s Writing Center, coordinate the student reading series and the Writers in Community outreach program, and produce the student-led literary journal Barely South Review . The third year gives our students more time to immerse themselves in the completion of a book-ready creative thesis. And our students’ successes have been nothing but amazing. They’ve published with some of the best (many while still in the program), won important prizes, moved into tenured academic positions, and been published in global languages. What we’ve also found to be consistently true is how collegial this program is — with a lively and supportive cohort, and friendships that last beyond time spent here.

Our themed studio workshops are now offered as hybrid/cross genre experiences. My colleagues teach workshops in horror, speculative and experimental fiction, poetry of place, poetry and the archive — these give our students so many more options for honing their skills. And we continue to explore ways to collaborate with other programs and units of the university. One of my cornerstone projects during my term as 20 th Poet Laureate of the Commonwealth was the creation of a Virginia Poets Database, which is not only supported by the University through the Perry Library’s Digital Commons, but also by the MFA Program in the form of an assistantship for one of our students. With the awareness of ODU’s new integration with Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) and its impact on other programs, I was inspired to design and pilot a new 700-level seminar on “Writing the Body Fantastic: Exploring Metaphors of Human Corporeality.” In the fall of 2024, I look forward to a themed graduate workshop on “Writing (in) the Anthropocene,” where my students and I will explore the subject of climate precarity and how we can respond in our own work.

Even as the University and wider community go through shifts and change through time, the MFA program has grown with resilience and grace. Once, during the six years (2009-15) that I directed the MFA Program, a State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) university-wide review amended the guidelines for what kind of graduate student would be allowed to teach classes (only those who had already earned 18 or more graduate credits). Thus, two of our first-year MFA students at that time had to be given another assignment for their Teaching Assistantships. I thought of AWP’s hallmarks of an effective MFA program , which lists the provision of editorial and publishing experience to its students through an affiliated magazine or press — and immediately sought department and upper administration support for creating a literary journal. This is what led to the creation of our biannual Barely South Review in 2009.

In 2010, HuffPost and Poets & Writers listed us among “ The Top 25 Underrated Creative Writing MFA Programs ” (better underrated than overrated, right?) — and while our MFA Creative Writing Program might be smaller than others, we do grow good writers here. When I joined the faculty in 1998, I was excited by the high caliber of both faculty and students. Twenty-five years later, I remain just as if not more excited, and look forward to all the that awaits us in our continued growth.

This essay was originally published in the Spring 2024 edition of Barely South Review , ODU’s student-led literary journal. The University’s growing MFA in Creative Writing program connects students with a seven-member creative writing faculty in fiction, poetry, and nonfiction.

Enhance your college career by gaining relevant experience with the skills and knowledge needed for your future career. Discover our experiential learning opportunities.

Picture yourself in the classroom, speak with professors in your major, and meet current students.

From sports games to concerts and lectures, join the ODU community at a variety of campus events.

New Scholarship Supports Western’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing

A girl sits underneath a tree writing in a notebook.

The Mari Sandoz Emerging Writer Scholarship will be awarded every year.

Students with a passion for writing about the people and landscapes of the West will have a new scholarship opportunity when they enter Western Colorado University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing (GPCW), thanks to the generosity of the Mari Sandoz Heritage Society.

The Mari Sandoz Emerging Writer Scholarship will be available to one qualified first-year graduate student in the GPCW’s Nature Writing concentration starting in the summer of 2024. The scholarship will be granted each academic year, awarding the winner $3,000 each semester for a total of $6,000.

According to Mari Sandoz Heritage Society board member and director of the GPCW Nature Writing Concentration, Laura Pritchett, the scholarship aims to memorialize Mari Sandoz’s legacy as someone who had a passion for writing and loved the landscapes and peoples of the West. Through the scholarship, the board hopes to support significant writing about the West in the contemporary literary landscape.

“Sandoz’s writing emphasized the environmental and human landscape of the West and was recognized for her no-nonsense yet deeply evocative style,” Pritchett said. “She was passionate about sharing her hard-earned and well-honed writing skills. We’re fortunate to have the Mari Sandoz Heritage Society support this scholarship.”

Applying to the GPCW’s Nature Writing program will also serve as an application for the scholarship. For more information about the GPCW Nature Writing Concentration, visit western.edu/program/nature-writing .

Author credit: Seth Mensing

Photo credit: Courtesy

Western looks to award 140 scholarships of up to $1500 to incoming students

First-generation Western student Georgia Grana beats the odds

A woman sits at a picnic table outside with her laptop and a coffee.

Two new scholarships make Adult Degree Completion even more affordable

Take the next step.

Students pose for a photo on top of Mount Crested Butte in the summer

Apply to Western

We understand that applying to a university can be daunting, which is why we make our admission process as simple and straightforward as possible. Learn more about applying to your program of choice at Western.

Colorado Hall with the Palisades in the background on a bluebird day.

Visit Western

The best way to find out what makes Western such a special place is to experience it for yourself. Our student-led tours give you an insider’s perspective on everything from academics to student life.

A group of four alumni look at an old photo that one of them picked up from a selection of photos that were printed and laid out for the Ski Team Social event.

Alumni Community

We keep the Mountaineer spirit going strong within our alumni community. Whether getting together with friends at an annual event, making a donation or mentoring a student, graduates continue to play an important role in the Western community.

A few students pose for a photo behind the Multicultural Center table at the Admitted Student Day Club Fair.

Request Information

Want to discover more about Western? Request information today to get in touch with the admissions team.

Select your Undergraduate Student Type

Android Police

What is textfx ai tools, textfx ai tools can be helpful for any creative writer.

If you're a creative writer, you've had writer's block more times than you care to admit. The TextFX Project is an artificial intelligence (AI) tool created by musician and producer Lupe Fiasco and Google Lab Sessions. It's a suite of writing tools made for rappers, writers, and wordsmiths. If you're ready to give writer's block a vacation, open a new browser window on your favorite Chromebook , PC, or mobile device and check it out.

What's the tech behind TextFX?

The TextFX Project is powered by Google's large language model, PaLM 2 (Pathways Language Model 2). Google put a lot of effort into scaling up large language models and has been a leader in that area since the early days of AI language models. Operating massive datasets and using advanced neural networks developed by Google Research have given Google an edge.

PaLM 2 can handle multiple language tasks simultaneously. This multitasking ability is part of what Google calls "pathways," a strategic approach to handling complex, large-scale AI model training. It uses a modular approach, where different components of the process can be specialized but still interact effectively with each other.

Top 8 best AI note-taking tools

Textfx has ten ai tools.

All the TextFX tools are offered for free on its website . When you visit the site, you're greeted with a split screen with its logo and a scrolling list of the tools. With names like Fuse, Unexpect, and Unfold , it can be confusing. The interesting thing about TextFX is that many of the tools are based on the techniques Lupe Fiasco developed in his approach to working with words creatively.

Lupo describes his approach as "word explosions." Taking a word and exploding the possibilities inherent in that word. One of the tools is Explode , which takes a single word and breaks it into similar-sounding phrases. You can peek under the hood by looking for the info icon under the tool names. Explode shows examples like taking the word "stabilize" and breaking it into "stable eyes."

What TextFX tools are available, and what can you use them for?

The rest of the tools take a similar approach to the Explode TextFX tool. You enter a word, thing, concept, topic, or scene, and the possibilities associated with that word unfold.

Some tools do exactly what they are named, and any wordsmith will be familiar with them. The Simile TextFX tool takes a thing or concept and outputs several possible similes. Take the word "waiting," and you get things like, "waiting for the train to arrive was like watching a pot of water boil." The Alliteration and Acronym tools in this AI toolset do the thing they are named for.

While Explode breaks a word into similar-sounding phrases, Chain gives you a series of semantically related items. Take a moment to think about what other words are related to the word "guitarist." A guitarist has an instrument that they play music with, possibly in a band . Maybe that guitarist is on tour on a bus , getting ready to play on stage . You get the idea. It's helpful when you know the subject you're writing about but want detailed ways to describe it or something related to it that you can elaborate on.

Unfold takes a word and pairs it with another word that's commonly found next to it. For example, when you type "guitarist," you get outputs like lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, guitarist prodigy, and rock guitarist. Like most AI, you can get bad responses from these tools. We don't think "guitarist cat" is that common. But who knows? The internet loves cats.

Creating a detailed scene with TextFX is easy

The Scene tool can be helpful for any writer. A lot of writer's block comes when you can visualize or imagine something that's happening but can't describe it. "Watching a movie" is a simple scene. But what does watching a movie feel like? What sounds are around you? What can you see?

Scene outputs things that are familiar to most people and can viscerally draw you in. The feel of plush seats and sticky floors, the taste of cold soda and candy, the smell of fresh popcorn wafting through the theater, the darkness of the theater, and the sight of the bright lights illuminating the screen.

There's also the Unexpect tool. Enter a scene, and you get an unexpected and imaginative result. Want to make a scene where the character is "eating a doughnut" a little stranger? How about, your character is "eating a doughnut with chopsticks"? Or maybe they get a nasty surprise while "eating a doughnut filled with mashed potatoes"?

Explore topics from different perspectives with TextFX

The last few tools in TextFX help you explore a topic or concept in depth. POV is a tool that takes a topic and creates a list of what someone might think about that topic. If you want to explore "succulents," the output is in the form of "succulents are the..."

If you're familiar with succulents, you'll understand some of the points of view. Succulents are low-maintenance plants that thrive in dry environments, like cacti, jade plants, and dragon trees. TextFX outputs the common thoughts that "succulents are the perfect plants for people who don't know how to take care of plants" and "succulents are the perfect plants for people who don't have a green thumb."

On the other hand, some people may think that "succulents are the perfect plants for people who are too lazy to take care of real plants." Or have the hot take that "succulents are the hipster's pet rock." There aren't any detailed points of view, but it provides additional perspective to what you already think about a topic.

The Fuse tool is a bit more interesting. You can take any two things, and it outputs some commonality or intersection between them. It struggles when the fusion of the two things is a stretch, like succulents and guitarists. One output made a little sense and said, "Both succulents and guitarists can be associated with the idea of patience — succulents with their ability to thrive in harsh conditions, and guitarists with their ability to practice for hours on end to perfect their craft."

With so many AI tools focusing on recreating what artists produce , TextFX takes a refreshingly different approach. Instead of creating art similar to an artist or music similar to a musician, TextFX recreates a creative process.

One of the developers said that they thought this project would output writing similar to Lupe Fiasco's work. However, Lupe said the tools would be more helpful if they helped with his process. Now, we get a chance to create in a way that's similar to how Lupe creates. Let's hope the next generation of AI tools trends in this direction, making the lives of creatives easier so that they have more time to be creative.

IMAGES

A Dream
"I have a Dream" Creative Writing
Creative writing prompts
Sigmund Freud Quote: “A piece of creative writing, like a day-dream, is a continuation of, and a
This post explores what dreams teach writers, including a crucial element in the craft of
My Dream House Essay

VIDEO

"Chasing a Dream" Lyric #poem
Writing Dream in cursive writing #dream #youtubeshort
Dream writing #artdiaries #artshort #calligraphy #writing
A writing dream come true
#motivation #upscmainsanswerwritinghindimedium#upsc#iasmotivation #iasdivyatanwar#vikasdivyakirtisir
When You Dreamt The Perfect Book Idea But You Can’t Remember It #bookideas #writer #writers #dreams

COMMENTS

How to Write a Compelling Dream Sequence: The Dos and Don'ts of Writing
Dream sequences are scenes—and they need to act like them, helping develop your plot or characters in some way. So before you start writing your dream-scene, know what you intend to accomplish with the dream. Dreams can play a variety of roles in your fiction; here are 4 ways you can use a dream sequence to move your story forward. 1.
How to Write a Dream Sequence? A Creative Guide
Mar 1. Writing a dream sequence is like painting with words; it's an opportunity to explore the depths of your character's subconscious, reveal their fears, hopes, and desires, and add a layer of complexity to your story. Whether you're crafting a short story or a novel, integrating dream scenes requires a balance of creativity, understanding ...
24 Writing Prompts About Dreams
24 Writing Prompts About Dreams. A Dream That Comes True: Imagine a world where your dreams accurately predict the future. Your protagonist begins having a series of extraordinarily vivid dreams, each one becoming reality in a couple of days. However, one night, they dream of a catastrophic event.
Dream
dream. - quotes and descriptions to inspire creative writing. In the twilight yawn of heaven's black rose two tall trees of sombre peeking green, their tops a round as if drawn in mathematical precision. And as I gazed at them for a blessed moment, the kind that could be any length at all in the twinkle of eternity, I saw the eyes of an owl ...
Journal Prompts for Dreamers
Dream journals are ideal for generating raw creative material. Today's journal prompts aren't based around a dream journal, and they don't ask you to keep one. If you happen to keep a dream journal, then you'll have an advantage here, because these journal prompts require you to remember a dream or two.
How to Write a Dream Sequence
End on one that best seems to fit the mood of the day. Now you have a dream sequence. If it seems inconsequential, that's good. Beware dreams of great import—unless you're writing about the Virgin Mary. Let the dream become part of the character's fabric and, thus, the fabric of the novel. Good luck and have fun.
PDF Dream Emotions and Word Beauty: Dreaming into Creative Writing
Dream Emotions and Word Beauty/Clare Jay, PhD 1 Dream Emotions and Word Beauty: Dreaming into Creative Writing Clare Jay, PhD Interactive online workshop published at the 2008 IASD Psiberdreaming conference. Clare Jay All dreams have energy. Creative writing helps us to reach this dream energy through forming a link between our imagination and ...
A Dream Journal for Writers
Journaling is an excellent tool for dream exploration, and dreams are a spectacular source of inspiration for writing. You can tap into your daydreams or your sleeping dreams as a way to inform and inspire your journal writing: Record your dreams so you can better understand them. Capture the images in your dreams and turn them into poems and ...
Inspiring Dreams
I don't usually have inspiring dreams - at least nothing I could write about but a few days ago I woke up after a long event-filled dream. I had gone to bed early as I was feeling under the weather. Instead of the sleepless night, I feared I might have had, I actually slept for almost ten full hours. This is not like me as I usually get ...
Dreaming as a writing tool
Get out the coloured pencils, scissors and glue. Liven up the pages in your journal and get more insight into your dreams by making a sketch or collage based on your dream, or adding a splash of colour to your writing. 8. Give your dream a title. Think of your dream report as a story or poem and give it a title.
What, to the Writer, Are Dreams? ‹ Literary Hub
Dreams are the mysterious activity of another part of the brain, beneath the scrutiny of the frontal lobe. Neurologically speaking, we really are receiving transmissions from a foreign entity; the unconscious, unobserved self slips through the keyhole when the guard is off duty. Even during waking hours, the human brain is divided: the ...
1800+ Creative Writing Prompts To Inspire You Right Now
Here's how our contest works: every Friday, we send out a newsletter containing five creative writing prompts. Each week, the story ideas center around a different theme. Authors then have one week — until the following Friday — to submit a short story based on one of our prompts. A winner is picked each week to win $250 and is highlighted ...
Free Creative Writing Prompts #74: Dreams
Free Creative Writing Prompts: Dreams. 1. You've just witnessed it. The end of the world. These kind of dreams are the ones you like to push out of your mind, but there's only one problem. Everything that happened in the beginning of your dream, from your trip to work to your conversations with co-workers, are word for word in line with the ...
10 of the Best Poems about Dreams and Dreaming
Whitman dreamt of a utopian city where 'robust love' triumphed and flourished, above all else. A wonderful short poem about the perfect society - if only, if only…. 5. Christina Rossetti, ' I dream of you, to wake '. I dream of you, to wake: would that I might. Dream of you and not wake but slumber on;
How to Describe a Dream in a Story
"Bizarre" describes dreams that are strange and different from normal. If a character experiences "bizarre" dreams, it might imply that they're going through some personal conflict or have doubts about the future. "Bizarre" dreams may also scare your character or leave them feeling unsettled when they wake up. 7. Soothing Definition
Writing About Dreams and Nightmares
Writing About Dreams and Nightmares. Writing Advice / Plot. Shares16k. Dreams and nightmares can play a large part in people's lives, but because of their unstructured and confusing nature, it can be difficult to include them in a story. To make it even more difficult, the majority of a dream is forgotten within the first few minutes after ...
11 Writing Prompts about Dreams
11 Writing Prompts about Dreams. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has had some pretty imaginative and weird dreams over my lifetime. Naturally dreams can get pretty creative, so let's see how they might inspire some creative thinking, and writing! If anything can help get the neurons firing and have us wondering what the answers are to ...
What is Creative Writing? A Key Piece of the Writer's Toolbox
5 Key Characteristics of Creative Writing. Creative writing is marked by several defining characteristics, each working to create a distinct form of expression: 1. Imagination and Creativity:Creative writing is all about harnessing your creativity and imagination to create an engaging and compelling piece of work.
What Is Creative Writing? (Ultimate Guide + 20 Examples)
Creative writing is an art form that transcends traditional literature boundaries. It includes professional, journalistic, academic, and technical writing. This type of writing emphasizes narrative craft, character development, and literary tropes. It also explores poetry and poetics traditions.
10 Best Creative Writing Courses for 2024: Craft Authentic Stories
15 hours. Best University-level Creative Writing Course (Wesleyan University) 5-6 hours. Best Course to Find Your Voice (Neil Gaiman) 4-5 hours. Best Practical Writing Course With Support (Trace Crawford) 12 hours. Best Course to Overcome Writer's Block: 10-Day Journaling Challenge (Emily Gould) 1-2 hours.
Essays About Dreams In Life: 14 Examples And Topic Ideas
Writing about dreams is an excellent topic for essays, brainstorming new topic ideas for fiction stories, or just as a creative outlet. We all have dreams, whether in our sleep, during the day, or even while walking on a sunny day. Some of the best ways to begin writing about a topic are by reading examples and using a helpful prompt to get ...
Dreams and Reality: A Storyteller's Look at Life
After lunch naps, granted Izzy time alone, a chance to relax and settle her mind through. reading and creative writing though the waking moments with her boys were some of the dearest. moments in her life. After finishing her chapter and tea, Izzy stood by the library's window gazing out at the.
Christina Myers: Stop Talking Yourself out of Your Book Dream
Christina Myers is a writer, editor, and former journalist. She is the author of the novel The List of Last Chances, winner of the Canadian Book Club Award for Fiction and longlisted for the Leacock Medal for Humour, and editor of the award-winning anthology BIG.An alumnus of the Writer's Studio at Simon Fraser University, she now teaches creative writing through SFU's continuing studies.
Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming
Creative Writers and Day-Dreaming (German: Der Dichter und das Phantasieren) was an informal talk given in 1907 by Sigmund Freud, and subsequently published in 1908, on the relationship between unconscious phantasy and creative art.. Freud's argument - that artists, reviving memories of childhood daydreams and play activities, succeeded in making them acceptable through their aesthetic ...
KS2 English: Write a script
Video summary. This short film presents a real-world context for writing a script and challenges children to write a short script for a TV show. The presenter, Naomi Wilkinson, is on the set ...
'At first I wanted to be a pilot': A Dartmouth teen's creative ...
This article originally appeared on Standard-Times: 'At first I wanted to be a pilot': A Dartmouth teen's creative thinking leads to dream job. GNB Voc-Tech junior Elizabeth Santos, 17, is seen at ...
Celebrating Health Profession Students' Poetry, Prose, and Visual Arts
Black Motherhood in Medicine. These are the titles of the poetry, prose, and visual artworks that received first-place in the annual Yale School of Medicine (YSM) Program for Humanities in Medicine (PHM) Health Professions Students' Creative Writing & Art Contest. On May 2, the student winners were celebrated at a gathering where they shared ...
Creative Writing Program Marks Three Decades of Growth, Diversity
By Luisa A. Igloria. 2024: a milestone year which marks the 30 th anniversary of Old Dominion University's MFA Creative Writing Program. Its origins can be said to go back to April 1978, when the English Department's (now Professor Emeritus, retired) Phil Raisor organized the first "Poetry Jam," in collaboration with Pulitzer prize-winning poet W.D. Snodgrass (then a visiting poet at ODU).
New Scholarship Supports Western's Graduate Program in Creative Writing
The Mari Sandoz Emerging Writer Scholarship will be awarded every year. Students with a passion for writing about the people and landscapes of the West will have a new scholarship opportunity when they enter Western Colorado University's Graduate Program in Creative Writing (GPCW), thanks to the generosity of the Mari Sandoz Heritage Society.
TextFX AI tools: Everything you need to know
TextFX is an AI writing suite made for musicians and writers. Lupe Fiasco and Google Lab Sessions created the tool, which uses the PaLM2 LLM. TextFX AI tools can be helpful for any creative writer ...