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The Dream is about a man who starts to experience odd things that interrupt his daily life. He develops a nightly routine of experiencing the same dream multiple times in a row that confuses him and throws him for a loop. But once he starts getting cryptic notes, he decides it's time to find out just what's going on and why he's experiencing this.
My first impressions of the story was that we were in for a mystery and we really were. I wasn't sure what I would be experiencing, but now that I've read it, here are my thoughts.
I want to start by talking about the overall plot of the story. This mystery/thriller was doozy to read, so I'll start with the good points. I do think the story was very unique. The idea was one that I felt would make a good movie. And I will say that I did get wrapped up in the mystery of what was going on.
But I have to be honest when I say that the execution could have been a lot better. Very often, I felt like the story was all over the place because huge spaces where more information could have been were missing. What I mean by that is the fact that every single chapter felt like a summary rather than storytelling. For example, in chapter one, it's summarized that Richmond went to talk to the manager of the restaurant. But we don't see the moment he gets up to go, the moment he starts talking and the dialogue that accompanies it, nor when he possibly goes back to his table to continue the date. I wholeheartedly believe that the story would round out much better if you really work on building the story. It almost needs to be a step by step process, if that makes sense.
A point on the character development was that a lot of times, I felt we needed more for the characters listed. Like for Sarah. She's the partner of the MC, but we never really see what she does for a living, especially since she knew Alice. I thought it would have been nice to know how they know each other to further build on the story and make it make sense rather than it seeming convenient. But after finishing the story, I of course know why the events went that way. Past that, there was also Jessica's introduction where I felt we learned too much about her. It seemed odd that she would just reveal that she works for the CIA. I think there was just a ripple where information is conveyed properly.
I also found a lot of the reactions unrealistic. Like when Richmond woke up in the lab and found it in disarray. His "hey guys, good morning" just felt so awkward to me, like I couldn't imagine anyone reacting like that.
But again, despite the story being hard to really get engaged, I did find myself asking questions. I sat wondering who was causing Richmond to have the dreams and if he actually did kill or not. So, I do think in that aspect, the story was somewhat interesting. Let me say again that the concept is very interesting. I think with an extremely thorough and good edit, it could be a really big hit.
And lastly, just to touch gently on grammar and mechanics. It could use a lot of work. Sometimes the syntax was off, so some sentences were worded awkwardly and such. The use of commas needed some work where certain parts of a sentence had unnecessary commas and others needed them. Then I noticed occasionally a hyphen would be placed around dialogue which was unnecessary, and some sentences lacked dialogue tags. One more thing, the formatting for some of the chapters was off. There would be times where paragraphs didn't have a space, dialogue didn't have a space. Exampled below. Finally, the tenses would switch between present and past which made the readability heavily go down, along with an abundance of exclamation points in some sentences. One ! will do rather than !!!.
Here is an example of the inconsistent format. See how there's not a double space? Only a single space?
I really liked this idea. Overall, your creativity is pulsing! But I don't think that's enough. Writing is more than having a good idea; so many elements go into it. I think if I were to stumble across your story just as a normal reader, I wouldn't give it a chance. It just became extremely difficult to read towards the end because of the things I mentioned above.
I hope this didn't sound too harsh. If you have any questions or want clarity on what I've said, please feel free to reach out!
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