Young Writers Society

I looked out of the window of the airplane that I was sitting in. The sight that I saw really shocked me. The wing of the plane was on fire. An urgent voice said “Please fasten your seatbelt. Please remain calm.”
I could hear people shouting “What’s going on?” Some people who had realized what was happening started crying and asking the help of their gods. Me, I was too shocked to do or say anything. My mind could not process what was going on.
Suddenly something caught my eye. The burning wing broke and our plane became one winged. The plane stared spiraling down. I was feeling a lot of force throughout my whole body. It felt as if all of my skin was going to peel of. I was facing g- force. An oxygen mask came right next to my face. I tried to reach it but because of the g-force, I couldn’t.
I closed my eyes, I knew that this was the end.

I woke up. It was just a dream. I checked the time on my wrist watch, it was 3:33. I went to the kitchen for a midnight snack. I switched on the light in the kitchen. There was a man standing in front of me.
He was over 6 feet tall and was very muscular he was wearing a black mask.
He was certainly a thief. That’s not the worst part. He had pointed a gun towards me. The thief whispered “Show me where your family keeps all the money. If you yell for help or anything like that. I shoot, okay.”
I could hear my heart beating, and it was beating fast. I was certain that the thief could hear my heart
beating too. I could feel the sweat coming out my forehead slowly falling towards my cheeks.
This was what they meant by fear surging through your body.
“Make it quick.” He said, “or bang- bang!”
I showed him the wardrobe where all of my family’s valuables were kept. The thief told me to face him.
“Sorry.” He whispered. I had seen that while I was showing the thief the way to the wardrobe he had put a silencer on his pistol. But before I could say anything the thief fired.

I woke up. I could he hear my heart beating very fast. But after a few deep breaths it slowed down. I remembered very little of the dreams that I had. There were two of them. Something about a plane crash and a thief. There was one important thing that I remembered. A crazy but important thing.
It was something that I had seen in a movie few months ago. But I never thought that something like this was possible.
A dream within a dream.
And then I started to wonder, was I in reality or was I still dreaming?

Ow a nice topic to tackle ! I also had an experience like that when in my dream I already woke up but the truth was I am still trapped in my horrible dream...

When I am reading the speaker's second dream (encounter with a thief), I thought it was for real, I mean I thought that the first dream was giving a sign that there will be a tragedy that will happen to the speaker. But to my surprise, it was another dream.

It was a good short story, but I it was very short! Even for a short story. I had read on my book when I joined a contest, that it should be at least 5 pages (if I am right) and this piece was just 1 or 2 pages only.

The image you tried to give your reader was vivid, and I applaud you for that.

Some nitpicks:

I looked out of the window of the airplane that I was sitting in

I cant explain what's wrong with this one except that I cant read it in a good flow, too many "of the". Try revising this sentence.

Suddenly something caught my eye

Is it eye or eyes?

He was over 6 feet tall and was very muscular he was wearing a black mask.

You can produce two sentences here.

Ok there were some more, about sentence flow...

But, it was an interesting piece...

I looked out of the window of the airplane that I was sitting in. Weak first sentence. The sight that I saw really shocked me. Telling, not showing. This made me go: Oh really? and not in a good way. In a sarcastic way. :/ The wing of the plane was on fire. This feels incredibly boring for something that should be exciting. An urgent voice said “Please fasten your seatbelt. Please remain calm.” Just now? You'd think they'd have said it before he noticed.

I could hear people shouting “What’s going on?” Some people who had realized what was happening started crying and asking the help of their gods. Me, I was too shocked to do or say anything. My mind could not process what was going on. Funny, cause he just told us a lot. Seems to be processing to me. :/ There just isn't enough fear in this.

Suddenly something caught my eye. The burning wing broke and our plane became one winged. The plane stared spiraling down. I was feeling a lot of force throughout my whole body. Feels really fake. I think there'd be more physics involved here. It felt as if all of my skin was going to peel of. I was facing g- force. /)-O As if in response to what I said. =.= Okay, I better clarify. Show the effects, but don't tell us what effect/law it is. But your MC feels really flat. An oxygen mask came right next to my face. It should have come out before the wing broke off. I tried to reach it but because of the g-force, I couldn’t. Nice of you to give that physics explanation

I closed my eyes; I knew that this was the end.



I woke up. It was just a dream. Yay. >> You have no idea how much this frustrates me. It's a false gimmick to get me onboard (no pun intended). I checked the time on my wrist watch; it was 3:33. I went to the kitchen for a midnight snack. I switched on the light in the kitchen. Laundry lsit. There was a man standing in front of me. Why not "A man stood in front of me."?

He was over 6 feet tall and was very muscular. First, show, don't tell. He was wearing a black mask.

He was certainly a thief. How does your MC know? Just say intruder. That’s not the worst part. He had pointed a gun towards me. The thief whispered, “Show me where your family keeps all the money. If you yell for help or anything like that. I shoot, okay.” Stiff dialogue.

I could hear my heart beating, and it was beating fast. Not a big surprise. I was certain that the thief could hear my heart beating too. I could feel the sweat coming out my forehead slowly falling towards my cheeks. This sounds so strange and awkward.

This was what they meant by fear surging through your body. ...Thank you for that explanation. It was unneeded.

“Make it quick.” He said, “or bang- bang!” This last part made me smile, cause I heard it segue into a Lady Gaga song titled "Beautiful Dirty Rich".

I showed him the wardrobe where all of my family’s valuables were kept. The thief told me to face him.

“Sorry.” He whispered. I had seen that while I was showing the thief the way to the wardrobe he had put a silencer on his pistol. But before I could say anything the thief fired. :/

I woke up. Again? I could he hear my heart beating very fast. But after a few deep breaths it slowed down. I remembered very little of the dreams that I had. There were two of them. Something about a plane crash and a thief. There was one important thing that I remembered. A crazy but important thing.

It was something that I had seen in a movie few months ago. But I never thought that something like this was possible.

A dream within a dream.

And then I started to wonder, was I in reality or was I still dreaming? Nice. Inception reference.

Lots of problems with this, and I'm not sure where to start. oo"

First off, your MC is very reactive, and not proactive at all. You need a proactive protagonist because otherwise your MC simply isn't compelling enough to read about. What's the difference between a proactive and reactive protagonist?

A proactive protagonist wants something and works to achieve it. He triggers events instead of reacting to them. A reactive protagonist does not do anything until something happens to him, to which he reacts. But that's all he ever does - he reacts, never acts. If we go all physics on this, then think of a proactive person as the action, not the reaction. You want an MC who goes out and does things instead of waiting for things to happen to him. If we examine this piece, we realize he's always reacting and never quite doing anything. He sees the plane crashing. He doesn't even scream. oo" Just gets flattened against his seat. He sees a robber with a gun. He reacts, and not even very interestingly at that. You need your MC to want something. This is always a must. A character must always want something, else the conflict in the story will be weak.

This leads me to my second point. Your MC is weak, so his voice is non-existent. To pull off first-person successfully is a difficult task. I myself dislike first person for the reason it's so difficult. You need to have voice, and you need to know your character's rhythm, his speech patterns, his way of thinking. The voice is the most important bit, because otherwise your readers will wonder why it's not in third person instead if it's so bland. There must be something about your character that's like a firecracker, you know? Something interesting. Doesn't need to be loud. Could be as subtle as a dreamlike quality, or an obsessive tone. But it has to be something different, you know? You can't treat it like third person, which is what you did here.

For a first person narrative, this also lacks a lot of thoughts. For first person to completely work, we [the readers] must be there with your protagonist. Feel what he feels, know what he thinks. There are too few thoughts here to accomplish that, but that's also because your character feels bland as a piece of cardboard. There isn't much of a character here; he doesn't have any traits, any flaws, or even admirable values. Nothing at all. Show us the little things, like maybe how his eyes flicker to the phone when the robber points a gun at him, and how he gauges the distance between himself and the phone. Little details every once in a while can go a long way. ^^

You also have a tendency to tell, not show. Now I know you might have heard this a lot of times, but I had a difficult time understanding it myself. I'll try to explain as best I can.

Show not tell is easily summed up by Chekhov's saying : "Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of broken glass under the moonlight."

See? There's a stark difference. Another example of telling would be saying the queen is beautiful. Don't tell us that; show us how the whole court turns to look at her when she enters the room. How the men fixate on her and no other girl. But please don't sacrifice interiority (saying your character's feelings/thoughts) to show us everything. It's nice to know he's sweating and everything but you need to give us thoughts as well. (By the way, the physical reactions to fear here don't really feel solid.)

Lastly, I'll say one last thing that might fix all your problems. Give your MC a goal. That would certainly fix his reactiveness, and it wouldn't fix the lack of interiority but it could help tighten the plot. As it stands right now, the plot is all over the place and it feels rather weak. Have your MC reach for something. He wants to survive. Okay, show me he wants to survive and exactly what he's going to do to survive.

Hope this helped. PM me if you have questions.

Sincerely,

Octave

Well, my initial reaction is, "This seems like it should be haunting, but it's not." I think if you have something more happen, then it might be better. As it is, it's kinda anticlimactic and I felt like it wasn't really realistic. I would hazard a guess that you dream dreams within dreams all the time and don't even know it, which doesn't mean that this world is also a dream. Maybe I'm being to analytical.
I'm just disappointed he didn't have a good reason to believe his current state isn't reality. I mean, what if the dreams had just ended with the thief? What if he thought it was a dream and it turned out not to be?
Maybe that's what you were going for; people often think about stuff like that in the middle of the night as they're trying to go to sleep.
I guess in a way you did a surprise ending. And it's haunting me because of its mediocrity. I'm blaming you if I dream about raccoons escaping prison (Again. That was a horrible, horrible dream. It was so flipping boring I cannot describe).
So I grudgingly respect your story if, for nothing else, its realism. I would undoubtedly not know what to do if the plane wing burst into flames and, in dreams, there's often an unattainable goal like reaching for an oxygen mask.
Your realism rocks, I'm just disappointed...and i didn't like Inception, so...no hard feelin's, you did pretty good.

Hello,

First of all, I don't think that you have written the story to it's full potential. A plunging plane, for example is probably a whole lot more scarier than how you've written it. Surely you must be experiencing a roller coaster of emotions if you're in a plunging plane. The way you've written it seemed kind of flat. I know that it's a dream and you probably don't often perceive things the same through dreams, but you can still make it exciting by putting the fear and terror of the situtation in there.

Same goes to the second situation, the one with the man with the gun, it could be a lot more exciting. One way you can create the excitement would probably the old 'show, don't tell'. You can show the reader the sweat that trickled down your forehead as you placed one foot after another on the polished wooden floor. See how much more suspenseful and interesting that is, instead of: I was afraid. Make the scene exciting, let us experience what the character is experiencing. It'll make your story more real and interesting.

With the end, I really liked the end, giving us this rhetorical quesiton to ponder over, I think that is a very powerful way to end the story.

Overall, I'd suggest you to put a little more 'show' and not 'tell'. Showing makes the story more exciting. That's all. Keep writing!