Young Writers Society

So, I'm working on a story (for the moment just a short story) that explores a fantasy world not too different from our own, except there is a parallel world. Basically, there is another world that you can enter when you dream. Doing so thrusts your spirit from your body into another dimension, where things are very different, yet strikingly similar.

What I picture is this: There are two courts, the human court (which rules our world) and the fairy court (which rules the dream world). They establish the Warders, or the protectors of the divide. Their job is to make sure the peace and balance is maintained across the worlds. There are fairy warders and human warders, and each live in their respective worlds, but they hold authority in the other world (I.E. A human warder would hold authority in the dream world).

I want the plot to focus on a kid in school who is inducted into swerving the warders, most likely through some obscure legal loophole or some kind. From then on, its him trying to stay in touch with his life while learning the trades of his new job.

I have a general idea of the conflict I want to happen, but there are some things that concern me with the idea, so I'll list those out below.

1. How do they transfer their minds between worlds?
Right now, I'm just going to say that they can do it at will, without even falling asleep. Time in the dream world runs differently, so the way I think it would work is that you shift into the dream world, and no matter how long you stay there, very little time passes, and your body can still act on its own. With normal people this would never work, as they do not have the connection with the dream world that the wardens have.

2. What happens if they die in the dream world?
they die in the real world because their minds have a stronger connection.

3. How distinct are the worlds?
I want this to kind of work like Inception, where you can be pulled in at any moment, by anyone, especially around twilight and sunrise, where the boundary is 'thin'. Not sure how this would work story wise, but it seems like it could induce some chaos.

So I was wondering if anyone else had experimented with this idea, or had any advice/ things to look out for. Thanks in advance for all help.

Well, about the transferring, it could just happen you know? Like when people say they just suddenly know how to solve the worlds problems, well it could be kind of the same. Suddenly their world just fades and a new one replaces it. The merge could even be kind of slow.

I am not sure how this is going to work as a short story. From the feeling I got and what you said I think it would make a novel or a reallly long short story. Because there is so much to be explained. Stuff you can't just explain or it will seem cliche. The boy needs to discover things everything won't just be told to him and that will take a while in his time. I just think that this great idea won't be so great if you try to cram it into a few thousand words.

I also think a ton could be added to this if something is going wrong with his normal life before he discovers the different worlds and you kind of connect everything together, as long as you do it in a original, un-fairytale/un-moiveish with happy ending way.

This probably didn't help,

A. S.

well what ways would you recommend as un-fairytalish because I also think that this is very important?

Dreamscapes can easily get cliched, so I want to know how to keep it as original as possible, for as long as possible.

And yes, everything you said was very helpful, but another question, what happens to their body when they are in our world? and is there a limit to when they can phase?

Un-fairytalish... hmm don't have an easy happy ending. Try to keep your ideas really original, make old ideas your own. Make all characters have faults. ummm well, I kind have to see it to point out if you have fairytalish.

Well, they could still be conscience, but a daydreaming kind of conscience like they probably would stop walking and someone talking to them (if they didn't zone them out) would bring them out of their trance. Like, they look as if they are just staring off into space maybe. It is really up to you, but that is what I would do. I suppose this way it wouldn't affect them too much because you said that days in the other world could be seconds in ours... I suppose when they could trance would just be when they could zone the world out and not pay attention to their surroundings.

Any other questions?

sorta... if they can transfer between the two worlds then how can they truly do their job (as in guard the boundary?) and if they can phase out whenever they want that makes them invincible, because they can just fade out when they are about to die, then come back when its safe. Need to work that out... Maybe they do have to sleep, or enter some kind of trance, then in order to get out they have to be 'kicked', which would eject them from a dream, sort of like inception.

Well, just play with it. I was thinking they can't control when they go in or come out they just sort of do. I am not sure about the boundary thing.

Guess I'll just have to write and see what comes out