Dream Sequence
So my younger sister, the one that does the art for The Exile, and I occasionally have chit-chats about writing. She's more of an artist that a storytelller, but being an animator and an avid reader she does do some storytelling and lots of critiquing. Anyway I asked her her opinion on dream sequences in stories. In her opinion with the exception of premonitions dream sequences are were lazy storytelling. Any writer would do better to use subtext to show readers a character's anxieties or wishes. Initially I objected to this, but then she pointed out that rather than using dream time a character could be having a waking interaction with another character or characters which would allow one scene to tell us something about several different characters. I'm a huge fan of word economy in storytelling so creating a scene that does double or triple duty is always good thing in my opinion. Still I am curious to what some other writers think.