The Fox's Secret

Since I just shared the post-apocalyptic story I began after having a post-apocalyptic dream, I thought I would share this video that was created by my alter-ego over at YouTube.  It’s set to a really haunting “bonus track” from an AFI album.  It’s probably not the best video I ever made, but it is my favorite.  I called it “Ashes”.

After reading the dream from the previous post, you might ask yourself how I could start to write a story from it.  After all, it would be an odd story indeed that took place during the aftermath of a nuclear war that took place during the Clinton presidency.  What would I need to explain something like that?  Some weird time travel or alternate universe timeline?  That’s a bit far-fetched, even for me.  If you’re writing a poem, some bizarre juxtapositions might help you out.  But if you want to write a story, it’s best if you at least make it plausible.

So the first thing you need to do in writing a dream story is to discard anything that you just can’t find an explanation for at all.  The next thing to do is focus not so much on the events but on the overall feel of the dream–what emotions did it evoke.  In the dream that I had, the primary feelings I felt were about fearing death and doing whatever it took to survive.  That’s what I decided to make my story about.  And the most critical event that brought all of those feelings to a head was the point where I had to drown another human being to save my own life.  So that’s where I started.  And this was the beginning of a story I came up with:

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