In Dreams

[summer grace]

Flash Fiction

In dreams, Courtney had the life she wanted and imagined. She felt she had lived her whole life in a daydream while her actual life preceded to be nothing like her daydreams because she rarely got out of her daydreams enough to realize her daydreams weren't her real life. It was a problem most people don't have either because they aren't dreamers and are content with their lot in life, or because most people go out and fulfill their dreams.


Courtney watched the sunset from a beach. She saw the sun's rays start to set over the blue July water. Courtney heard the cry of the sea gulls around her. She walked along the sand and picked up a glass bottle that had washed up from who knows where. The blue glass of the bottle blended in with the blue sky, and the blue sea. She lifted up the bottle and saw it had no cork and was empty.There was no message in this bottle, it was just an old liquor bottle, that was all. She picked it up smiling and threw it into the sea, far off the shore. The lights of the buildings near the water blinked on in the twilight, and she felt a warm presence around her, on a July evening.

Courtney was half asleep daydreaming in bed in the morning. She was near a beach and near water in her mind. In dreams, she was happy and free and lived in a warm state faraway from the cold Midwest. In reality, she only woke up because she noticed out of the corner of her eye beyond the white curtains, there was something more white. Snow. It had snowed. Courtney got up to look and see how much snow, which she hated, had shown up. Her dreams were gone and reality stared her in the face as she looked out and saw quite a bit of snow had arrived during the night in the Midwest town.



Why didn't she ever try to get out here?, she thought to herself. Well, maybe it was because she never got out of her dreams enough to make practical plans in life. In dreams, everything was so much easier and you could be with whoever you wanted or wherever you wanted without having to do anything scary or hard to get what you wanted.

[Carousel]

From the opening I was expecting a story i.e. a beginning, middle and end but it petered out for the want of a plot. Try not to repeat the same words, for example, ‘daydreams’ or daydream occur four times in the opening four lines.

Be careful of your phrasing. She saw the sun's rays start to set over the blue July water.
It seems you are saying July is blue rather than the water.

Advice—Get the plot in your head before writing. I always get the end in my mind first and then it’s just a matter of getting there. Base characters on people you know, it helps them to become believably to the reader.

Hope this helps.

Cari.

[108 fountains]

Carousel makes some good points, but I think that for flash fiction, it's okay if the plot is a little thin. I would suggest deleting the entire first paragraph - it's just unnecessary. The rest of the story "shows" what the first paragraph "tells." The second paragraph is good except you might want to say "felt a warmth around her" instead of "felt a warm presence around her." "Warm presence" makes me think there is someone or some entity near her, and I don't think that's your intention.
The third paragraph needs shortening after "In reality..." Maybe something really short like, "In reality, she awoke and noticed from behind the white curtains how much snow had fallen during the night. She hated snow. Her dreams were gone and reality stared her in the face."
Last paragraph is okay, but I think it would be better if you stayed with the third person instead of switching to the second person in the last sentence: "...she could be with whoever she wanted or wherever she wanted..."