How Dreams Became Part of Valentine Kingdom

A lot of ideas for Valentine Kingdom came from normal imagination, things I experienced, thoughts I had or simply something that appeared in my mind while writing. But some ideas came from somewhere a little stranger — dreams.

I have always had dreams that sometimes feel unusually detailed. Most disappear almost immediately after waking up, but every now and then something stays with me. It can be a place, a person, a situation or just a feeling that I cannot really explain.

I normally do not remember the entire dream. I remember pieces of it, and sometimes those pieces are enough.

Dreams Give Me Something to Start With

A dream might give me a strange building, a forest, a road, a room or an entire place that does not exist anywhere in real life. Sometimes I remember what happened there, but other times I only remember how the place felt.

That feeling can actually be more interesting to me than the dream itself.

I might wake up remembering somewhere that felt peaceful, dangerous, distant or strangely familiar. Then I start thinking about it normally. What could that place be? What is around it? Who would live there? Why did it feel that way?

That is usually where the dream ends and imagination takes over.

I do not sit down and decide that everything I dream needs to become part of Valentine Kingdom. Most of it never will. But when something stays in my mind for a long time, I normally keep it somewhere because I know I might use part of it later.

I Change Almost Everything

I would never take a dream and simply put it into a book exactly as it happened.

Dreams usually make very little sense once you are awake. People appear for no reason, places change suddenly and things that seemed completely normal while dreaming can sound ridiculous five minutes later.

For me, a dream is more like raw material.

Maybe I keep the place but change everything that happened there. Maybe one person gives me an idea for a completely different character. Sometimes I only keep one emotion or one strange detail and build something new around it.

By the time an idea actually reaches Valentine Kingdom, it may have changed so much that nobody could ever know it started with a dream.

I still know, though. 😀

Some Ideas Wait for a Long Time

I also do not force an idea into the book just because I like it.

If something does not belong in The Eternal Prince, I leave it alone. Maybe it fits another book. Maybe it belongs somewhere else in Valentine Kingdom. Maybe I will understand what to do with it years later.

I actually like keeping ideas this way.

Sometimes something that seemed completely useless suddenly connects with another idea much later. A place from one dream can fit something I imagined months afterward. Two things that originally had nothing to do with each other can eventually become part of the same story.

That is one of the reasons Valentine Kingdom became larger than just one book for me. I wanted enough space for ideas to grow without having to use everything immediately.

Dreams are only one part of where the world comes from, but they are an interesting part because they sometimes give me something I would probably never think of deliberately.

A dream can last a few minutes and disappear.

But sometimes one small piece stays.

And years later, that piece can become part of Valentine Kingdom.