How do you pull off a premonition scene?

[taylorpitts545]

I want to do a dream sequence of (let's just say Character A) foreseeing an event of Character B getting stabbed. How do you show a character viewing the future without redrawing the exact same scene twice?

I just want everything to flow naturally.

[IdiotWithPencil]

draw it as sketchy and surreal as possible, it's a dream go wild! or atleast that's what I would do (their's this movie where the dude straight up dream his son as a lamb going to slaughter as a lamb with the head of his sun and a blade spinning in the middle of him, dream are weird man : /

[tayo_rafferty]

Be careful. Premonitions about a character's death are the kind of story trope that many consider cliche.

[taylorpitts545]

The character getting stabbed will be revealed to have regeneration powers (haha a twist!) Superpowers have already been established in this universe though so it won't be forced

[J.Lovelace]

You can show a scene like this: Character A dreams about a coffin, and when they open the lid, there's Character B in it. To emphasize the fact it was stabbing, let's say Character B wears all white, but there's red roses in the place where the wound is supposed to be.
That way everyone knows something bad may happen, but they don't know how it'll happen, and you don't have to draw the scenes twice.

If you want different scenes, I can come up with something else.

[indagold]

You can add dream logic and make it very surreal, do research on dreams and dream phenomenon to give it an extra edge without it being too blatant. Or just use your dreams/nightmares and take a twist at that! After all it is your creations.

[shazzbaa]

I like the surreal suggestions! Alternate thought: if enough time passes between the two scenes, why not draw the same scene twice?

For some reason an example that springs to mind is the movie Inception -- there are these weird repeating motifs that come up every time the main character's dreams intrude on the scene, and the thing that makes them eerie is that they are similar, often shot-for-shot, that exact same moment in a different context, so that these moments of recognition start to serve as a quiet warning that something is wrong.

So if you see the premonition, and later, if you start seeing the exact same moment play out and recognise it, that can be a source of tension, too. A character saying the exact same thing with the exact same expression, or a shot down an alleyway that's.... wait a second, that's the exact same shot from that premonition........ while this time, we see the character who saw this vision react with horrified recognition -- that could honestly also be used to good effect!

[taylorpitts545]

Oh that's a great idea! (And now I have a reason to finally check out Inception lol)

[Michelle]

If the character is forseeing these events, wouldn't it make sense to see it from their point of view? You could do the premonition scene as if we're seeing it from their eyes, and the actual scene can be more of a third-person view. Though, I'm working under the assumption that either the psychic character is A) Present at the death scene or B) can supernaturally be present.

You can even use this method to reveal information in one scene that wouldn't be shown in another, adding another layer to the storytelling.