Do You Visualize?

Hi Buffy

You know I've never really thought about it in detail before so I'll try my best to answer your question, though I'm not sure if I'll be able to explain it very well.

In some ways you are probably right in that I don't physically hear the sound etc but the 'awareness of it' is very intense.

When I read/write I can be so completely in the story that I can be quite unaware of what is going on around me. My senses are so engaged that is many ways it does feel like I am in the story.

I can often be oblivious to people talking to me, other sounds around me etc. I have had many comments from family and friends about this and most know that to get my attention (to bring me back in the real world as it were) that they have to say my name 2 or 3 times, tap me on the arm and so on.

Over the years I have gotten better at keeping an ear out while still being in the story - I guess I have just learned to turn the volume down

- I just mentioned this post to my partner and he laughed saying that yes I get completely engaged in my reading/writing and that he has learned that it can take a couple of attempts to bring me back to earth - his words not mine! so I guess that I am still not very good with this.

I approach writing a scene as if I was a fly on the wall watching the action or conversation play out over and over, each time noticing some new detail. I'm not the strongest visualizer, but I can get there with probably a bit more effort than the average person. I think it is key to creating texture with your description. Granted, some authors go overboard and write down every detail of what they're seeing, which robs the reader of filling in some of the blanks themselves and also slows the pace of the story.

I also Visualize as I write, and I also "listen" to what my characters have to say in my minds eye. Its hard to type fast enough to keep up with the dialoge some times, and during re-reads and edits they ofter change their responses, as a person would respond differently base on his or her mood.

I feel this get the most compelling dialog.


So I am right there with you, I could not imagen a person writing without visualizing what they are writing. It would be the equivalent of making a wish without hoping.

For me, visualization is always the second step in a two-step iterative process: 1) think of or "feel" what to visualize; 2) visualize it. I'm like Orchestra in that a visualization-first approach is not very efficient for me, even though I can visualize very vividly. I nearly always do some amount of visualizing, but feelings and words are always my driving forces, so I can understand how people who visualize very little (or don't visualize at all) can produce fiction that's no worse than what a typical visualizer can produce.


For those who also compose music, how do your processes compare? I can audialize a full band playing--all the notes and timbres, usually. If something is very contrapuntal, I'll be able to "focus" on one part at once, and the other parts will meld into this sonic blur that's comparable to the out-of-focus part of a photograph, and like a camera changing its focus, I can switch my focus from part to part without "forgetting" what was in the other parts. And since it's a lot easier to transcribe a series of tones as notes than it is to transcribe a series of images as words (provided one has to transcribe a near-perfect reproduction of both the tones and imagery they originally envisaged), I always use an audialize-first approach when composing.

The weird thing is that I couldn't do this well when I was a teenager, and that in the past two years I haven't done that much music-related stuff.

Belld said:

I also Visualize as I write, and I also "listen" to what my characters have to say in my minds eye. Its hard to type fast enough to keep up with the dialoge some times, and during re-reads and edits they ofter change their responses, as a person would respond differently base on his or her mood.

I feel this get the most compelling dialog.


So I am right there with you, I could not imagen a person writing without visualizing what they are writing. It would be the equivalent of making a wish without hoping.

Click to expand...

I tried explaining this very thing to my grandma (albeit less eloquently than you did here) and I'm quite sure she thought I was a bit out of my mind. Fortunately she knows I'm a creative person so it's an acceptable "out of my mind"-ness.

I was working on a detail outline tonight -- working out the flow of scenes in note form -- and was thinking about this thread because the last couple of scenes have been a lot more visual than normal for me. I'd guess it's because I'm actively trying to figure out blocking, step-by-step what different characters are thinking/feeling/observing, as well as the general feel of each scene.

A couple of thoughts from this:
* Names matter. I switched from a placeholder to an actual name for a minor character, and he was suddenly a couple of years younger, different facial type and body type, and more clearly "visible".

* The "visuals" are still much more impressions than actual pictures. I know the "garden bedroom" has flower decor, maybe a fancy bedspread, art on the walls, flowers in a vase, a view over gardens and a hillscape. But I haven't needed the details yet, so my picture of the room is more just bright colors! flowers! plus the general impression of a bedroom. I know the dining hall tables are rickety and crammed together, but I couldn't tell you the layout of the hall or what the tables actually look like.

* Besides general impressions, the scene I've been over multiple times has a few snapshots in my head - main character leaning her chair back in the shadows, little boy looking up from where he's cleaning up a spill, newcomer a backlit blur from sunlight coming in the door. Little boy is pretty clearly borrowed from a movie I just saw. On the other hand, the scene I'm still hashing out has almost no visuals; it's all mental or verbal, snippets of thought. I know it takes place in the garden bedroom, but there's absolutely no connection between the colors! flowers! impression and this bare-bones-of-a-scene.