When reading a story or novel

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It doen't mater whether the characters are well described or not, I just don't picture them in my head. I also have to read the first part of the book, then the last half of the last chapter to see how it ends, then I go back and read the rest of the book. Same with DVD films. Have to know the ending.

I'm a professional and published writer of fantasy and dark horror stories...and although many of my tales have been published and my characters are frequently described as vivid, I usually have NO IDEA what they look like myself. I usually can perfectly grasp their clothing styles, personal tastes, habits, and even verbal dialects but they are physically formless to me even as I create them. No face, no height, weight, or physical descriptions at all - unless they have horns, or tentacles or twelve eyes and that has something to do with the plot of the story. To me they are more "flavored". If I describe someone as Goth - and mention some of the Goth tastes or dialects or reading habits, that is frequently enough.

I have also had readers and editors congratulate me on my ability to capture the person without getting bogged down in physical - 5 foot 2, eyes of blue - descriptions or adjectives. What they don't seem to realize is that this has nothing to do with a refinement of prose or a writing style but rather my personal scotomas as far as faces and so on are concerned.

I actually recognize my family and friends and even my lover more by voice, vocal tone, vocal idiom, body language and mannerisms, or favorite items of clothing, favorite foods, and habits. Ask my Dad. Or my fiancee. I have failed to recognize both of them when I saw them in unusal circumstances.

And in movies, I have the same problem - if a plot twist hinges on recognizing someone's face, I will miss it completely. I recognize even celebrities by their voices and core body language - and yes, even actors have traits they cannot change, look up kinesiology for more info on that if you want. So I won't realize that the 30 pictures are all of, say, Brittany Spears if her color, length or presence change from image to image.

I require motion, speech, or tonal quality and my tales tend to have characters described by their dialects, favotire hand gestures, or personal tastes. A smoking southern judge who rubs his hand through his hair, for example - but if you asked me for more, face, eye color, mustache, levels of obesity - well, even as I create Judge Harvard Lavender of Caldia, Louisiana, - his favorite tobacco is Cherry blunts, he dtrinks Southern Comfort, he likes Meryl Haggard, and drives a Chevrolet. He has a wife and ten kids, four of them girls. And a cat, which "h'aint traditonal, I know, but hounds jus' stank" - I could not tell you.
I have no idea what he sees in the mirror.

And I'd love to hear from any other writers pro, amatuer, or dabbler about how this works for them as well. (No ego tripping here - to the tale, y'all, not he who tells it - I don't care if you're Stephen King or Joe Blow fr Kokomo - so I'll be hitting this post often and also welcome any private messages on the topic.