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Icheb
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11 Feb 2008, 5:19 am

In general, I have difficulties picturing characters and places while reading a story, unless it's a movie tie-in or TV spin-off where I've got some pre-existing images to draw on. (Come to think of it, that may be one reason why I loved reading Jules Verne as a kid, all those lovely copperplate illustrations!) Yet my mind seems to need some image, and what it tends to do is pick some place I've recently been, often a perfectly boring place like an empty corridor or a pedestrian underpass, and then I see all the characters (to the extent that I can picture them) acting out the plot in that place! I've had this problem for years (ever since I stopped reading Jules Verne, I think), and it's really annoying - however much I try to conjure up images of the places described in the story, my mind keeps reverting to the place I've been. Does anybody else have this bizarre problem?



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11 Feb 2008, 6:15 am

Yeah I think I do that but I've never considered it a problem. My characters are all faceless though.



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11 Feb 2008, 7:16 am

googlewhack wrote:
Yeah I think I do that but I've never considered it a problem. My characters are all faceless though.


faceless, or look like people i know. same for settings.
i have a real hard time sitting through a highly fantastical book. i -want- to read neil gaiman. i gather it's the kind of thing that i'd love. except he creates things without 'real' counterparts so i just can't force myself to read. one of these years i'll pick up sandman.


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Icheb
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11 Feb 2008, 11:36 am

RampionRampage wrote:
i have a real hard time sitting through a highly fantastical book.

I almost despaired the first time I read "The Lord of the Rings"! The only thing I could visualize were the Gates of Moria, because there was a picture of them in the book. Re-reading it ten years later with the first production stills from the forthcoming Peter Jackson movies in my mind was a totally different experience - I hugely enjoyed the book.



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12 Feb 2008, 2:06 am

I "cast" almost all of my book chracters. After establishing the characters personality and physical parameters if they are there, I think of what actors or real people would play that character well. I know I've used some people more than once, just like they were starring in different movies. It makes the story extremely vivid, because once I know what they look like, I have no problem directing the scene in my head. Same thing with scenery, alot of it is cut and paste, but scenes are much easier to conjure up spontaneously than people so I have little problem there.

The only problem with that is when the author decides to reveal a little tidbit about what the character looks like or how old they are after I've already cast someone that's incompatible with the new description. Then I have no choice but to quickly cast someone else, and I do not like doing that. It's just as annoying as a movie sequel with someone different playing a significant character. I wish novelists would be a little more sensitive to that. They should have an appendix that describes exactly what each character is sopposed to look like unless they leave it entirely up to the reader.



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12 Feb 2008, 9:20 am

When I read fiction the words get turned into a movie in my mind, it's extremely vivid and is a major source of the enjoyment I get from reading fiction and is why I love science fiction and fantasy.


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pgd
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07 Sep 2010, 6:51 pm

Icheb wrote:
In general, I have difficulties picturing characters and places while reading a story, unless it's a movie tie-in or TV spin-off where I've got some pre-existing images to draw on. (Come to think of it, that may be one reason why I loved reading Jules Verne as a kid, all those lovely copperplate illustrations!) Yet my mind seems to need some image, and what it tends to do is pick some place I've recently been, often a perfectly boring place like an empty corridor or a pedestrian underpass, and then I see all the characters (to the extent that I can picture them) acting out the plot in that place! I've had this problem for years (ever since I stopped reading Jules Verne, I think), and it's really annoying - however much I try to conjure up images of the places described in the story, my mind keeps reverting to the place I've been. Does anybody else have this bizarre problem?


---

There is a big difference between words and pictures (my view).

If a person reads a story with no pictures, then a person has to use her/his imagination to invent mental images of what the words mean.

Some writers can describe things more clearly so mental images are easier to form.

If a person reads a picture book with pictures of say the Eiffel Tower in Paris, then there is a real black and white or color image to look at.

If a person is lucky enough to visit Paris and see the Eiffel Tower in person, then all previous images of the Eiffel tower from words to photographs are rearranged to match the real tower.

Persons' abilities to imagine things can vary a lot.

Gifted sculptors can see images in blocks of marble before they carve.

Some persons can have glitches where the images in their brain/mind are not stable but appear more as flickering neon lights vs neon lights fully working.

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/apraxia/apraxia.htm

About visualization

http://www.grove.com/

Some persons can be very aware that at some times of the day they can visualize things a little easier than at other times of the day.

It's a big topic with many variables.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_image



Philologos
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07 Sep 2010, 9:05 pm

I generally KNOW characters - know which are closest to me ands which are possible friends.

But I do not have images. In fact, I do not really have visual records of most people, except for a few flashes and instances where I have a photograph.



jpfudgeworth
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07 Sep 2010, 9:12 pm

I always involuntarily assign a famous actor to written characters, even if the description does not match the person I picture. Its irritating.



DandelionFireworks
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07 Sep 2010, 10:44 pm

I usually make up the models for characters out of whole cloth (I hate it when they're contradicted by later description... even more so when the description is itself at fault), but I sometimes reuse settings. (More often when I was younger.)

I can usually picture everything except the faces. Eyes I can sometimes see, mouths sometimes, more often no face. (I'll see certain parts when they're described, though.)

Usually, I have pretty good images of them and the whole thing plays out like a movie, with the characters even having certain voices that just seem right.

This gives me some idea of which books would make the best movies. (Hawkspar! Someday they'll make it into a movie!) Unfortunately, they never cast the right people. They've got the most awful guy as Jaime Lannister, who doesn't even look like the person they've cast to play his twin. *sigh* And he's a character whose face I can see in pieces fairly well (not all together, though), too, and guess what the actor's face doesn't look at all like.

I usually visualize settings well enough, though. (This is what I don't like about illustrations.) I love it when books go into detail. The only thing is when they describe things I've never seen
(porphyry,the first time I read the word, for instance).


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08 Sep 2010, 2:44 am

Pithlet wrote:
I "cast" almost all of my book chracters. After establishing the characters personality and physical parameters if they are there, I think of what actors or real people would play that character well. I know I've used some people more than once, just like they were starring in different movies. It makes the story extremely vivid, because once I know what they look like, I have no problem directing the scene in my head. Same thing with scenery, alot of it is cut and paste, but scenes are much easier to conjure up spontaneously than people so I have little problem there.

The only problem with that is when the author decides to reveal a little tidbit about what the character looks like or how old they are after I've already cast someone that's incompatible with the new description. Then I have no choice but to quickly cast someone else, and I do not like doing that. It's just as annoying as a movie sequel with someone different playing a significant character. I wish novelists would be a little more sensitive to that. They should have an appendix that describes exactly what each character is sopposed to look like unless they leave it entirely up to the reader.

Wow. That's almost exactly what I do.


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TheDoctor82
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08 Sep 2010, 5:35 am

Icheb wrote:
In general, I have difficulties picturing characters and places while reading a story, unless it's a movie tie-in or TV spin-off where I've got some pre-existing images to draw on. (Come to think of it, that may be one reason why I loved reading Jules Verne as a kid, all those lovely copperplate illustrations!) Yet my mind seems to need some image, and what it tends to do is pick some place I've recently been, often a perfectly boring place like an empty corridor or a pedestrian underpass, and then I see all the characters (to the extent that I can picture them) acting out the plot in that place! I've had this problem for years (ever since I stopped reading Jules Verne, I think), and it's really annoying - however much I try to conjure up images of the places described in the story, my mind keeps reverting to the place I've been. Does anybody else have this bizarre problem?



I hear ya; unless I see some pictures, I just can't wrap my mind around someone else's literary word.

In fact, after failing to make it thru Harry Potter book 4, I adamantly refused to read Lord of the Rings, due to a desire not to dishonor them.



pgd
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08 Sep 2010, 7:28 am

DandelionFireworks wrote:
I usually make up the models for characters out of whole cloth (I hate it when they're contradicted by later description... even more so when the description is itself at fault), but I sometimes reuse settings. (More often when I was younger.)

I can usually picture everything except the faces. Eyes I can sometimes see, mouths sometimes, more often no face. (I'll see certain parts when they're described, though.)

Usually, I have pretty good images of them and the whole thing plays out like a movie, with the characters even having certain voices that just seem right.

This gives me some idea of which books would make the best movies. (Hawkspar! Someday they'll make it into a movie!) Unfortunately, they never cast the right people. They've got the most awful guy as Jaime Lannister, who doesn't even look like the person they've cast to play his twin. *sigh* And he's a character whose face I can see in pieces fairly well (not all together, though), too, and guess what the actor's face doesn't look at all like.

I usually visualize settings well enough, though. (This is what I don't like about illustrations.) I love it when books go into detail. The only thing is when they describe things I've never seen
(porphyry,the first time I read the word, for instance).


---

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/pros ... gnosia.htm

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/apraxia/apraxia.htm (constructional apraxia)

With books with written words only, I may use a simple notebook and try to sketch, using a pen, a possible picture of what the book is describing.

At the same time, I am very aware that words are limited, that is, J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter books) submitted drawings of what her stories are about but the publisher selected a different artist to do the book cover illustration(s).

What that means to me is that words (from some books) can be translated into mental pictures of almost an endless variety and what the reader sees (in their heads) may be different than what the author of the book sees (in her/his head). That, to me, is how reading works/can work.



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08 Sep 2010, 2:30 pm

My characters are faceless too. I can imagine houses, streets, all the city system, see them on the map. People are only objects with features, but without body.
When I think about person, I could draw them with description. But I prefer drawing objects from the books than people. I remember when I drew a shop inside and houses on Literature lesson (teacher wanted to show us how detailed description is), but I had problems with main character. He was nothing to me.


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08 Sep 2010, 5:58 pm

For me, it really depends on the book.

Sometimes I'll read a book where the settings are real-life locations, and the author figures they're well-known enough to not go into detail about them...other times there's so much detail that I can see everything very clearly, and I've even had movie adaptations look exactly how I imagined them (though at the moment I can't remember which book/movie that was).

As for characters, I'm not really sure...I guess sometimes it depends on how much I like the character, or if I have a flash of inspiration, or if there's plenty of detail, or sometimes I just decide that a certain character would look best as a certain famous actor or whatever...

Though I find it interesting that when I'm listening to radio dramas, often I hear an actor's voice and I can just picture what sort of face would go with it. Like someone else said, though, it always goes kind of haywire when they later reveal some physical feature that contradicts what I was picturing.

I'm still trying to picture Lois Lane with brown eyes, but my brain doesn't want to cooperate :x


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08 Sep 2010, 6:03 pm

SabbraCadabra wrote:
I'm still trying to picture Lois Lane with brown eyes, but my brain doesn't want to cooperate :x


Buy her some contacts. :lol: