Visualization and Reading/Writing?

[Negrek]

Some of the cooler research I've heard about recently has looked at aphantasia and how different people are in their ability to visualize things, so I thought it would be fun to see how people on the forum experience reading and writing. When you're reading, do you see a full picture of what's happening in your mind's eye, and is it very detailed? If not, do you perhaps hear the words, as though someone were telling you a story, or is it something more abstract?

On the flip side, how does it work when you're writing a story? Do you see scenes and characters in your mind and try to transcribe what happens, focus on the language itself rather than seeing a picture? Something else?

When I'm reading, I do automatically visualize what's going on in the story, although I'm still reading the words and can vaguely hear them at the same time. Generally the more engaging I find a scene, the less I notice the actual prose. My overall visualizations aren't great, and tend to be pretty foggy aside from whatever the text is focusing on right that instant. They're also pretty much exclusively visual; I can "hear" characters talking, but only in my own mental voice, so I've never been able to do the thing where people discuss who would voice their characters. If you asked me if a particular person sounded like one of my characters, I could tell you yes or no... Like, a wrong voice will sound wrong for them, but if you asked me to name who they sounded like I'd never be able to tell you.

Writing for me is basically the process in reverse; I do see a cinematic of sorts of what's going on in the scene, and it does have words attached to it... I transcribe the words, more or less, as the process of writing. My visualization still isn't great, though, which is probably why I've never put a lot of emphasis on visual descriptions. Also, because I tend to get only a small clear area that I can "see" at a time, often the spatial relationships between people/things are a bit foggy, since I focus on one thing at a time and not the whole. Apparently there are some people who can map out the entire layout of a building and know where everything is and super notice when things move around inappropriately in a scene, and it blows my mind because you could sneak all kinds of absolutely nonsensical layouts past me, I would never notice a thing!

 

[Alira]

I mainly see the story happening inside my head through visualization with a mix of narration when reading, though my mind comes up with what's being seen or how characters look if I don't know how they actually look and descriptions of them are lost on me sometimes(Case in point was when I read the Hunger Games for the first time, I visualized Katniss as Lyra from the Golden Compass movie and it's stuck with me ever since) which results in SO much confusion when either something like a movie or a piece of art of a scene comes out and it's not how I saw it in my head.

As with when writing... Unless I've daydreamed the scene to DEATH to where it's playing out in my head as I type, I have a general sense of what's going on as it's happening in my head right then and there cause I have abstract thoughts as it is so no narration at all, but nothing is solid until I've typed it out, so many of my stuff has been written like that and it's not even funny. However, when I'm writing certain scenes(namely the last flashback in Chapter 5 of Reflections), the scene is playing out in my head and I'm trying to transcribe everything that's going on as fast as I can, usually to the tune of the song that fits the scene which I may need to loop certain parts for until I'm done.

 

[DeliriousAbsol]

My imagination is pretty vivid. Stories play out when I'm reading, like a video. The characters have their own voices, and I can visualize the characters quite well. Some voices get re-used, and I can sometimes trace them back to voice actors/actresses. Locations tend to be places I've visited/lived in their layouts. Sometimes this can frustrate me, because I want to picture somewhere else or someplace completely unique, but it just doesn't happen XD

Writing is a similar process. I can picture things clearly, characters have their own voices, and I have to write down what is going on. Describing buildings can be a bit tough, though. Office and apartment blocks are easiest for me, which is probably why there are so many of them in my writing. The most unusual place for me to write, that I enjoyed and could picture because it wasn't a building, was the underground city - New City - in The End. Pika's Place is a similar setting in that regard, too. I cannot think of anywhere IRL that I may have based that off.

On topic, this has fascinated me too as I'd not realised that not EVERYONE can do this. My husband, for example, has no picture memory and cannot visualize things, which in turn means he can't draw as he can't hold the image in his head to get it onto paper. He is an avid reader though, and goes through books super fast!

 

[kyeugh]

this is an interesting topic, but i've never really given much thought about how it impacts the writing process! neat thread.

i can visualize things if i need to, but it's kind of exerting if that makes sense. visualization is definitely not an automatic process for me when it comes to reading, and it doesn't really come into the picture as far as writing goes. thinking about it now, this probably shows through a bit in my writing, heh. to me, fiction (both read and written) is a series of events that i understand logically, and descriptions paint an atmosphere for me rather than an image. for that reason, stuff like explaining EXACTLY how stuff looks—outfits and buildings/rooms are the biggest offenders—is dreadfully boring to me, because it usually serves no purpose except to paint a mental image that i'm not constructing. so it's basically useless.

to me, writing like that has always seemed kind of self-indulgent, but looking at this thread now, it seems like the people writing just have a much sharper mind's eye than i do, and i'm willing to bet there are a lot of readers who are really drawn in by that stuff, huh?

that said, i do have a pretty clear idea of what my characters look and sound like. i think it's because i do art/voices, so i've kind of made their appearances and sounds real to the senses, and that makes it a lot easier for me to imagine. completely fabricated scenes only brought into reality through prose, not so much. i think one of my biggest weaknesses is imagining how a scene pans out spatially, because that stuff barely computes with me in the real world. i kind of write so that it doesn't come up, heh. i have a hard time following stories that put emphasis on the spatial positioning of things, though.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Ohh, this is a fun topic!

So, I'm a verbal learner and a verbal thinker, so it only stands to reason that my reading/writing process is verbal first. But it's not as though I can't visualize--words just take priority. And it's a little different depending on whether it's reading or writing:

So, for reading, I hear all the words in my head, yes, and then visuals come afterward in short, disconnected bursts. I'm very sensitive to things like rhythm and cadence of prose being off, almost like music in a way (note: I know nothing at all about music, I have no idea if this analogy is appropriate lol.) So for me, I'm less drawn to thinks like descriptions that paint pretty images because the visualization really isn't all that important. But if the flow of the words themselves is pleasing, I'll be more drawn to it. I also really, really love reading descriptions for abstract things like emotional states. Since I don't even need to visualize that, I can get lost in it easier.

Meanwhile, if you were to ever look at my in-progress writing, you'd see that I rarely write in complete sentences. The prose comes to me in small bursts of words and phrases that evoke the feeling I'm trying to convey. Then, when I go back and stitch all the disconnected fragments together, I start to get a visualization of it. That's why I like describing emotional states so much, because as a comic writer, characters' facial expressions are the only thing that I see in perfect detail. Also I'm very fussy about wording my sentences such that the reader will most likely put the emphasis on the right words. I really, really want people to "hear" the sentence the exact same way that I did. This probably doesn't make sense for readers who don't hear text as they read, aha. But I'm still gonna do it, lol.

Also, a couple people have brought up spatial positioning. Here's a weird one: I keep very close track of all my characters' spatial positioning... but not in a visual way! It's more like a... lookup table. X's location: over there, doing Y. W's location: overhead, trying to get closer to the fight. Z's location, suddenly right here. I just sort of consult the mental lookup table to decide whether it's appropriate to describe a character's actions or not. This lets me safely ignore characters for stretches of time so long as I know they're somewhere doing something. I just don't have to render them until it's needed. Kind of like a video game unloading offscreen assets. :P

 

[DawningWinds]

Visualization for me in reading isn't much. I can picture a character, and will do so when said character is described, but unless the author goes to great lengths to describe the setting, I only visualize a set moment, and I can't do so without pausing my reading. I don't exactly hear the words as a reader, either. More like... I don't know how to describe it, but I kind of become the narrator, I guess... sort of as if I'm writing down what happens around me, but I don't see it.

When writing, I always try to visualize important scenes before writing them down. I can visualize what's happening, and not just a single instant like what I do when reading, I can visualize the whole scene... But I can't do that at the same time as I do the writing. I don't know why, but I can't visualize alongside the words.



What I'm saying is, I can visualize, just not at the same time as I read or write. I always know what all the characters look like (and sound like, to some extent), but don't bring it to mind except for a few moments at a time, and never at the same time as I read/write.

 

[WildBoots]

I didn’t realize that being able to read in a character’s voice wasn’t a given — just finished reading an email from a friend and immediately heard her voice in my head as I did. If I’m reading a narrative, my inner eye kicks into gear almost immediately. When I’m really into it, I forget I’m reading at all. I’m a fast reader when I get going. When I get too excited I start skimming and might skip passages — oops.

When writing, it’s a mix. First drafts, I write what I’m visualizing. Parts of my visuals are clear and others are always blurry, like in dreams. Sometimes writing it down locks in an image. Does having a beaky nose fit this character? Oh yeah — great, now they have it abs I can picture it. But I definitely have a sense of space in a room most of the time, can picture how characters would stand or move or take up space. Often, like Absol said, I’m describing a place I already know from real life. I’m sure I could make up a different space if I needed to, but I usually use it as a shorthand to keep myself from lingering too long on a less important detail. Less fussing about what this street looks like and more fussing about the tense conversation that happens there. No one but me is likely to recognize the reused space anyway.

Editing, the other half of the battle, usually has more to do with the words — do they convey what I meant?

 

[Starlight Aurate]

I didn’t realize that being able to read in a character’s voice wasn’t a given — just finished reading an email from a friend and immediately heard her voice in my head as I did. If I’m reading a narrative, my inner eye kicks into gear almost immediately. When I’m really into it, I forget I’m reading at all. I’m a fast reader when I get going. When I get too excited I start skimming and might skip passages — oops.

Same here. I always read in a person's voice, including things in real life. If I don't know what someone's voice sounds like, I have a sort of "default" for men and women that plays differently. And I tend to skip things very, very often.

If it's a novel or a scene, I always imagine it out as I read it. Someone once described it as "a TV playing in their head," and I think that's a pretty fitting description. I usually imagine things looking like in real life, although if it's a 'fic then I usually picture it as an anime.

When writing, I uuuusually play it out in my mind (if it's Pokemon, then I play it out like it's the anime [the first few seasons, not the current designs]) and try to document what happens. If there's something that I know needs to be written but for the life of me cannot imagine it out, then I'll outline it and add details to the outline until I can get something concrete down. My practice of seeing everything and copying it down is why my first drafts always have ridiculously long sentences with people doing/thinking/feeling every thing and including an overabundance of what the reader needs to know. Editing is a pain for me, because I never want to post anything until it is absolutely ~perfect~ but then I always feel like it can always be improved and is thus never perfect. So in editing I either tend to crop out a lot and leave it very bare-bones or I still haven't cropped out enough and my writing is overly fluffy.