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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote surnica Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 12:25pm
Originally posted by taaaylor taaaylor wrote:

Originally posted by amlewi08 amlewi08 wrote:

Originally posted by AmandaM AmandaM wrote:

This is a really interesting question. 

I'm not very visual--I can't really see things in my head easily. So as a reader, my eyes tend to glaze over at long visual descriptions of objects or locations. I don't "see" what's being described, so it tends to read as a laundry list. And if I try to write that kind of visual description, it sounds like a laundry list  So I rely heavily on giving just enough broad strokes visually to let the reader fill in the details for descriptions that aren't really important to the story. (If I were making a painting of a tiger in a jungle, for example, I'd focus on getting the tiger clear, but might let the jungle just be broad strokes of green and brown. The mind knows that's "jungle" and will fill in the details accordingly. But mostly I'd want you looking at the tiger.) I also pull in other senses to describe things. Smell, touch, sound.  




This is me as well.  It's not that we're unimaginative, it's just that our brains process differently. I was having this conversation with a friend the other day. When she reads, it plays like a movie in her head; she's on the ground, in the action, basically a character.   I read like I'm some omniscient Morgan Freeman dictating from the clouds--I don't "see" the story as much as I'm "telling" the story. As such, highly descriptive elements are usually lost on me, or take a long time to process.

The book I think of immediately is "Titus Groan" by Mevyn Peake.  Amazing book, but it took me *forever* to read because he has long (beautiful) passages of description--from characters to landscapes to the basic gestures of conversation.  That said, it's a mid-20th century piece, and I think that was the norm in fantasy writing then. 



Have you guys heard of aphantasia? I have next to no visual imagination (I remember visual things as verbal concepts) and what you're describing sounds a lot like how I process imagery and story

I have never had the "movie in your head" effect, but I will get an internal snapshot of an emotional moment, and my brain holds onto the echo of that feeling, that's usually what makes a story feel alive in my head


I'm the same way.  I can barely visualize my family members when they're not with me.  If someone asks me what someone looks like or what color their shirt was or anything like that, I'm clueless.  I simply don't remember those kinds of details.  My husband can pull up the whole scene visually and describe every part of it.  On the other hand, I can remember names, dates, phone numbers, etc. much better than he does.  The most interesting part about it to me is that we're both math teachers--we just gravitate to different areas of math and different teaching styles.  He prefers geometry-type stuff and I prefer calculus-type stuff.

I think that's got to be true for readers and writers as well.  Some readers want every detail explained so they can see the whole picture, some readers want to form their own picture, and some aren't going to care very much about the sensory details of the setting.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Random Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 12:35pm
After thinking about this for a while I remembered a scene I wrote that was extremely difficult.

In this case I had to imagine all the characters together in a room.  They walked through the scene step by step, as if at a script reading, and talked about the things they would say, or do, and how it all worked.  Everyone involved added bits and pieces to make it more 'realistic'.

It sounds totally stupid, but it was the only way I got through the scene.  I actually wrote the scene where they talked it out before I could write the actual scene.

That, I suppose, is the downside to 'living' the story in my head, like a memory, or a movie.  I get a little too close to it sometimes.

Which is probably why I like HEA endings.  I've seen far too many bad outcomes.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote amlewi08 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 2:16pm
Originally posted by taaaylor taaaylor wrote:

Originally posted by amlewi08 amlewi08 wrote:

Originally posted by AmandaM AmandaM wrote:

This is a really interesting question. 

I'm not very visual--I can't really see things in my head easily. So as a reader, my eyes tend to glaze over at long visual descriptions of objects or locations. I don't "see" what's being described, so it tends to read as a laundry list. And if I try to write that kind of visual description, it sounds like a laundry list  So I rely heavily on giving just enough broad strokes visually to let the reader fill in the details for descriptions that aren't really important to the story. (If I were making a painting of a tiger in a jungle, for example, I'd focus on getting the tiger clear, but might let the jungle just be broad strokes of green and brown. The mind knows that's "jungle" and will fill in the details accordingly. But mostly I'd want you looking at the tiger.) I also pull in other senses to describe things. Smell, touch, sound.  




This is me as well.  It's not that we're unimaginative, it's just that our brains process differently. I was having this conversation with a friend the other day. When she reads, it plays like a movie in her head; she's on the ground, in the action, basically a character.   I read like I'm some omniscient Morgan Freeman dictating from the clouds--I don't "see" the story as much as I'm "telling" the story. As such, highly descriptive elements are usually lost on me, or take a long time to process.

The book I think of immediately is "Titus Groan" by Mevyn Peake.  Amazing book, but it took me *forever* to read because he has long (beautiful) passages of description--from characters to landscapes to the basic gestures of conversation.  That said, it's a mid-20th century piece, and I think that was the norm in fantasy writing then. 



Have you guys heard of aphantasia? I have next to no visual imagination (I remember visual things as verbal concepts) and what you're describing sounds a lot like how I process imagery and story

I have never had the "movie in your head" effect, but I will get an internal snapshot of an emotional moment, and my brain holds onto the echo of that feeling, that's usually what makes a story feel alive in my head

I have!  I really want to participate in, like, a study or something.  haha.  But also, it's not that I CAN'T visualize things, just that it takes A LOT of effort and I really have to focus on it with no distractions.

That said, I wonder how that impacts peoples' technical writing style.  I definitely focus on dialogue, and when it isn't dialogue it's usually action-focused. Not necessarily, like, sword-fighting or adventuring, but "he walks toward her" or "she tucks her hair behind her ear".  Honestly, I usually write most or all of the dialogue for a story, and then go back and fill in the other stuff. haha.

All I know is that third omniscient needs to make a comeback. haha
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote AmandaM Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 6:00pm
Originally posted by taaaylor taaaylor wrote:

Have you guys heard of aphantasia? I have next to no visual imagination (I remember visual things as verbal concepts) and what you're describing sounds a lot like how I process imagery and story

I have never had the "movie in your head" effect, but I will get an internal snapshot of an emotional moment, and my brain holds onto the echo of that feeling, that's usually what makes a story feel alive in my head

Yes! I was  "that's pretty much me" the first time I heard it described, and was startled that it wasn't just me. I've managed over the years to go from visualizing nothing to super limited visualization, but I'm never going to visualize anything fully let alone have movies in my head. My brain just doesn't work that way. I go by words and emotions mostly. Emotional snapshot is a good word for it, and that's what I really end up aiming for when I describe something in a story, an emotional snapshot. You may never know the curtains in the dim room are heavy blue crushed velvet hung in the latest fashion, but you will know the oppressive way they are suffocating the light.

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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (3) Thanks(3)   Quote Pajamas All Day Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 6:23pm
I strive for a happy medium between sparse and lush description. This forum has been incredibly helpful to me in that regard. Reading stories by my favorite authors (one of whom won the 2021 SSC) has taught me more about this subject than any expensive courses/books/workshops/retreats. I don't always hit the mark but I at least better understand what the mark actually is now. 
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Pajamas All Day Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 8:00pm
Originally posted by amlewi08 amlewi08 wrote:

Originally posted by taaaylor taaaylor wrote:

Originally posted by amlewi08 amlewi08 wrote:

Originally posted by AmandaM AmandaM wrote:

This is a really interesting question. 

I'm not very visual--I can't really see things in my head easily. So as a reader, my eyes tend to glaze over at long visual descriptions of objects or locations. I don't "see" what's being described, so it tends to read as a laundry list. And if I try to write that kind of visual description, it sounds like a laundry list  So I rely heavily on giving just enough broad strokes visually to let the reader fill in the details for descriptions that aren't really important to the story. (If I were making a painting of a tiger in a jungle, for example, I'd focus on getting the tiger clear, but might let the jungle just be broad strokes of green and brown. The mind knows that's "jungle" and will fill in the details accordingly. But mostly I'd want you looking at the tiger.) I also pull in other senses to describe things. Smell, touch, sound.  




This is me as well.  It's not that we're unimaginative, it's just that our brains process differently. I was having this conversation with a friend the other day. When she reads, it plays like a movie in her head; she's on the ground, in the action, basically a character.   I read like I'm some omniscient Morgan Freeman dictating from the clouds--I don't "see" the story as much as I'm "telling" the story. As such, highly descriptive elements are usually lost on me, or take a long time to process.

The book I think of immediately is "Titus Groan" by Mevyn Peake.  Amazing book, but it took me *forever* to read because he has long (beautiful) passages of description--from characters to landscapes to the basic gestures of conversation.  That said, it's a mid-20th century piece, and I think that was the norm in fantasy writing then. 



Have you guys heard of aphantasia? I have next to no visual imagination (I remember visual things as verbal concepts) and what you're describing sounds a lot like how I process imagery and story

I have never had the "movie in your head" effect, but I will get an internal snapshot of an emotional moment, and my brain holds onto the echo of that feeling, that's usually what makes a story feel alive in my head

I have!  I really want to participate in, like, a study or something.  haha.  But also, it's not that I CAN'T visualize things, just that it takes A LOT of effort and I really have to focus on it with no distractions.

That said, I wonder how that impacts peoples' technical writing style.  I definitely focus on dialogue, and when it isn't dialogue it's usually action-focused. Not necessarily, like, sword-fighting or adventuring, but "he walks toward her" or "she tucks her hair behind her ear".  Honestly, I usually write most or all of the dialogue for a story, and then go back and fill in the other stuff. haha.

All I know is that third omniscient needs to make a comeback. haha

Third omniscient needs to make a comeback. You wrote that jokingly but I wish it would make a comeback. I know it's terribly unfashionable but I love it. When I first started writing fiction (instead of writing commercials for a living) I wrote third omniscient without even understanding what I was writing. It just felt natural and so that's what I did. Readers who weren't writers liked it and told me they liked it. I had no idea I was doing writing the wrong way until a writer told me to stop writing that way. Okay, sorry I changed the subject but I got excited by that sentence.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote amlewi08 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 9:31pm
Originally posted by Pajamas All Day Pajamas All Day wrote:




Third omniscient needs to make a comeback. You wrote that jokingly but I wish it would make a comeback. I know it's terribly unfashionable but I love it. When I first started writing fiction (instead of writing commercials for a living) I wrote third omniscient without even understanding what I was writing. It just felt natural and so that's what I did. Readers who weren't writers liked it and told me they liked it. I had no idea I was doing writing the wrong way until a writer told me to stop writing that way. Okay, sorry I changed the subject but I got excited by that sentence.

Honestly, if we wanna talk about the way writing has evolved, the complete elimination of third omniscient is a great example.  The idea that someone is “writing wrong” by using a different stylistic approach is just plain silly, but here we are!

I also think a lot of people lump third omniscient in with “head hopping” without stopping to acknowledge the (very abundant) differences. 

Edit: I shouldn’t say COMPLETE elimination.  There are still third omniscient books being published.


Edited by amlewi08 - 27 Jan 2022 at 9:32pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote Pajamas All Day Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 9:43pm
Originally posted by amlewi08 amlewi08 wrote:

Originally posted by Pajamas All Day Pajamas All Day wrote:




Third omniscient needs to make a comeback. You wrote that jokingly but I wish it would make a comeback. I know it's terribly unfashionable but I love it. When I first started writing fiction (instead of writing commercials for a living) I wrote third omniscient without even understanding what I was writing. It just felt natural and so that's what I did. Readers who weren't writers liked it and told me they liked it. I had no idea I was doing writing the wrong way until a writer told me to stop writing that way. Okay, sorry I changed the subject but I got excited by that sentence.

Honestly, if we wanna talk about the way writing has evolved, the complete elimination of third omniscient is a great example.  The idea that someone is “writing wrong” by using a different stylistic approach is just plain silly, but here we are!

I also think a lot of people lump third omniscient in with “head hopping” without stopping to acknowledge the (very abundant) differences. 

Edit: I shouldn’t say COMPLETE elimination.  There are still third omniscient books being published.
Yes to all of the above. It's looked down on and I get it but I still like it. And it's not always head hopping. Of course, that brings up another type of writing which is looked down on -- fan fiction. I still read it every now and then. I'll slink away in shame now.
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (2) Thanks(2)   Quote AmandaM Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 27 Jan 2022 at 10:01pm
There's always what some folks call third cinematic, which doesn't involve head hopping. It is kind of like the camera switching from one scene to another, or including sweeping shots to give you a sense of the world, and including some narration between scenes. I think that term carries less stigma at the moment, maybe? I rather like the intimacy of storyteller-style third omniscient myself.

To circle this back to description, third omniscient/cinematic usually has the expectation of more visual description, since it isn't being filtered through a viewpoint character like it would be in first or tight third. I generally prefer writing in first or tight third because of that--if the character doesn't care about whatever it is enough to notice it, I can get away with not describing it ;).

I generally think people should read and write what they enjoy reading and writing. Just know what the common pitfalls are so you can do it well. Only reason to change is if you want to sell, and it's not selling, and people, including the ones buying, tell you it's not selling because of X.




Edited by AmandaM - 27 Jan 2022 at 10:10pm
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Post Options Post Options   Thanks (1) Thanks(1)   Quote taaaylor Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 Jan 2022 at 3:13pm
Originally posted by Pajamas All Day Pajamas All Day wrote:

I strive for a happy medium between sparse and lush description. This forum has been incredibly helpful to me in that regard. Reading stories by my favorite authors (one of whom won the 2021 SSC) has taught me more about this subject than any expensive courses/books/workshops/retreats. I don't always hit the mark but I at least better understand what the mark actually is now. 

Awwww you made me awwww <3 I love reading your stuff. Thanks for the smile :)
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