Having trouble imaging your story line?

[Comshaw]

Apparently there are people that can't imagine images at all. I've always had a fertile imagination. Like a full blown movie in my head, I can see people places, things that I've never met or set eyes on before. It's inconceivable to me that there are people who can't do this. Apparently there was one guy that lost that ability after a surgery. That to me would be terrifying.

Blind in the mind: why some people can’t see pictures in their imagination

Comshaw

 

[SimonDoom]

It's a difficult problem for me to imagine, because I'm the opposite--extremely visual. I see everything in my mind as I write it. My ability to visualize is an important part of my writing.

 

[MrPixel]

Oh, gosh. I can't imagine that, especially as a sudden disability. Like you, I play full videos in my head of past events, and have a very rich visual imagination for my writing. Problem with the authoring side of it is not going overboard with the fine details I "see".

 

[Djmac1031]

I can picture things vividly.

The problem is translating those visuals to words.

It's why my work is what some would criticize as "simplistic."

I don't go into heavy details on scenery, or room layouts, etc.

Although I think I'm improving in that area, slowly but surely.

It'll be awhile before I catch up to Tolkien, though.

 

[Smuttyandfun]

Everything plays out like a movie in my head when I'm writing. Which is probably why I don't sleep much. I can't get the damn movies to shut off!

 

[alohadave]

I'm visual, but I see static scenes, not like a running movie.

 

[AchtungNight]

I can outline my plots but not completely visualize them until I have time to sit down and type out descriptions and such. Even then I still throw in crazy ideas, in-jokes, and cameos in my stories while improvising writing. Does this count as the same?

 

[Djmac1031]

I can outline my plots but not completely visualize them until I have time to sit down and type out descriptions and such. Even then I still throw in crazy ideas, in-jokes, and cameos in my stories while improvising writing. Does this count as the same?

Oh i do the same.

Was writing the closing line of my newest story and the last bit of dialog reminded me of a song lyric.

So instead I changed it so the character was now hearing the song playing on the speakers at the café she was at, and started to sing along.

A little improv I didn't plan at all until the moment.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Yes, I see images of my scenes, and need to decide on layouts of rooms in a house, furniture in a room, etc. All very vivid. Gives me an excellent sense of direction - I can recognise road junctions or streets I haven't seen in decades.

Though I couldn't say for sure what bits of a person would be visible in a certain position, and I have a terrible memory for faces. Something to do with being poor at 3D rotation - I can recognise people face-on on Teams meetings pretty well, or do tests where they show you a photo of one person and then you have to pick which of 5 pics is the same photo, but give me another photo of the same person from a slightly different angle, or I meet in real life someone I've only seen online, and I have no clue. There was one face match test where I confirmed perfectly if I'd seen a particular photo before in the rest, but was useless on identifying them. I failed to recognise Bill Clinton out of context, for example.

 

[AchtungNight]

For cameos I get off on tangents and decide to plug media I enjoy. Example- I need to have Rachel’s exit delayed in “Fear, Lust, and Vanity” so she can be picked up by the other two leads, bond with them, join in the action. How to do that? Ok, have her misplace her car. And it was actually stolen by the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto 3 but she won’t know that until she talks to the parking lot’s one inept guard. And she won’t do that until the other two leads come out to offer her a ride back to her hotel with fun intentions. Just for laughs, the guard is this guy I knew once in my security days. Or at least based on him. And I’ll have two of my favorite New York cops from tv shows return the car later.

 

[XerXesXu]

I'm completely aphantasic. I know but I don't see. Objectively accessing the reality of peoples' cognitions has always been difficult, if not impossible, and I still don't know if differing self-reports are only different subjective descriptions of the same objective cognitive process.

 

[gunhilltrain]

"The Battle of the Crater" is about a movie depicting the event being filmed in 2017. I watched a History Channel video about the battle - their videos use Civil War reenactors, of which there are many in this country. They often get hired, sometimes in the thousands, by movie production companies to fill in the ranks next the regular cast members. Of course, there never has been a Battle of the Crater movie, but watching the video gave me a good idea of how it might have been filmed. Many of the reenactors were Black because Black troops played a key role in the battle.

https://www.slashfilm.com/1178896/glorys-civil-war-reenactors-didnt-want-to-stay-in-hotels/

https://classic.literotica.com/s/the-battle-of-the-crater

 

[Duleigh]

For me the problem is finding the words to adequately describe what I'm seeing in my mind. In Enchantress 3 a huge golden dragon is flying through the Forbidden City then escaping that he shoots out and flies low level across Hunghung City I wrote and re-wrote that over and over and could never get as close as I wanted.

 

[SeraphNocturne]

I get full on movies in my head. New fear successfully unlocked! I hope I never have to know what going mind blind feels like, it sounds like a nightmare.