Visualising scenes when you read

[Guest Tiresias]

When you read, do you build scenes up in your head from scratch? Or do you find--consciously or otherwise--that the book "commandeers" real places from your past as a backdrop for the narrative?

 

I find that I do the latter, and it is very annoying. Whenever in my reading I come across a tennis court, to give one example, my helpless characters

[Janet]

Good thread. I think you've expressed yourself perfectly.

 

I build up a picture in my own mind. It just happens. To my knowledge, I've never repeated a scene in two different books.

 

The last book I read, No Time For Goodbye bears absolutely no resemblance to anywhere I've ever been and nor does my current book - and neither bear any resemblance to each other!

[Nellie]

This is a really good question! For me, my mind builds the scene from scratch based in the description in the prose. I had never really thought about this until I went to see the first Harry Potter film and Hogwarts looked exactly like I had imagined it. It freaked me out slightly to be honest!

[Kell]

I'm a "build the scene from scratch" person. When I'm reading I often get the action played out like a film in my head.

[Kylie]

I also build the scene from scratch. I can't think of any instance where a real place from my life has popped up in a book. I know I would also find it frustrating though!

[Ruth]

I also tend to build up pictures from scratch, and have a visual idea of each character in my mind. If they make the book into a movie and the actor does not look like the image I had of the character, I am always a bit disappointed.

[supergran71]

I think I am more inclined to visualise the people in the story rather than the background they are in, unless there is a very vivid description of their situation, then I will try and visualise the whole scene.

[Kate]

I visualise both, which is why sometimes I don't like it when books become films because it ruins the image I have built up in my mind. The one that sticks out the most for me is Sirius Black in Harry Potter, I had imagined him completely differently to how he was portrayed, kind of ruined his character for me. However, Snape was exactly how I imagined him!

[checkoe]

Hi,

 

Good thread. This has always fascinated me. I have often wondered if people who don`t enjoy fiction have a deficit in the ability to visualise while reading.

 

For me it just happens without any conscious input but can be incredibly detailed. I`m sure it goes well beyond what is covered in the novel... what side of the street houses are on, which direction people turn to go somewhere. Isn`t the mind amazing! I agree that is has often spoiled dramatizations for me when things just aren`t how they should be! I hated watching A Room with a View after reading the book, or the Rebus series, or Captain Corelli`s Mandolin etc. Only one that worked for me was High Fidelity by Nick Hornby.

 

I have spoken to people who don`t read much & some of them don`t understand when I talk about such visual imagery. Expect most people in BCF will have good visual imagination though!!

 

Heather

[Tiger]

I tend to visualise both, more the characters' behaviour than the scenery, though, unless it's well described. Like Kate, I imagined Snape like that before even seeing the films, while with the scenery of Number Four Privet Drive, I somehow saw my old best friend's house because the first time I read it I didn't think it was very well described!

[checkoe]

Just to follow up on my thread before... I found this on a google search:

 

"Inability to visualize. Based on brain research, about eight percent of students cannot visualize during reading. This number goes across gender lines, as both boys and girls are affected. Realize that this is not a learning disability; it is how the brain is wired, just like how some people have an affinity for math or literature. Thus, if a child is reading a novel, no matter how descriptive the passages are, that child cannot put images into, or form pictures inside, his or her head."

[Guest Tiresias]

Evidently, I am a complete mutant.

 

However, I should add: The severity of my aforesaid affliction is inversely proportional to the quality and lucidity of the writing. It does not happen, for example, when I read really good books. In Nabokov, Hemingway, and Joyce, the completed scene is most definitely ready-made in the prose. I see a white house on an island in the Gulf Stream, or the crooked hatrack in the hallway of a shoddy rooming house, and even smell the queer smell in Mr Bloom’s cosy kitchen. It is not an exaggeration to say that these things are as real to me as my recollection of any actual place... But when the author designates a place by saying, simply, “They went into the kitchen,” the characters—whether they be Old West gunslingers or Spanish hidalgos—are momentarily projected like spectres into some long-deserted kitchen of my past—until I make the necessary adjustments!

Edited August 1, 2008 by Tiresias

[Janet]

I visualise both, which is why sometimes I don't like it when books become films because it ruins the image I have built up in my mind. The one that sticks out the most for me is Sirius Black in Harry Potter, I had imagined him completely differently to how he was portrayed, kind of ruined his character for me. However, Snape was exactly how I imagined him!

I don't think many of my Harry Potter characters were like the ones in the films (my Hermione was very different), but now that I've seen the films I can only see them as their actors.

[Guest Tiresias]

I don't think many of my Harry Potter characters were like the ones in the films (my Hermione was very different), but now that I've seen the films I can only see them as their actors.

 

How about when you see the film first? It's very hard, if not impossible, not to visualize things as they appeared in the film.

[supergran71]

Just to follow up on my thread before... I found this on a google search:

 

"Inability to visualize. Based on brain research, about eight percent of students cannot visualize during reading. This number goes across gender lines, as both boys and girls are affected. Realize that this is not a learning disability; it is how the brain is wired, just like how some people have an affinity for math or literature. Thus, if a child is reading a novel, no matter how descriptive the passages are, that child cannot put images into, or form pictures inside, his or her head."

 

There is a condition which I have heard of and was mentioned in a book I read recently, but I cant remember what its called. People who have this condition, see things in colours and smells when they look at things and people. Its hard to describe, the word starts with S I think, I will try and remember it. It was in the book about the dog which I reviewed for Nic.

[checkoe]

Hi,

 

Was it synaesthesia?

 

Heather

[Janet]

How about when you see the film first? It's very hard, if not impossible, not to visualize things as they appeared in the film.

Yes, that's very true.

 

I recently read Casino Royale. 'My' Bond was Sean Connery (I haven't seen the film mind you, and I know it was Daniel Craig in it, not Connery) - and when I read A Christmas Carol, 'my' Scrooge was Alastair Sim!

[nursenblack]

When I read I tend to visualize my own scenery, but without any real effort. I just go with what first appears in my head. I vaguely imagine characters appearances but when a scene describes someone as blond while I've been imagining them with dark hair my mind has to halt and change the image. If I've seen a film version first there is no changing the characters in my mind.

[pontalba]

I construct the basic physical scenery from the prose, but once done, I tend to see the characters in a fog-like state that does not detract from the dialogue, I've never used places I know as a base for the construction though, but I'd have to say that we all have our own ideas of what certain structures look like, and see the described scene through that lens.

My idea of a large rambling white house may have no similarity to what some of y'all's would be.

 

Oh, and yes synesthesia is seeing colors as someone above mentioned.

In fact Vladimir Nabokov and his wife and son all were ones that had that ability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

[supergran71]

Oh, and yes synesthesia is seeing colors as someone above mentioned.

In fact Vladimir Nabokov and his wife and son all were ones that had that ability. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synesthesia

 

Yes that's it Pontalba, thanks. I wonder if people who are afflicted like it or whether they regard it as a handicap?

[pontalba]

Yes that's it Pontalba, thanks. I wonder if people who are afflicted like it or whether they regard it as a handicap?

To my knowledge, the Nabokov family never considered it an affliction, more a gift, another dimension of enjoyment of the written word.

 

Interestingly enough each of them had a bit of a different coloration.

[Colin Jacobs]

Ok I am a bloke but read ladies war fiction my mum buys me. I often make models of the scenes described with model soldiers re made into civilian figures. I have also built fantasy models too. that is why I enjoy books as they do escape me away from my depression and IBS and MS the more descriptive the more i get lost.

[Guest Tiresias]

To my knowledge, the Nabokov family never considered it an affliction, more a gift, another dimension of enjoyment of the written word.

 

Interestingly enough each of them had a bit of a different coloration.

 

In Strong Opinions Vladimir shared this interesting little titbit about synaesthesia in the Nabokov family:

 

We [Vladimir and Vera] asked him [Dimitri] to list his colours and we discovered in one case, one letter which he sees as purple or perhaps mauve is pink to me and blue to my wife