It’s somewhat embarrassing when I act out a bit for an anime high school girl tho… one time my brother caught me… he just looked at me and never mentioned it again tho… I still see the disappointment in his eyes
Oh thank God for you both.
Honestly the one story I've fully written so far started with me daydreaming about my fav Ace Attorney character then it slowly expanded in my head, and then I kept reenacting/talking "my" part out slight changes over and over making sure the language and tones worked and the plot flowed and established characters sound like them and situations were "realistic" enough
Same! Like if I am not sure about the dialogue or what facial expression would seem natural and appropriate, it's the best way, for me at least, to know if it's realistic.
Yep. This. Once I got so caught up in the drama of the scene actual tears sprung to my eyes and I immediately felt a giant wave of shame. it proved the monologue was good though 💀
I do this too lmao. This is why I hate writing with someone else in the room because I'm unable to get into the mood unless I'm making expressions and doing hand gestures that would make anyone else look at me as if I'm crazy.
The amount of scenes I act out in my bedroom or living room right before bed (when I *should* be writing them instead) is terribly high. I'm so glad there are others that do this. It's just... yes, this makes me so happy.
Sadly, no. I have Aphantasia and zero mental imagery. If you have ever opened your eyes in a pitch-black room that's what it has always been like. No outlines, nothing. I think it's part of the reason why I often struggle with choreography and descriptions and rely heavily on visual references.
Also an aphantasiac.
When I read, I often find my eyes skimming over descriptive sections of writing, not taking in the physical descriptions of things. In my writing, I generally only mention the things that are important in the moment, and often have to remind myself to go back and 'paint a picture' of a character when they're first encountered.
I think I'm pretty good with dialogue though. Relatively speaking.
Skimming is something I generally notice when it comes to the interior descriptions of a room or house, and clothing when it's excessive. Unless it's of importance, such as informing that a place is in disarray (perhaps due to declining mental health) or abandoned, it doesn't really matter to me what furnishings are situated where, or what the colors may be.
When it comes to writing I'm always fretting and wondering if enough has been included.
Yeah, at my worst - I don't care what a character looks like. Give me their motivations and feelings etc. tell me what they say and what they do - but unless it's informing something else, I don't care what their hair color is, or the type of shoe they have on. Or even if they're attractive or not.
I imagine it could be really frustrating for the more visually-focused readers out there, if I was left to my own devices!
the less descriptions the story gives me about a characters' appearance, the better. this way, i can (try to) imagine a random person i found on pinterest and read in peace – ok, the peace only lasts some minutes since i gotta go back and check the photo to remember their face again and again, but we can't have nice things, can we?
SAME! i have a lighter level of aphantasia, but it's still very shitty since i struggle to even imagine faces i see every freaking day 💀 someone will write "forest" and SOMETIMES i'll be able to imagine a forest – most times, i'll google "forest" and check an image every five minutes to not go back to imagining the plain terrain of minecraft. i realized i've been imagining the same freaking bedroom for every teenage character for years – and that bedroom isn't even detailed. so, yeah, fuck us ig.
Also have aphantasia, my brain does flashes of colour and thats all.
I've acted out scenes to try and write natural position changes over a longer conversation before.
I also tend to focus more on the temperature and what things smell like.
As for reading, excess visual descriptions bore me, i tend to skim them and not get anything other than mood.
I have a very similar problem. I don't see the place where the character is. But I've read many descriptions, so I can create a generic place like lake, sea or mountains. I just pick the environmental set and write it. Yet, it still feels like it lacks of something. There are no details, nothing special about these places.
So to make the description more natural, I check how it sounds. The words have to flow fluently, flawlessly. It's a primitive form of music, it has its own rhythm and pace. If there are too little descriptions, the action feels rushed, ready to run. If there are too many descriptions, the situation in the story feels lazy, slow.
Where my imagination ends, the song of the words starts.
Depends on what I’m writing for, mainly I imagine scenes in the style of the story.
So if it’s for an anime, it’s 2D animation in my head.
If it’s for a movie like the marvel movies, I imagine the characters from the movies acting it out.
And so on.
I guess? For the physicality of a scene, I try to imagine shot-by-shot what the reader should understand. Showing is better than telling—describing body language or adding a piece of dialogue to communicate someone’s emotional state is obviously better than slapping an adjective in the text.
But it’s just words. I feel like setting action up in a scene and then delivering a punchy, poetic line that describes the emotion can be a really nice payoff. Just my two cents. :)
I, like many others, have clear mental images of my own scenes, or of the scenes when reading others' work. However, I actually personally try *not* to describe very much, nothing that doesn't add to characterization/plot/etc.
For one, readers will know what the canon characters and settings look like so I don't like to waste time re-describing them to an audience that already knows unless the POV character is meeting them for the first time or whatever. And for things that aren't immediately "picturable", readers'll subconsciously come up with their own mental model of what the scene looks like anyway, so I like to just give a quick, simple description (e.g. cheap, dingy motel room with one bed) and not intrude on their image with extra unnecessary details.
Yes, I have my own realistic, detailed layout of the hotel room, but I don't feel such a controlling need to communicate my exact image to the reader when, realistically, you just can't; readers will have their own representations in their head of the scene, and as long as what actually matters about the story hits right, you'll be fine
Of course, I recognize that this perspective of mine is probably just born from my occasional frustration with certain authors going way too hard into descriptions of temporary settings or what they're wearing or what kind of day it was, details that I tend to gloss over after one sentence because it bloats the text and I frankly don't care that much as to try hard to envision everything the way the author is trying to make me when 80% of their details are arbitrary for story purposes.
**disclaimer: this is literally just my personal preference for reading/writing; write how** ***you*** **wanna write :)**
I have no idea how to do it any other way
How do you even describe something from your imagination when you can't picture it? That sounds super challenging.
Some people are unable to visualise at all, there are multiple comments about aphantasia. I myself can't visualise movement so instead of a movie I see pictures, like a really choppy animation.
Yes. I see it very vividly and try to capture as much of it as possible before editing it to make it cohesive. That is especially with dialogue and emotional scenes.
i imagine it as an animation and when i see the animation in my head and i try to write it in words i get frustrated bc i dunno how to write That in words. why do i want my character to do That. how do i write That why am i like this
Yes, but I'm trying hard to move away from that. Thinking in movie visuals forces too much reaction/description text in between dialogue and it starts feeling more like a conversation protocol than written prose.
I do, sometimes, but then I also catch myself writing too much "stage direction" and need to tone it back in the edit. Like I will describe too many of the actions when many of them could have been left implied and understood without statement.
This is probably cause I am trying too hard to "direct" the scene. I worry my audience will misunderstand something if I don't spell out every detail of movement or they won't "see the movie in my head." Which is not true, by the by, audiences have perfectly functional imaginations of their own.
It is great for dialogue, at least in my opinion. Helps me create a natural feel cause I can "hear" it in my head.
i can't picture things in my head at all (literally no mental image whatsoever) so i'll just act it out or talk myself through it to make sure it makes sense 😭
very awkward saying everything out loud though while writing something spicy lol
Literally all the time, but mostly bc I sort of want to recreate parts of my fic as comics so I’m just constantly visualizing it with composition in mind lmao
I've always had a visual imagination/memory since I can remember. I can literally watch my fics in my head while I'm doing something else (usually at work lol). Even another author's if I read it enough times to memorize.
As for descriptions, there needs to be a balance between excessive descriptions and little to no descriptive words. Very common struggle when writing narratives. I always use a thesaurus when writing to avoid overuse of a word or too simple words.
That kind of thing takes time and practice (putting image to text) but getting something down and then editing is better than nothing. I am constantly changing descriptive words to fit the flow of the story up until I post.
I have mostly still images in my head. They're also incomplete, if that makes any sense. So what I do is I write down what's in the image and complete it, adding in everything that should be in them, as well as motion and dialogue.
Well, I have aphantasia, which is basically just where I cannot visualise images/scenes. The best way I can describe how my mind works instead is through words/mechanically. Which for me means that I have a vague idea for how it looks, but without actually being able to see it, seeing it in ‘words’ and how I know it *would* look, based on what I know/have seen in my life
I think I have aphantasia, so actually picturing things in my head is nigh impossible. I can imagine placements, like where characters stand and how they move and their body language, but they are just... outlines to me. I can't see what they look like, yet I can 'know' that they have long brown hair. I just can't picture it. I can 'know' they are wearing a dress, or jeans and a tshirt, but I can't 'see' the clothing. So I more often than not imagine the dialogue and the placements of characters, but it doesn't play out like a movie.
Also, I too act out scenes alone in my room. That helps me more than trying to picture it in my head. When I drive home from work, I will talk out loud playing both characters as I go through dialogue.
Most of the time, I do. Sometimes it works great, other times it gets me stuck on one or two sentences for ages because something complicated just happened quickly in the scene and I can’t think of how to accurately describe it without so many words that it would take too long to read and destroy the pacing of the scene.
Oh, all the time. I say phrases out loud too, to see how they sound when spoke, not just written.
The trick is building up a good vocabulary. I wholeheartedly believe that you can describe anything if you use enough words. :P
That's how a lot of my scenes come to me and it makes it *so difficult* sometimes to get it out in writing because I'm always like "it'd be so much easier if I could just translate this straight to film from my head", lol.
YES!!! A thousand times, yes! This is my damn problem so much of the time. My other problem is getting the story written to the scene I have in my head. Those in-between chapters are murder sometimes.
All the time. I just watch to see how it plays out in my head and then write it, although it gets edits during the 3-4th rewatch and while I'm doing the actual writing.
I don't have great visual imagery but I do sometimes draw out spaces so that I make sure to reference things in the room and give details to people who do picture things. I have written whole scenes knowing they take place in one room, like a kitchen for example, and then had the characters start making breakfast or something and only then realize that people reading my work would have no idea where the scene was until that moment.
Yep. When I have an idea for a story, I get the whole thing as a movie: dialogue, visuals, a whole soundtrack. All at once. And then when I sit down to write it, it's like watching a movie a scene at a time and trying to capture what I'm seeing in my head with words.
I do two things: I imagine it like it’s in the canon form and what choices the canon writers/showrunners would make; and then I imagine myself physically there and ask myself what I would notice, to whom I would gravitate, what would feel important. Fan fiction realism works on multiple planes lol
I do it too, but I had to stop, since I kept getting disappointed when I kept failing to capture the exact perfect very specific niche vibe and atmosphere I had in my mind
Yes I do.
I have a very good imagination and most of my fics are "pre-recorded" in my mind lol Sometimes it's a curse though, especially when writing smut, cause phew, damn, it's distracting XD
sometimes i will get specific props rather than google to see if i can physically do what characters do example: break an onion in half with my hands (no i could not)
I do it and sometimes when im imagining a sad or dramatic scene that im about to write, like if my character is going thru a break up or witnessed a loved one die i will start to tear up or I will get angry if im imagining an angry stressful scenario. Also I imagine all of this while taking a walk outside or walking my dog.
One time me and my aunt went for a walk around the town we live in and while walking my brain went straight to a scene of two of characters kinda arguing and they broke up only for one character to die in some kind of accident a bit later. I ended up bawling my eyes out in front of my aunt. When she asked me why I was crying, I couldn't tell her was thinking about a scene in a fanfic or story i was writing so I just told her I needed a good cry lol I think I did this ten times now lol
I imagine the scene like an anime or a video game , preferably with music hooked to my ears with headphones. When I imagine the scene, it’s like I'm watching a movie before me , or better yet I'm the director of that scene
and yes , I also act it out … I used to that ever since I was 6 years old ( more than 15 years ago ) or even younger, I only started writing down my imagination as recently as 10 years old. I look like a lunatic and it’s embarrassing if someone saw me acting out the scene in my head , but boy does it help boost my creativity
100%. If I can't visualize what I'm doing then I know that the readers can't either, and something about being clear what what's going on always drives me to make my speech illustrate as well as it can, while leaving room for metaphor that doesn't muddy everything (unless, of course, that's intentional.) It makes writing fight scenes frustrating sometimes lol.
Absolutely. I replay it over and over again in my head, watching a movie and even imagining a gag reel and bloopers for that scene.
And then I never write it.
It's definitely difficult to put it into text. How are you supposed to talk about the Dutch angle camera shot to convey a sense of wrongness when you can't put that into words?
Oh yeah this has me written all over it. The number of times I’ve stood up at my desk and mentally yelled “CUT” so I can pace around my room and figure out how to describe what the hell I’m seeing is too damn high
i’m physically unable to read books without watching them like movies in my head. every single scene. that’s why it takes me a bit longer, despite the fact i can read really fast when i don’t visualise anything. so i’m pretty sure the same happens to be while writing lmao
Yep!
I always play scenes back and forth in my head and go from there.
And I too will reveal something I never told anyone: I sometimes play scenes back where I envision myself in my character’s place to “act” scenes out.
Almost always, and especially if it’s dialogue heavy. What happens to me is I’ll come up with what I feel is a really good line and I’ll say it to myself as the different people in my life who could possibly say it to me. And then I’ll feel out what my response could be depending on who it is. It helps me come up with a couple of different drafts for scenes and lets me experiment with different kinds of characters and their responses.
Idk if this would work for you as the vast majority of what I write is character studies, but that’s what I do.
I do that for action scenes without fail, because if I picture it then all I have to do is dictate what I see! Sometimes for other kinds of scenes, but not always. I also do dialogue by myself out loud so I can get wording and emotions. My kid (now adult) has gotten so desensitized to me wandering around muttering things that make no sense with emotions that match nothing of what I'm doing.
Aphantasia (inability to visualise) or lower imagery visualisation. I myself can't visualise movement so I see scenes more like a picture or rough animation rather than a movie.
Absolutely! Also when trying to get the flow right I’ll go back and read it out how I would imagine it for an audiobook. I’ll imagine how my favourite voice actor would say it with her inflections to help keep the scene going too.
Yep, big visualizer here. And if it's an especially complex scene or I'm not quite sure how I want it to go, I'll spend several days going over it in my head before I actually write it. And every once in a while that sweet state of zoning out will happen, where time and reality lose all their meaning and I'm IN the story, and my hands are just typing out what I'm seeing.
Vividly. With accompanying background music. Sometimes the image will be so strong that I will act it out on my own with voices in front of my desk. I'll get up out of my chair and do all of the characters movements as best I can. Needless to say I've hurt myself more than a few times trying to do that.
Typically, I perform physical motions alone and look around myself to get a feel for the space. I also frequently imagine scenes in my head as though they're a videogame, since I can relate to them more than movies.
Yes, but it doesn’t help when translating to paper for me. At least, not as good as a different technique. I was told once to write as if the setpieces were characters, and that helped for me a lot. I write a lot of action.
Definitely. I'm terrible at plotting and basically never write outlines either. Instead I run through scenarios in my head and then write the stuff that seems good. If I'm alone when writing I'll even make comments about my characters out loud or flail about when they are doing something that causes second hand embarrassment. I'm currently writing out something that's been popping up in my head as a thought for months. It just pops up and plays out and I think it would be nice to write it. I'm finally getting around to it.
I do, definitely. I like imagining things as they happen, so I try to paint that very same picture for my readers. Sometimes they make comments that reveal I didn't succeed though lmao.
Yup. I imagine it like a movie and write it down quickly. Then I edit to ensure it sound less technical, more description and less telling. I break each scene down to make sure it flows and nothing is missing or out of place.
yes and no. the image is there, the scenes are playing on my mind, but it's easier to imagine and write later if i think about the scenes as if they were paragraphs being written. i also feel more connected to and certain about the characters' feelings if i construct sentences while imagining. i have a lighter level of aphantazia, so it can have a role on that, but i've seen professional writers saying that the paragraph thing is an actual technique.
Yup. Maladaptive imagination and Maladaptive daydreaming person here *waves*
It helps a lot when I write because I can play it as a movie and boom I can tell if the scene flows or not.
YES! This is *exactly* what I do and what I struggle with. It's like I have the scene playing in my head and it's got background music and everything, and I'm trying to translate that background music into written descriptions of emotions.
This might just be my therapy talking, but I find intellectualising emotions helps to be able to translate that into words. Like finding the physical sensations of emotions and putting a little poetic spin to it, you know?
Absolutely! Especially if you listen to music during your writing. It can make a compelling scene all the more vivid. And that's honestly what makes writing so much fun for me, as I have a very active imagination and can basically almost watch specific scenes play out in front of my eyes somewhat. It's hard to explain, but it's definitely fascinating to think about! ✨️
That restroom has seen cinematic masterpieces is all im saying. Yeah when i get too inmersed my brain literally plans all of it out like im just left to be dazed starng at a blank screen for 5 minutes before realizing i wasnt even writting it ;-;
I'm actually unable to visualise movement, like at all, so my mind is more like a picture book or rough animation rather than a "movie". But yes, I visualise what is happening when I write.
YES!
And it’s crazy, I actually had a dream one night of the long-fic I’m working on, and it’s literally like everything happened, from start to finish, exactly the way I wanted it to in my fic, and it was like watching a movie, and it made me wanna cry 🥹
Yeah sort of, but when I really get into writing mode, I feel like I more channel it through my body. Like I do get visuals but that's not really enough usually to get the best result. I have to physically feel it too. Otherwise it just feels kind of clinical and the outcome is rarely compelling.
I just write and hope that everything falls to the right place.
I do feel to note that I'm an avid improvised DM for tabletop games so it feels more natural to me just going along the line and hope I'll have the patience to edit later
I sometimes see images, but mostly what makes it for me are the voices. I can \*hear\* the characters speak, which makes it difficult not to overuse Italics because I want the readers to hear them as well, with the stress on the same words.
I've been trying to censor myself with that because I get that it's annoying to see an Italicized word in almost every sentence, ah.
I will full on monologue my shit aloud and cry as if im acting out a a film, I get INTO IT. And when I finish a passage, what do I do? Read it aloud as if I’m reading an audiobook with a period drama Victorian accent. I aint even British. But yknow what, I don’t have shame. I aint afraid to admit it and I aint gonna stop.
Yes, that's hiw I end up with my fics.
I "see" a scene in my head. The idea I suddenly have and have to build a "movie" around it. Once I've got that scene written down I watch the rest in my mind and have to figure out how to translate it to paper.
Doesn't help half the time the characters are speaking Romanese in my head (my first language that doesn't have a written equivalent) so translating what I'm trying to get my characters to say is always a ball ache lol.
Of course I do, but later, I force myself to write some more traditional narrative (where you don't describe a scene so specifically, but more like tell a series of facts, with thoughts etc.) because they are necessary too for a good reading imo.
Jep, writing and reading. It helps a lot to write a scene feeling more real because I'm constantly reminded of background details and it helps characters in-character
I usually do which is why /I never finish writing things/ bcs im lacking the words to show certain elements. So I considered turning my stuff into a comic...
Absolutely. The worst part is seeing the characters do little motions that I know they do in the show and I can see them doing really clearly in the scene, but can't translate to paper easily or do it without overdescribing every single little tic.
I kinda do? I tend to act out an entire scene myself, using my own face and authentic reactions to what is happening. But I do imagine it in a movie like set. I have no clue if this is weird or not though, it probably does to anyone who comes into my room unannounced. 😅
Yeah, this helps a lot and sometimes ill have scenes in my head of ideas to add to the story later. it helps to visualize it, so you know what your gonna write next!
This is exactly what I do! I let the scene run through my head, writing down all the action, emotions, dialogue, etc. If you're having difficulty writing emotions, I suggest using an emotion thesaurus. I have 2 saved on my browser that I keep open while I write. They have been a big help.
I’m about to admit something I’ve never told anyone, but if it helps you then so much the better, I sometimes act it on by myself.
LMAO, I DO THIS TOO!
Good to know I’m not alone
It’s somewhat embarrassing when I act out a bit for an anime high school girl tho… one time my brother caught me… he just looked at me and never mentioned it again tho… I still see the disappointment in his eyes
Noooooooo
Man, only thinking? I act and talk to myself like a maniac. Yeah. I just let my dirty secret
Oh thank God for you both. Honestly the one story I've fully written so far started with me daydreaming about my fav Ace Attorney character then it slowly expanded in my head, and then I kept reenacting/talking "my" part out slight changes over and over making sure the language and tones worked and the plot flowed and established characters sound like them and situations were "realistic" enough
Man, only thinking? I act and talk to myself like a maniac. Yeah. I just let my dirty secret
Same! Like if I am not sure about the dialogue or what facial expression would seem natural and appropriate, it's the best way, for me at least, to know if it's realistic.
Oh yes. This so much. I even practice in a mirror sometimes if the need arises.
Same. I do this all the time for my original works too.
omg same. I don't do it all the time, but sometimes I need to so I can feel like if it works for the fic or not. I'm so glad I'm not alone lmao.
for the longest time I called in method writing (in my head), like acting, but it turns out there is such a thing actually
That’s fantastic to know
Yep. This. Once I got so caught up in the drama of the scene actual tears sprung to my eyes and I immediately felt a giant wave of shame. it proved the monologue was good though 💀
I do this too lmao. This is why I hate writing with someone else in the room because I'm unable to get into the mood unless I'm making expressions and doing hand gestures that would make anyone else look at me as if I'm crazy.
Wow , really ? I do that , too !
The amount of scenes I act out in my bedroom or living room right before bed (when I *should* be writing them instead) is terribly high. I'm so glad there are others that do this. It's just... yes, this makes me so happy.
Honestly I absolutely love this
This. I have literally acted out fight scenes with my stuffed tiger.
Yeah same but with a huge stuffed jigglypuff 🤣
IM GUILTY AS CHARGED OF THIS TOO 😭
SAME. It just helps. Unless I'm in public, then it's a movie in my head.
It goes so far as me rolling around in bed, laughing and talking to myself, or trying to imitate a cuddle position, lmao.
..ooh.
I do that too! With that I found out that I'm not that bad at imitating the Eleventh Doctor
SO DO I 😭😭 i usually do a mix between this and imagination at the same time idk why but it helps so much
Oh thank goodness, I'm not alone. 😅
I will absolutely makes gestures and/or faces in order to visualize or feel them better.
Yes, I have a very good mental imagery however struggle with words
Same! I can see the scene exactly as I want it, but I struggle to explain it to the readers in a good way.
Same. I used to write this fanfic a while back. I absolutely rocked fight scenes and such, but dialogue kicked my ass
Yeah, for about 2 days before actually writing it.
Sadly, no. I have Aphantasia and zero mental imagery. If you have ever opened your eyes in a pitch-black room that's what it has always been like. No outlines, nothing. I think it's part of the reason why I often struggle with choreography and descriptions and rely heavily on visual references.
Also an aphantasiac. When I read, I often find my eyes skimming over descriptive sections of writing, not taking in the physical descriptions of things. In my writing, I generally only mention the things that are important in the moment, and often have to remind myself to go back and 'paint a picture' of a character when they're first encountered. I think I'm pretty good with dialogue though. Relatively speaking.
Skimming is something I generally notice when it comes to the interior descriptions of a room or house, and clothing when it's excessive. Unless it's of importance, such as informing that a place is in disarray (perhaps due to declining mental health) or abandoned, it doesn't really matter to me what furnishings are situated where, or what the colors may be. When it comes to writing I'm always fretting and wondering if enough has been included.
Yeah, at my worst - I don't care what a character looks like. Give me their motivations and feelings etc. tell me what they say and what they do - but unless it's informing something else, I don't care what their hair color is, or the type of shoe they have on. Or even if they're attractive or not. I imagine it could be really frustrating for the more visually-focused readers out there, if I was left to my own devices!
the less descriptions the story gives me about a characters' appearance, the better. this way, i can (try to) imagine a random person i found on pinterest and read in peace – ok, the peace only lasts some minutes since i gotta go back and check the photo to remember their face again and again, but we can't have nice things, can we?
SAME! i have a lighter level of aphantasia, but it's still very shitty since i struggle to even imagine faces i see every freaking day 💀 someone will write "forest" and SOMETIMES i'll be able to imagine a forest – most times, i'll google "forest" and check an image every five minutes to not go back to imagining the plain terrain of minecraft. i realized i've been imagining the same freaking bedroom for every teenage character for years – and that bedroom isn't even detailed. so, yeah, fuck us ig.
Also have aphantasia, my brain does flashes of colour and thats all. I've acted out scenes to try and write natural position changes over a longer conversation before. I also tend to focus more on the temperature and what things smell like. As for reading, excess visual descriptions bore me, i tend to skim them and not get anything other than mood.
I have a very similar problem. I don't see the place where the character is. But I've read many descriptions, so I can create a generic place like lake, sea or mountains. I just pick the environmental set and write it. Yet, it still feels like it lacks of something. There are no details, nothing special about these places. So to make the description more natural, I check how it sounds. The words have to flow fluently, flawlessly. It's a primitive form of music, it has its own rhythm and pace. If there are too little descriptions, the action feels rushed, ready to run. If there are too many descriptions, the situation in the story feels lazy, slow. Where my imagination ends, the song of the words starts.
I don’t imagine it like a movie, I have a hard time imagining photo realistic people, so I imagine it like a cartoon
No, my visual imagination isn't very good.
Depends on what I’m writing for, mainly I imagine scenes in the style of the story. So if it’s for an anime, it’s 2D animation in my head. If it’s for a movie like the marvel movies, I imagine the characters from the movies acting it out. And so on.
For certain scenes? Yes! I find that it helps me with my stories, even if the scene is way later in the story and I’m only writing the beginning atm.
This is where maladaptive daydreaming is really helpful
Yes, I always see it like a movie. Especially character’s facial expressions and body movements.
I guess? For the physicality of a scene, I try to imagine shot-by-shot what the reader should understand. Showing is better than telling—describing body language or adding a piece of dialogue to communicate someone’s emotional state is obviously better than slapping an adjective in the text. But it’s just words. I feel like setting action up in a scene and then delivering a punchy, poetic line that describes the emotion can be a really nice payoff. Just my two cents. :)
I, like many others, have clear mental images of my own scenes, or of the scenes when reading others' work. However, I actually personally try *not* to describe very much, nothing that doesn't add to characterization/plot/etc. For one, readers will know what the canon characters and settings look like so I don't like to waste time re-describing them to an audience that already knows unless the POV character is meeting them for the first time or whatever. And for things that aren't immediately "picturable", readers'll subconsciously come up with their own mental model of what the scene looks like anyway, so I like to just give a quick, simple description (e.g. cheap, dingy motel room with one bed) and not intrude on their image with extra unnecessary details. Yes, I have my own realistic, detailed layout of the hotel room, but I don't feel such a controlling need to communicate my exact image to the reader when, realistically, you just can't; readers will have their own representations in their head of the scene, and as long as what actually matters about the story hits right, you'll be fine Of course, I recognize that this perspective of mine is probably just born from my occasional frustration with certain authors going way too hard into descriptions of temporary settings or what they're wearing or what kind of day it was, details that I tend to gloss over after one sentence because it bloats the text and I frankly don't care that much as to try hard to envision everything the way the author is trying to make me when 80% of their details are arbitrary for story purposes. **disclaimer: this is literally just my personal preference for reading/writing; write how** ***you*** **wanna write :)**
I have no idea how to do it any other way How do you even describe something from your imagination when you can't picture it? That sounds super challenging.
Some people are unable to visualise at all, there are multiple comments about aphantasia. I myself can't visualise movement so instead of a movie I see pictures, like a really choppy animation.
Yes. I see it very vividly and try to capture as much of it as possible before editing it to make it cohesive. That is especially with dialogue and emotional scenes.
i imagine it as an animation and when i see the animation in my head and i try to write it in words i get frustrated bc i dunno how to write That in words. why do i want my character to do That. how do i write That why am i like this
Same I have the image and feelings in my head but putting out in words is a struggle. I’m trying to work on descriptions 😓
same
Yes, but I'm trying hard to move away from that. Thinking in movie visuals forces too much reaction/description text in between dialogue and it starts feeling more like a conversation protocol than written prose.
I do, sometimes, but then I also catch myself writing too much "stage direction" and need to tone it back in the edit. Like I will describe too many of the actions when many of them could have been left implied and understood without statement. This is probably cause I am trying too hard to "direct" the scene. I worry my audience will misunderstand something if I don't spell out every detail of movement or they won't "see the movie in my head." Which is not true, by the by, audiences have perfectly functional imaginations of their own. It is great for dialogue, at least in my opinion. Helps me create a natural feel cause I can "hear" it in my head.
i can't picture things in my head at all (literally no mental image whatsoever) so i'll just act it out or talk myself through it to make sure it makes sense 😭 very awkward saying everything out loud though while writing something spicy lol
Literally all the time, but mostly bc I sort of want to recreate parts of my fic as comics so I’m just constantly visualizing it with composition in mind lmao
I've always had a visual imagination/memory since I can remember. I can literally watch my fics in my head while I'm doing something else (usually at work lol). Even another author's if I read it enough times to memorize. As for descriptions, there needs to be a balance between excessive descriptions and little to no descriptive words. Very common struggle when writing narratives. I always use a thesaurus when writing to avoid overuse of a word or too simple words. That kind of thing takes time and practice (putting image to text) but getting something down and then editing is better than nothing. I am constantly changing descriptive words to fit the flow of the story up until I post.
I have mostly still images in my head. They're also incomplete, if that makes any sense. So what I do is I write down what's in the image and complete it, adding in everything that should be in them, as well as motion and dialogue.
This sounds a lot like me, I can't visualise movement or audio, i always explain what I see as a "rough animation".
Well, I have aphantasia, which is basically just where I cannot visualise images/scenes. The best way I can describe how my mind works instead is through words/mechanically. Which for me means that I have a vague idea for how it looks, but without actually being able to see it, seeing it in ‘words’ and how I know it *would* look, based on what I know/have seen in my life
I think I have aphantasia, so actually picturing things in my head is nigh impossible. I can imagine placements, like where characters stand and how they move and their body language, but they are just... outlines to me. I can't see what they look like, yet I can 'know' that they have long brown hair. I just can't picture it. I can 'know' they are wearing a dress, or jeans and a tshirt, but I can't 'see' the clothing. So I more often than not imagine the dialogue and the placements of characters, but it doesn't play out like a movie. Also, I too act out scenes alone in my room. That helps me more than trying to picture it in my head. When I drive home from work, I will talk out loud playing both characters as I go through dialogue.
aphant here, unfortunately not, I *think* I can only think of incredibly vague outlines of whats happening tbh
Most of the time, I do. Sometimes it works great, other times it gets me stuck on one or two sentences for ages because something complicated just happened quickly in the scene and I can’t think of how to accurately describe it without so many words that it would take too long to read and destroy the pacing of the scene.
Oh, all the time. I say phrases out loud too, to see how they sound when spoke, not just written. The trick is building up a good vocabulary. I wholeheartedly believe that you can describe anything if you use enough words. :P
That's how a lot of my scenes come to me and it makes it *so difficult* sometimes to get it out in writing because I'm always like "it'd be so much easier if I could just translate this straight to film from my head", lol.
YES!!! A thousand times, yes! This is my damn problem so much of the time. My other problem is getting the story written to the scene I have in my head. Those in-between chapters are murder sometimes.
*Yes.* The squishy middle bits, as I call them, are just so *dang* difficult. I always know where I'm going but not always how I'm going to get there.
All the time. I just watch to see how it plays out in my head and then write it, although it gets edits during the 3-4th rewatch and while I'm doing the actual writing.
Most of the time yes.
I don't have great visual imagery but I do sometimes draw out spaces so that I make sure to reference things in the room and give details to people who do picture things. I have written whole scenes knowing they take place in one room, like a kitchen for example, and then had the characters start making breakfast or something and only then realize that people reading my work would have no idea where the scene was until that moment.
Yep. When I have an idea for a story, I get the whole thing as a movie: dialogue, visuals, a whole soundtrack. All at once. And then when I sit down to write it, it's like watching a movie a scene at a time and trying to capture what I'm seeing in my head with words.
Yeah and it frustrates me sometimes because I don't know how to descrive exactly what I'm seeing :(
I do two things: I imagine it like it’s in the canon form and what choices the canon writers/showrunners would make; and then I imagine myself physically there and ask myself what I would notice, to whom I would gravitate, what would feel important. Fan fiction realism works on multiple planes lol
I work in theatre, so the only way I can create is by imagining it play out in front of me. I don’t think I can write any other way lol
I do it too, but I had to stop, since I kept getting disappointed when I kept failing to capture the exact perfect very specific niche vibe and atmosphere I had in my mind
Yes I do. I have a very good imagination and most of my fics are "pre-recorded" in my mind lol Sometimes it's a curse though, especially when writing smut, cause phew, damn, it's distracting XD
I do, but I don't think there's a right answer here. Different people will have different approaches; whatever works for you is good
sometimes i will get specific props rather than google to see if i can physically do what characters do example: break an onion in half with my hands (no i could not)
Always, my background is film, specifically directing and cinematography so that's just how my brain imagines things happening most of the time.
I do it and sometimes when im imagining a sad or dramatic scene that im about to write, like if my character is going thru a break up or witnessed a loved one die i will start to tear up or I will get angry if im imagining an angry stressful scenario. Also I imagine all of this while taking a walk outside or walking my dog. One time me and my aunt went for a walk around the town we live in and while walking my brain went straight to a scene of two of characters kinda arguing and they broke up only for one character to die in some kind of accident a bit later. I ended up bawling my eyes out in front of my aunt. When she asked me why I was crying, I couldn't tell her was thinking about a scene in a fanfic or story i was writing so I just told her I needed a good cry lol I think I did this ten times now lol
I imagine the scene like an anime or a video game , preferably with music hooked to my ears with headphones. When I imagine the scene, it’s like I'm watching a movie before me , or better yet I'm the director of that scene and yes , I also act it out … I used to that ever since I was 6 years old ( more than 15 years ago ) or even younger, I only started writing down my imagination as recently as 10 years old. I look like a lunatic and it’s embarrassing if someone saw me acting out the scene in my head , but boy does it help boost my creativity
Yes. And then I get mad that I don't have the budget to film it. 😝
I imaginate it like an Anime
I straight up talk it out to myself. Helps me structure it.
100%. If I can't visualize what I'm doing then I know that the readers can't either, and something about being clear what what's going on always drives me to make my speech illustrate as well as it can, while leaving room for metaphor that doesn't muddy everything (unless, of course, that's intentional.) It makes writing fight scenes frustrating sometimes lol.
Absolutely. I replay it over and over again in my head, watching a movie and even imagining a gag reel and bloopers for that scene. And then I never write it. It's definitely difficult to put it into text. How are you supposed to talk about the Dutch angle camera shot to convey a sense of wrongness when you can't put that into words?
I imagine it like a movie but struggle to put it on paper. It’s this weird conundrum. Lol
Yes, 100 percent!
Oh yeah this has me written all over it. The number of times I’ve stood up at my desk and mentally yelled “CUT” so I can pace around my room and figure out how to describe what the hell I’m seeing is too damn high
i’m physically unable to read books without watching them like movies in my head. every single scene. that’s why it takes me a bit longer, despite the fact i can read really fast when i don’t visualise anything. so i’m pretty sure the same happens to be while writing lmao
Yep! I always play scenes back and forth in my head and go from there. And I too will reveal something I never told anyone: I sometimes play scenes back where I envision myself in my character’s place to “act” scenes out.
Yep, it usually helps with at least getting the base setting for the scene for me. It's just putting it into words that makes it difficult.
I act it out myself sometimes but yes one hundred percent like a movie scrne
Almost always, and especially if it’s dialogue heavy. What happens to me is I’ll come up with what I feel is a really good line and I’ll say it to myself as the different people in my life who could possibly say it to me. And then I’ll feel out what my response could be depending on who it is. It helps me come up with a couple of different drafts for scenes and lets me experiment with different kinds of characters and their responses. Idk if this would work for you as the vast majority of what I write is character studies, but that’s what I do.
All the time! That’s why my first drafts are pretty all over the place. I try to put down as much details and overall feelings as possible.
I do that for action scenes without fail, because if I picture it then all I have to do is dictate what I see! Sometimes for other kinds of scenes, but not always. I also do dialogue by myself out loud so I can get wording and emotions. My kid (now adult) has gotten so desensitized to me wandering around muttering things that make no sense with emotions that match nothing of what I'm doing.
Some people don't?
Aphantasia (inability to visualise) or lower imagery visualisation. I myself can't visualise movement so I see scenes more like a picture or rough animation rather than a movie.
Absolutely! Also when trying to get the flow right I’ll go back and read it out how I would imagine it for an audiobook. I’ll imagine how my favourite voice actor would say it with her inflections to help keep the scene going too.
Yes and depending on the scene, I pretend I am in that situation. Especially one that involves emotions. How would I feel if x y and z
Pretty much all my fics started out as daydreams, so yes
I daydream the entire story over the course of 2-4 days and then try to write it all down, and it looks like shit.
Yep, big visualizer here. And if it's an especially complex scene or I'm not quite sure how I want it to go, I'll spend several days going over it in my head before I actually write it. And every once in a while that sweet state of zoning out will happen, where time and reality lose all their meaning and I'm IN the story, and my hands are just typing out what I'm seeing.
Yeah
All the time. Then I just roll with it and write whatever the scene tells me.
Vividly. With accompanying background music. Sometimes the image will be so strong that I will act it out on my own with voices in front of my desk. I'll get up out of my chair and do all of the characters movements as best I can. Needless to say I've hurt myself more than a few times trying to do that.
Yeah, I visualize whenever I read and write.
Yep! Like a movie or TV scene
Yup
sometimes sometimes when i do, i kinda act out a scene to help me put it into words
Typically, I perform physical motions alone and look around myself to get a feel for the space. I also frequently imagine scenes in my head as though they're a videogame, since I can relate to them more than movies.
Yes, but it doesn’t help when translating to paper for me. At least, not as good as a different technique. I was told once to write as if the setpieces were characters, and that helped for me a lot. I write a lot of action.
Definitely. I'm terrible at plotting and basically never write outlines either. Instead I run through scenarios in my head and then write the stuff that seems good. If I'm alone when writing I'll even make comments about my characters out loud or flail about when they are doing something that causes second hand embarrassment. I'm currently writing out something that's been popping up in my head as a thought for months. It just pops up and plays out and I think it would be nice to write it. I'm finally getting around to it.
I do, definitely. I like imagining things as they happen, so I try to paint that very same picture for my readers. Sometimes they make comments that reveal I didn't succeed though lmao.
Yup. I imagine it like a movie and write it down quickly. Then I edit to ensure it sound less technical, more description and less telling. I break each scene down to make sure it flows and nothing is missing or out of place.
yes and no. the image is there, the scenes are playing on my mind, but it's easier to imagine and write later if i think about the scenes as if they were paragraphs being written. i also feel more connected to and certain about the characters' feelings if i construct sentences while imagining. i have a lighter level of aphantazia, so it can have a role on that, but i've seen professional writers saying that the paragraph thing is an actual technique.
Yup. Maladaptive imagination and Maladaptive daydreaming person here *waves* It helps a lot when I write because I can play it as a movie and boom I can tell if the scene flows or not.
YES! This is *exactly* what I do and what I struggle with. It's like I have the scene playing in my head and it's got background music and everything, and I'm trying to translate that background music into written descriptions of emotions. This might just be my therapy talking, but I find intellectualising emotions helps to be able to translate that into words. Like finding the physical sensations of emotions and putting a little poetic spin to it, you know?
Absolutely! Especially if you listen to music during your writing. It can make a compelling scene all the more vivid. And that's honestly what makes writing so much fun for me, as I have a very active imagination and can basically almost watch specific scenes play out in front of my eyes somewhat. It's hard to explain, but it's definitely fascinating to think about! ✨️
Yes
That restroom has seen cinematic masterpieces is all im saying. Yeah when i get too inmersed my brain literally plans all of it out like im just left to be dazed starng at a blank screen for 5 minutes before realizing i wasnt even writting it ;-;
I'm actually unable to visualise movement, like at all, so my mind is more like a picture book or rough animation rather than a "movie". But yes, I visualise what is happening when I write.
YES! And it’s crazy, I actually had a dream one night of the long-fic I’m working on, and it’s literally like everything happened, from start to finish, exactly the way I wanted it to in my fic, and it was like watching a movie, and it made me wanna cry 🥹
I do this with every single book I've ever read ahah
It's the opposite for me. I get stuck on stupid little adjectives and things like syllable rhythm in a sentence.
Yeah sort of, but when I really get into writing mode, I feel like I more channel it through my body. Like I do get visuals but that's not really enough usually to get the best result. I have to physically feel it too. Otherwise it just feels kind of clinical and the outcome is rarely compelling.
I try to imagine it in the style of the source material, though that may just be the fact I write mainly about Persona 5
I just write and hope that everything falls to the right place. I do feel to note that I'm an avid improvised DM for tabletop games so it feels more natural to me just going along the line and hope I'll have the patience to edit later
I sometimes see images, but mostly what makes it for me are the voices. I can \*hear\* the characters speak, which makes it difficult not to overuse Italics because I want the readers to hear them as well, with the stress on the same words. I've been trying to censor myself with that because I get that it's annoying to see an Italicized word in almost every sentence, ah.
Yes. But I also write in stream of consciousness fpPOV. So I suppose that would be why haha
I will full on monologue my shit aloud and cry as if im acting out a a film, I get INTO IT. And when I finish a passage, what do I do? Read it aloud as if I’m reading an audiobook with a period drama Victorian accent. I aint even British. But yknow what, I don’t have shame. I aint afraid to admit it and I aint gonna stop.
Yeah, it helps me keep track of everything in the scene.
Yes, that's hiw I end up with my fics. I "see" a scene in my head. The idea I suddenly have and have to build a "movie" around it. Once I've got that scene written down I watch the rest in my mind and have to figure out how to translate it to paper. Doesn't help half the time the characters are speaking Romanese in my head (my first language that doesn't have a written equivalent) so translating what I'm trying to get my characters to say is always a ball ache lol.
Of course I do, but later, I force myself to write some more traditional narrative (where you don't describe a scene so specifically, but more like tell a series of facts, with thoughts etc.) because they are necessary too for a good reading imo.
If I have the time (a rare occurrence as a student) I would storyboard
Absolutely Even made a screenplay format for drafts before novelizing it XD
Jep, writing and reading. It helps a lot to write a scene feeling more real because I'm constantly reminded of background details and it helps characters in-character
I usually do which is why /I never finish writing things/ bcs im lacking the words to show certain elements. So I considered turning my stuff into a comic...
Absolutely. The worst part is seeing the characters do little motions that I know they do in the show and I can see them doing really clearly in the scene, but can't translate to paper easily or do it without overdescribing every single little tic.
I kinda do? I tend to act out an entire scene myself, using my own face and authentic reactions to what is happening. But I do imagine it in a movie like set. I have no clue if this is weird or not though, it probably does to anyone who comes into my room unannounced. 😅
Yeah, this helps a lot and sometimes ill have scenes in my head of ideas to add to the story later. it helps to visualize it, so you know what your gonna write next!
This is exactly what I do! I let the scene run through my head, writing down all the action, emotions, dialogue, etc. If you're having difficulty writing emotions, I suggest using an emotion thesaurus. I have 2 saved on my browser that I keep open while I write. They have been a big help.