This past Saturday, while taking a family trip to a localish conservation area, my wife and I were chatting about the respective books we were reading. During that conversation, my wife said something very interesting that has stuck with me ever since.
She just recently realized that while she was reading, the visual she formed in her mind were always in black & white. If they book called out a color to something specific (blue eyes, green grass, etc) she would see that one element in its described color for a second or two, but the rest of the scene remained something out of I Love Lucy.
That made me think about how the movies play in my head when I’m reading. I knew it was all in color, but the more I thought about it, the more I wondered how others see things.
My view is very cinematic. I’m constantly seeing different camera angles. It’s like my reading is being directed by Christoper Nolan.
Oh fantastic post! I never really thought about this before!
I definitely invision things in colour. I make up elements that aren’t explained and sometimes base them off real places. Everything is bright. But part of the problem with that is I come up with pictures in my mind and when I’m told specifics (hair colour, eye colour, etc) I often disregard it because my mind has already seen it. I think Tim Burton is the director of how I see books in my mind!
‘Tim Burton’ and ‘Bright’ generally don’t go together. Lol.
I’m the same way with character details. If I saw them as a blonde and the author tries to tell me they’re raven-haired, they stay blonde. That’s the main reason I generally don’t do character descriptions when I write.
This is very interesting to think about! I feel like I see book scenes the way you do, as in-color movie type scenes. That kind of helps me know when a story or character is not well developed when I can’t picture it in my head.