I have many weaknesses as a writer—too numerous to mention. But one, I realise, is probably more off-putting to readers than the rest.
My descriptions, especially of people.
“I want to know what happens in the story. Who cares what they look like?” I ask myself.
Well, a lot of people, it turns out. People who have a better imagination than I.
I can’t remember the faces of people I know in real life. Can’t conjure their image even if I’ve known them since I was a child. When I think of them, appearance isn’t something my brain provides. When I try, the image it conjurers is unusually their profile photo from social media. (I can recognise them when I see them. Usually. If I know them well. Voices I remember.)
It’s one of those things that you don’t realise about yourself until you learn that others aren’t like that. Some people, when reading, apparently have a full technicolour film running through their head. When I read, I can follow the action, gestures, thoughts. But unless it’s somehow part of the story, (he had a vicious scar from his vicious past, or only one eye that unnerved people when it fixed on them…) the face just doesn’t appear. It’s blurred out. Many times, their body is a blur, too. Clothing almost never distinguishes itself unless minutely portrayed by the author.
There is a word for not being able to imagine anything.
Aphantasia.
I can bring fuzzy images to mind, so I’m at least somewhat phantasic, I just can’t help but feel that a writer ought to be vividly phantasic. (I keep wanting to spell it, phantasTic.)
I’m not going to give up on writing, of course. I love stories and storytelling. But this is something that I will have to be more mindful of, and take care to practice going forward.
Do you also imagine vaguely? Or do you have the full movie going all the time? Let me know in the comments, I’d really like to know how many people are vivid imaginers and how many aren’t.