For me, interiors are always places I’ve been (unless it’s a grand mansion or castle!). For example, a book I just read the characters house was my friend from schools house – who I haven’t spoke to for over 15 years! Another instance was a book set in New York, and the apartment interior was the ground floor of my cousins house (here in England) It’s completely random how it’s assigned and once it’s there I can’t change it
by Secret-Brilliant-753
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People’s houses in books are almost always places I’ve been! I thought I was the only one who did that lol. Matilda’s house has always been the apartment I was living in when I first read the book, but with a second storey. Architecturally it doesn’t make any sense for there to be a second floor but it is what it is.
They’re somewhere new probably 95% of the time.
I have a good minds eye, so I tend to visualize exactly what the author describes. As such, I tend to enjoy authors that have a lot of descriptions in their writing versus someone who might be more general. “The colonial house stood proudly before a well maintained yard that betrayed the wealth of the people inside” does a lot more for me than “she found the blue house numbered 317 and went inside”, for example.
That being said, there have been a few rare instances where the author describes something close to a house or location that I do already know. In those instances, I do tend to imagine the space I already know.
Aside from all that… I’ve actually read books that take place locally. A Simple Plan takes place about 5 miles from where I grew up. I know the roads the characters take, the stores they visit, so that’s a really fun experience. If you haven’t had the chance to read a book like that, I highly recommend it.
I don’t visualise much at all when I read, so no.
I don’t have a great imagination, so I picture in my mind something that looks like a movie or TV set I am familiar with, for the appropriate time and place of the book.
I visualize The Brady Bunch house when characters are in a big house, or Seinfeld’s apartment if it is described as a flat.
A small single family detached home, I visualize the house I grew up in.
Stories taking place in spaceships, I visualize the characters in The Millenium Falcon or the Starship Enterprise.
I read a lot of fantasy books and I can’t help but picture their villages looking like the towns of the video game Skyrim.
Castles? I always visualize the movie sets from Monty Python & the Holy Grail.