Hey,
Tell me about how you visualize what you read.
I’d say I have a pretty solid imagination. I can visualize and "hear" things quite well, but I often get caught up in trying to "perfect" the scene.
I realize it’s not strictly necessary, but I still want to get the most out of the experience.
It’s especially tricky with dense descriptions, like in Lord of the Rings for example. Sometimes the imagery gets so complex that I have to pause and mentally readjust the scene if certain details or key elements don't seem to click anymore.
Lately, I’ve been trying to dial back that perfectionism. I’m learning to just stick with my first impression and just "vibe with it."
by yelljell
3 Comments
I used to do the exact same thing with dense fantasy books – would get stuck trying to map out every detail perfectly in my head. Tolkien especially can be brutal with his descriptions, like when he’s going on about the geography of Middle-earth for paragraphs
What helped me was realizing that even the author probably doesn’t have it all perfectly visualized. Your brain fills in gaps automatically anyway, so those first impressions you get are usually pretty good. Now I just let the important stuff stick and don’t stress if I can’t picture every single tree or building layout perfectly
Lord of the Rings is particularly dense with visual description. I have a pretty good visual imagination and I have to take a lot of the passages slowly, especially in Two Towers.
I’m not much of a visual thinker. I don’t see images when I read unless I put in a lot of effort. For the longest time, I avoided books with a lot of flowery language because it would frustrate me. So most of the time I just feel the “vibe” as you called it.
I’ve started revisiting some visually descriptive books. I take time to visualize them. It takes me way longer to read this way, but I’ve started to enjoy books that I used to hate. It’s kind of wild how international effort changes my experience.