What if you can't write the way you want too?

Vaxil said:

...What if when you write, and read what you've written, and from the readers point of view, you don't 'see' it the way you do when you think about it...

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There's no rule that says they have to 'see' it the same way you do. Anyway, you have no way of properly analysing your reader's vision unless you live inside their head.

Respect the reader's imagination. Don't spell it out for them. Tell the story and let them think about it, visualise it, for themselves. Otherwise reading becomes a passive experience and they'd be as well watching a film.

Show, don't tell, comes into it here, I think.

Bufty said:

Not in disagreement with anything said above, but if one can't visualise one's own picture from one's own words, how on earth can one expect anyone else to?

If that happens, the picture's not painted properly and needs to be rewritten. That's what editing and revision is for, and the discovery is not uncommon, surely.

As to painting the picture clearly so that a reader has a good chance of building the desired image - that's the craft - no?

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Bufty, you've read my story in the shorts section. What does the kid look like? What do the two heroes look like? I don't actually describe them in any great detail at all. I know exactly what they look like, but me telling the exact height, weight, hair color, etc. does nothing to serve the plot. Nor does me not telling you hinder it. I can draw and I sketch my characters in some cases but I deliberately don't try and force that image on my readers.

A bigger problem is when you do write the way you want to, but no agent or editor can be found for whom you've written the way they want you to.

caw.

Hi Wordmonkey.

The boy, the wizard and the side-kick looked as I imagined them from the brief clues given. Granted, my image may not exactly have matched yours, but that's neither the point nor is it necessary, unless, as you say, knowing particular detail(s) about a character's appearance is vital to my understanding or following the story in question.

You gave me sufficient information for me to create characters whom I imagined fitted and helped make the story come alive for me as I read it.

In this case I pictured a fair-haired, self-confident - perhaps over-confident young lad in armour, and a Gandalf-type wizard with a dwarf side-kick like the Scot's dwarf in LOTR.

They also reminded me a tad of the two gangsters in Kiss me Kate, strangely enough. One had the brains and the other tagged on, picking up the hints to the best of his ability!

It made the story work for me and that, I assume, is as satisfying to you as it was to me.

wordmonkey said:

Bufty, you've read my story in the shorts section. What does the kid look like? What do the two heroes look like? I don't actually describe them in any great detail at all. I know exactly what they look like, but me telling the exact height, weight, hair color, etc. does nothing to serve the plot. Nor does me not telling you hinder it. I can draw and I sketch my characters in some cases but I deliberately don't try and force that image on my readers.

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Bufty said:

It made the story work for me and that, I assume, is as satisfying to you as it was to me.

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Incredibly so. And isn't that what we all ultimately want?

A great meany of these question are often the same as "how long is a piece of string?" What works for you is good. What works for me is good. Doesn't matter if they are the different.

I find it interesting to see how people see these guys.

First post: What if you can't write the way you want to?

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I've noticed that problem also. I think the problem is that I see something in my head, and automatically assume that the reader will see it also. I forget that the reader can't see it until and unless I actually describe the whole thing in one way or another.

I often assume something is common knowlege in the story, just because I know it... and then realize that it isn't in the book.

It's hard to grasp a solution for this, but I guess it's a start to say: as you try to write something, don't assume the reader knows any of it. Pretend they know nothing. Then, describe the whole thing, word for word, until you're sure nothing is missed.

Of course, that's just a shot in the dark for a solution. I guess each author has a different view of his book, as he writes. Some may see the story with the reader's eyes, and know exactly how to say something. Some may see it with all-knowing author's eyes, and might miss a thing or two at times, which they thought was written. Some may shift back and forth.

I know that I shift back and forth, depending on what I'm writing. If it's a conversation, or something very down to earth, I can usually see it from the reader's perspective. If it's more broad, I often have trouble, like you said, writing what I see in my head.

Sometimes I'll get an idea for a scene and see it quite clearly in my head then when I sit down to write it will do about one line then get stuck. I'll rewrite that line about a million times over the course of six hours before screaming like a banshee and running into the kitchen for chocolate ice cream then several hours later, usually round about midnight, I'll do another line and all will be right in the world again.

reph said:

Even if you get really good at describing your mental pictures, readers won't see the same ones you do. They don't have to. They'll see something that works for them.

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So true. It doesn't matter how matter how explicitly you state something--some readers will see a blonde when you call the character a flaming redhead.

Vaxil said:

What if when you write, and read what you've written, and from the readers point of view, you don't 'see' it the way you do when you think about it...

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Perhaps you are not using the descriptives well enough.

Use the dictionary and thesarus more.

Practice using a read-back program to listen to your prose.

I don't know your writing, but you do. Are you writing what you are good at?

Just some suggestions.