Writing Without Imagination
12/18/20 09:48 Filed in: imagination
Imagination is something everyone takes for granted. Imagination, the word, has the root “image”. When someone says, “Imagine a flower,” you’re able to close your eyes and see a picture of a flower. Maybe the flower is a rose, or a tulip. When you’re told “Close your eyes and imagine a beautiful sunset on a beach,” you see a picture of something calming and beautiful. You use something often called your “third-eye”, to imagine.
I’ve written about this before.
Imagination is something everyone takes for granted. Imagination, the word, has the root “image”. When someone says, “Imagine a flower,” you’re able to close your eyes and see a picture of a flower. Maybe the flower is a rose, or a tulip. When you’re told “Close your eyes and imagine a beautiful sunset on a beach,” you see a picture of something calming and beautiful. You use something often called your “third-eye”, to imagine.
What if you can’t do that? What if you literally cannot see pictures? What if when you close your eyes all you see is a black screen? What if you have no “imagination”?
That’s me. I have something known as afantasia. I do not envision (root vision) something–anything. How does one (do I) write if I have no imagination?
Let me explain what happens, in my case, when someone says, “Close your eyes and imagine an apple.” When I do that, I get a black screen. Nothing. However, I know what an apple is. I’ve seen apples. I’ve held and felt apples. I’ve eaten more than a few in my time. I have my memories of apples. I know what they look like, feel like, and how they taste. So when I’m told to imagine an apple, what I get are my memories, and the “concept” of an apple. This is more difficult to explain. It’s not an image. It’s more like a very diffuse, generic idea of an apple. It’s not a specific apple. It’s the notion of “appleness”.
That’s what I use to write about apples. I take that notion–generic idea of what I am writing about and make it concrete. I can describe an apple without actually seeing one. I’m able to describe a 7-legged turtle without seeing one. How? I do what writers do. I extrapolate my notion of a turtle to one with 7-legs.
When writers say they see their book as a movie in their mind. I can’t do that. I can’t see a single frame, or item in a frame. What I do is I use my understanding of how the world (and people) work and logically (or sometimes illogically) extrapolate actions based on settings and my “imagined” events.
I write by extrapolating and predicting what will happen if someone pulls a gun on someone in my story. Understanding the character’s background and past helps a great deal. I don’t see it, but I understand it. It’s logical. It’s believable. If my character is fearful, probability says he will cower. If he’s drunk, probability says he’ll act irrationally. If he’s the hero, he may counter attack. Does that make my story predictable? Of course. That’s just another word for believable. What makes stories interesting is when a character does something expected unexpectedly or for reasons that only the character knows. Maybe the fearful person counter attacks because he knows, if he doesn’t, his wife who is being held hostage will die.
People take imagination for granted. Some few of us have none. We learn to function and write in the world in which we live, not the world in which we imagine we live. It’s a blessing and a curse. Our world isn’t less rich. It’s different. In some ways, it’s more rational, ordered, and predictable.
But, at times, we wish we could visit the museums and theaters of the mind.
Word up!
Imagination is something everyone takes for granted. Imagination, the word, has the root “image”. When someone says, “Imagine a flower,” you’re able to close your eyes and see a picture of a flower. Maybe the flower is a rose, or a tulip. When you’re told “Close your eyes and imagine a beautiful sunset on a beach,” you see a picture of something calming and beautiful. You use something often called your “third-eye”, to imagine.
What if you can’t do that? What if you literally cannot see pictures? What if when you close your eyes all you see is a black screen? What if you have no “imagination”?
That’s me. I have something known as afantasia. I do not envision (root vision) something–anything. How does one (do I) write if I have no imagination?
Let me explain what happens, in my case, when someone says, “Close your eyes and imagine an apple.” When I do that, I get a black screen. Nothing. However, I know what an apple is. I’ve seen apples. I’ve held and felt apples. I’ve eaten more than a few in my time. I have my memories of apples. I know what they look like, feel like, and how they taste. So when I’m told to imagine an apple, what I get are my memories, and the “concept” of an apple. This is more difficult to explain. It’s not an image. It’s more like a very diffuse, generic idea of an apple. It’s not a specific apple. It’s the notion of “appleness”.
That’s what I use to write about apples. I take that notion–generic idea of what I am writing about and make it concrete. I can describe an apple without actually seeing one. I’m able to describe a 7-legged turtle without seeing one. How? I do what writers do. I extrapolate my notion of a turtle to one with 7-legs.
When writers say they see their book as a movie in their mind. I can’t do that. I can’t see a single frame, or item in a frame. What I do is I use my understanding of how the world (and people) work and logically (or sometimes illogically) extrapolate actions based on settings and my “imagined” events.
I write by extrapolating and predicting what will happen if someone pulls a gun on someone in my story. Understanding the character’s background and past helps a great deal. I don’t see it, but I understand it. It’s logical. It’s believable. If my character is fearful, probability says he will cower. If he’s drunk, probability says he’ll act irrationally. If he’s the hero, he may counter attack. Does that make my story predictable? Of course. That’s just another word for believable. What makes stories interesting is when a character does something expected unexpectedly or for reasons that only the character knows. Maybe the fearful person counter attacks because he knows, if he doesn’t, his wife who is being held hostage will die.
People take imagination for granted. Some few of us have none. We learn to function and write in the world in which we live, not the world in which we imagine we live. It’s a blessing and a curse. Our world isn’t less rich. It’s different. In some ways, it’s more rational, ordered, and predictable.
But, at times, we wish we could visit the museums and theaters of the mind.
Word up!