I was in the library reading LOTR (Just finished the Fellowship, my god would I recommend it!), and at the beginning of the session, I was reading the book and the descriptions and prose were so magnificent that I willed myself to try imagining what everything looked like in my mind’s eye. So this raises a question. Do you see the picture while reading? If so, how vividly? And is it automatic?
Just to clear up confusion, I’m not just talking about understanding the text. Or retroactively creating an image. I’m talking about while reading the text, you imagine what’s happening visually. And when something changes in the text, say the grass becoming dimmer, do you imagine that process happening?
It just happens automatically. Usually the images are warped versions of places I’ve actually been to or places I’ve seen videos/images of. My mind just reaches for the closest it’s ever seen of what is being described and they are changed to include specific details the author mentions. When it comes to characters, I also either imagine someone I’ve seen who closely matches the character description or I barely imagine them at all and just insert some hazy image of a person with the attributes the author does out of their way to point out. I almost never have a super vivid image of all of a character’s facial features.