I have partial facial blindness which makes it hard to picture faces that aren’t super familiar and I can’t create new faces in my head. I end up picturing faces of people I know and celebrities.
It becomes frustrating when I’m reading as the faces morph constantly into my head. I constantly stop to get the faces right. Sydney Sweeney ended up as 2 characters when I read “Bunny” lol. I also get a biased view of the characters this way. It makes it really hard to enjoy reading nowadays. Any suggestions? Different strategies for picturing or reading without picturing?
I think if you could see into my brain when I read you would likely see very clear details for rooms and other places, also details for bodies and clothing, but when it comes to the face they would likely not have many features.
I read a 19 book series about a female NPS ranger and I don’t have an image of her face, I have some details, but I couldn’t even suggest an actress to play her in a movie. If a movie has been made before I read a book, I will usually visualize the actors who play each character while reading.
I did read a while ago that there is a fan fiction site that actually creates images of characters in books. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but thought it would be helpful for fantasy books when characters don’t look human.