John Gwynne in the bloodsworn saga with “thought-cage” ugggggghh

I can BARELY visualize, blobby and vague and no color, mostly just shapes that I have to focus really hard to form and they don’t stay together. Imagine bad drawings on an etch-a-sketch that someone keeps shaking.

I read fantasy and romance mostly, some Sci fi. That’s what I write as well. I don’t think it affects anything honestly. I write very descriptively and I love descriptive writing that really builds the world. Even though I can’t visualize things easily, I can know that I’m thinking about the things. I can build things up in my mind as words and ideas alongside my best attempts at visualization. One area that I could maybe see being affected is that I don’t imagine what characters look like very often unless I’ve seen fanart or in the case of writing if I’ve made images or models of the characters. I have an easier time visualizing images I’ve seen so I sometimes look up fanart or make images of characters so I can better know what they look like.

Some books have content warnings in the front or back of the book. And some authors post content warnings on websites or even in reviews of their own books. You can also always search on Reddit and other social media to see if anyone has mentioned anything. There’s also a website called Does the Dog Die where they list content that is commonly triggering for various kinds of media! When all else fails you can ask on Reddit and see if people can give you an answer :)

If you like fantasy, check out these self published books! I liked them a lot. I think absolutely wonderful work can come out of self publishing, the same way absolute garbage can come out of traditional publishing. As long as the author has good and plentiful editing done by professionals, it has potential to be great.

Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang (I haven’t read her other book Sword of Kaigen but I’ve heard it’s amazing as well!)

The Cradle series by Will Wight

Ascendant by Michael Miller

The only obligation readers have toward writers is paying them for their books in my opinion. I review books on Goodreads but only for myself and other readers and I don’t take them seriously as it’s not my job. I’ve done my part, I’ve paid the writers, anything beyond that is extra and good on people who do go and write reviews but it’s not something I think people should be pressured to do.

It’s the same as restaurants, mechanics, any service you pay for. If you decide to write a review that’s great, but I don’t think it’s cool to pressure people who don’t want to.

I’ve read the first three stormlight archive books and honestly I had to listen to the audiobooks on 3x speed to get through it without losing focus haha