/lit/ - Literature

>>20421051
We have memories, we just don't see them. The data is on the hard drive, but the monitor is not plugged in.

I always assumed that police sketch artists had some dark magic techniques for recreating faces. But it turns out that people can just conjure up pictures of the suspects to compare to the illustration. That's bonkers to me.

>>20420989
I'm not sure. It might be a problem. But most writing doesn't involve exact descriptions of distances or rotating objects in space. It's more impressionistic. Just like having good eyesight doesn't make you a good painter, having an ability to visualize doesn't give you the power to describe what you're seeing.

In his online lectures, Brandon Sanderson talks about 'stained glass' prose versus 'a clear window.' But that's a bad metaphor. No one can actually see through the writing to what you're visualizing. Words are opaque. Writing is more like painting than a window. So, in his case at least, visualizing might be a problem. He's seeing cool stuff but writing bland prose.

I don't know what it does to my own writing. I worry that I hyper correct by over explaining space and setting and architecture. I've also developed a weird habit of always noting light sources. Lots of torchlight and moonlight flying around. Also I barely describe characters at all. Talking about eye color and shit seems pointless to me since it's impossible to precisely describe a face and people will just imagine what they want anyway.