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/lit/ - Literature

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5981668 No.5981668 [Reply] [Original]

I'm trying to write this story I've been building in my head for awhile, but my imagination works in a very visual way. I'm having a hard time expressing the imagery I want to express without a visual aspect to my story. I'm finding it very difficult to express the poetic nature of certain scenes without a visual cue.

Has anyone else experienced this? How do I overcome this obstacle?

>> No.5981674

Accept the fact that you can't express visuals through text. Become a painter if it bugs you too much.

>> No.5981683

>>5981668
By being a good writer

>> No.5981698

>>5981674
What I'm looking for is alternate ways to express the same ideas.

>>5981683
I'm trying to be. It's a process.

>> No.5981714

>>5981698
Visuals are visuals, text is text. You can't put visuals to text and you certainly can't make your readers visualize the same thing as you did when you wrote it.

>> No.5981731

just read more, nobody on this shiity imageboard has the answers

>> No.5981732

>>5981714
It's possible for text to stimulate visuals. You've never read something that was more than the sum of it's parts?

>> No.5981734

>>5981732
No such thing as something that is more than its parts, and I already answered your question.

>> No.5981752

>>5981734
I'm afraid we're on completely different wavelengths here anon. I don't think we'll be able to find any common ground

>> No.5981757

>>5981752
We're both humans, alive, we speak the English, we're on 4chan, in this thread, having a debate. That seems to be a lot of common ground.

>> No.5981774

>>5981757
Well if that's the case, I just find it odd that somebody would be posting on this board and never have found something they've read to be more than the sum of it's parts. I mean, what drives you to read if you don't derive meaning from it?

>> No.5981791

>>5981774
Enjoyment, and reading is more than the paper and text. I too am involved, my mind and imagination, my previous thoughts and experiences, my perception of the world around me. Those aren't separate parts, they're every bit as involved as the text, or perhaps more so since they'd still be there even if I didn't read the text. That the text influences me doesn't create something new outside the sum of the parts, it just influences what's already there. In that way literature is no different than anything else either.

>> No.5981811

>>5981668
Maybe you're just a screenwriter.

>> No.5981815

>>5981791
Seems like you're actively trying to devalue these experiences. Or maybe it's just that I've gained more from the accumulation of knowledge than you have. I'm talking about something completely immaterial.

>> No.5981822

>>5981815
I'm not implying any sort of value. What value would that be, monetary?

>> No.5981837

>>5981822
Intrinsic spiritual, emotional, and intellectual value. What do you read for if not for these values?

>> No.5981883 [DELETED] 

>>5981837
So a book written in a language that no-one understands has intrinsic spiritual, emotional, and intellectual value?

>> No.5981919

>>5981837
I don't care about or measure those, should they exist at all.

>> No.5981941

>>5981919
What do you care about then?

>> No.5981967

>>5981941
Do you mean what values?

>> No.5981992

>>5981967
Just in general.

>> No.5982011

>>5981992
Various things that I don't bother counting or naming.

>> No.5982034

>>5982011
You aren't a very specific person are you anon?

>> No.5982051

>>5982034
I wouldn't know how to measure or grade any of it anyway, so why concern myself with what to call it or how much? Would it improve things if I did?

>> No.5982058

>>5982051
I'm not even talking about measuring or grading anything. I'm talking about merely expressing it.

>> No.5982093

>>5982058
Could you please rephrase and repeat the question, I've lost track of what or who.

>> No.5982105

>>5982093
Anon, like I said at the very beginning of this, we're on different wave lengths here. If you can't even keep it together when we're not even saying anything, we aren't going to be able to have any kind of discussion.

>> No.5982135

>>5982105
I've just lost track whether you're talking about what I express, what I care about expressing, what I think books should express in order for me to enjoy them, what's commonly expressed in books I tend to enjoy, or some other question. I'm not sure about this wavelength talk, but if you want to discontinue this simply because we don't immediately 'get' on another, then that's of course up to you.

>> No.5982147

>>5982135
I'm just saying, you haven't said a single thing yet, or answered any of those questions in any of your posts thus far. If you had something to say you would have already said it.

>> No.5982166

>>5982147
You haven't asked all of them, and I've answered everything you've asked except the last one, which I didn't understand.

>> No.5982179

>>5982166
You're just talking in circles anon. Unless your next post is something substantial, this conversation is over. It's already pretty much dead in the water.

>> No.5982181

OP all written language is based on a persons sense of reality. Anything that you read is based on what a person receives.

You can only write about things that are received by your physical sensory outputs.

To describe something in a book you have to combine elements from auditory, visual or olfactory sense.

Maybe you are just confused about what isn't visual and what is.

When a character describes an emotion it always pertains to certain laws of description, the character cannot describe something that cannot be perceived by him through his 5 senses.....

>> No.5982197

>>5982179
Your ability to pursue a line of questioning.

>> No.5982205

>>5982181
I'm not taking about a character describing something. I'm talking about a series of events and images creating a pattern that relays poetic or metaphorical imagery that leads the reader to understand something greater from the tone and style of the imagery. I'm trying to create an empathetic connection that allows the reader to feel what the character is feeling.

>> No.5982208
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5982208

Holy fuck the people that have been responding to OP are full of shit besides

>5982181

OP, be more specific and just let loose for right now when trying to describe this thing to us in this thread. Once you do that it'll be easier to help you, people here giving you shit are probably doing that because you are being vague and don't want to go through the work of figuring out just what it is you are talking about.

Like, let's say the image you are trying to evoke is how your room when you were a teen had a very blue tint to it at night and there was a certain shadow dancing off of it. So a bluish shadow. The image so far doesn't really do much at this level. What can help is thinking like a reader rather than a writer. Think of this image in your head, and try to articulate and specify what made that image come into your head. What was the context. Once you have that, just describe it, step by step, and it should become apparent what details you need to focus on to fully evoke the image.

>> No.5982214

>>5982197
See
>>5981941
>>5981992

>> No.5982228

>>5982214
See >>5982011
>>5982051

>> No.5982254

>>5982205

What you're describing is the art of making a book interesting, which is something that takes a great deal of practice and perseverance to master. It doesn't exactly have to be considered esoteric, it's just how familiar you are with unraveling a story. The more you write, the better you become at making the story interesting.

IMO, you should never try to see things from your perspective, try to see things from the perspective of the reader - why would the reader want to continue reading your story? The art of making a story interesting is to build up to a point until the reader cannot help but to want to know what happens next.

>> No.5982258

>>5982205
Not the guy you are replying to, I'm
>>5982208

I don't really see the problem. If you have the visual cues in your head why not create a scene that has those ques? You really should just be more specific.

>> No.5982387

>>5982208
>>5982258
I'm trying to think of ways to be more specific, but it's hard without the full context of the story. Basically I'm trying to weave these small visual ques both in the protagonist of my story and in the world around her that relate to her development as a person. My problem is in making it feel natural and not like I'm just listing things that she's wearing or how she looks.

>>5982254 Describes it pretty well I think. I just need to learn how to unravel my story better. Like one of the core images I'm trying to express is in her eyes, where at the beginning they're a dull grey and faded, always darting around avoiding eye contact, and throughout the story as her life is stripped away from her piece by piece we see an inverse where the light starts coming back to them and her gaze becomes steady.

I guess my problem is more in what I want the reader to feel from these images rather than them just having a vague picture of it. I want to express the feeling of it.

>> No.5982575

>>5982387
Ok thanks for giving a specific example.

The eyes. If you are going to pull that off you are going to need to write like Salinger. You will have to slow down you're writing and always be in the room. Describing little movements characters make constantly, letting those movements show how the character is dealing with this or that. If you do this (the whole body, not just the eyes) then when you say, she does x y z with her eyes, it won't seem weird, it will just be part of your style.

If you want something to be natural a decent idea is to fill the story with it so that it actually is a natural thing. Not the most poetic but it can be fun and work.

Also try to stay out of your character's head. It will make the reader look for ques in what is being described in body language/images rather than the narrator giving a poetic speech about a mental state.

>> No.5982615

>>5982575
>Also try to stay out of your character's head. It will make the reader look for ques in what is being described in body language/images rather than the narrator giving a poetic speech about a mental state.

Shit, I think you just identified my main issue here. I;m way too analytical when I'm trying to describe these things. I'm writing it from too much of a self insert perspective rather than allowing the reader to see the character from their own perspective.

I guess this is the arduous process of finding your voice in writing that everyone is always talking about.

>> No.5982741

>>5982615
If you are starting out you have to do that. I am going through that myself so maybe that's why this advice is ringing with you.

Read some Salinger and Hemingway short stories if you already haven't. They are very minimal and Hemingway is very good at staying out of a character's head. Salinger goes back and forth on that.

Again though this is just one way to go about things.