=Bill Adams=: Yes--imagination's the whole thing. I hear the sounds,
feel the roughness (ice on the ropes). I shudder when it's cold and
sweat when it's hot; if the story runs as it should.
The pictures are colored in my mind as the actual coloring would be.
Gray in the sky--dull waters; red in the west--crimson on the
wave-tops--the sails reflecting the lights of each.
Don't talk to me about geometry or math--damnable things, all.
Haven't any stock pictures--the world too big and numerous. Everything
keeps hopping right along.
My trade is not writing stories as yet. Therefore I've no tools for that
trade (stories).
=Samuel Hopkins Adams=: The people, if they are well presented, I see
definitely; they move and breathe and change expression. Upon
considering your question, I find that I do not hear them as plainly and
definitely as I see them. Although I have an unusually acute sense of
smell--perhaps because I am not a smoker--I do not react particularly to
odor-motifs in fiction; nor to taste. I certainly do not feel physical
pain reactions, nor am I specially sensitive to imaginary contacts.
As for setting I occasionally find myself helping out my author by
imparting into his story some actual scene, more or less vividly
recalled. If I do undertake to create a _mise en scène_ out of his
material, I am likely to find upon examination that it is a
memory-picture of some half forgotten place.
Such pictures as I see are of full form and hue; people more vividly
featured than places.
Solid geometry was not worse than other forms of mathematical martyrdom.
If I understood this question, the mere concept will often give me
enough to go on; but I might work out a picture totally different from
the author's intent. The risk is his, if he _will_ supply only
frame-work!
No stock pictures. My gallery is more productive than that.
No! let 'em go as far as they like.
Of course. There is also a difference between being favored and
perspiring!
Here you have rung in a change of venue. You have been asking about
reactions to other people's writings; abruptly you demand details as to
one's own artisanship. Anything is a tool of my trade which I find
suitable to my purposes, and I will use it fully or in outline as fits
the special situation.
=Paul L. Anderson=: It depends on how well the author has done his work.
If he has done it well, I live the story I'm reading; if not, I don't
finish the story. I do not see details clearly; the vision is broad, and
I do not feel physical pain--the pain I feel is sympathetic. The
pictures I see are in black and white, this fact, together with the
breadth of vision, being traceable to the fact that for many years I
worked at pictorial photography, where the effort was to see things
broadly, without niggling detail, and to see them without color.
Trigonometry, analytic geometry, and solid geometry were my favorite
forms of mathematics; probably because more concrete than algebra,
calculus, and analytic mechanics.
I have a stock picture for a barroom and gambling hall, and curiously
enough it doesn't in the least resemble any barroom I ever was in,
though I have a secondary stock picture of one which does. No other
stock pictures.
The imagination is more vivid in writing than in reading; I live the
story with more force.
Sure they're tools of the trade. How can you make another man see a
thing if you don't see it yourself?
=William Ashley Anderson=: This depends entirely upon the power of the
author to make vivid the scenes and actions he describes. In direct
proportion to the genius of the author do I feel the force of his
impressions.
The aim of writing--as of all art--is to reproduce and idealize nature.
Its aim, therefore, is to make everything seem real. It approaches
reality, but it can never attain reality, because it is all illusion. It
stirs the senses, therefore, as illusion stirs the senses, and has the
power to make things as clear and vivid as in dreams--but never as sharp
and poignant as in reality. The impress of nature is direct. The impress
of literature is by means of metaphor. For its effect, metaphor must
depend upon awakening the memory. For this reason, a sensitive,
imaginative, experienced person appreciates best the works of higher
genius which employ a greater variety of metaphor than mediocre works.
It is beyond the power of art to describe a new color--though it might
not be beyond the power of the optic nerve to receive the impression of
a new color if it actually appeared before the eye.
It is beyond the power of an author to describe a flavor which no one
has ever tasted, and which has no resemblance whatever to any known
flavor--though such a flavor is possible, and the tongue would recognize
it as new. This is evident by the fact that from childhood on many foods
come to us as distinctly new and strange in flavor. It is beyond the
power of the written word in itself to satisfy lust; but the desire for
lust is so easily aroused that the poorest kind of writer can easily
excite the dullest imagination.
It is beyond the power of print to start a vibration that will beat
against the ear-drum--and it is hopeless for a writer to attempt to
describe a sound which has no effect upon the human ear; but a great
composer can create harmonies in his head without even humming, and can
record them accurately upon paper with a pencil without a sound being
heard. So can an author, by the use of words, arouse memory. It is
equally beyond the power of words to describe a wholly unfamiliar odor;
though smell is probably the strongest of all senses, and has probably
the greatest power to awaken memory.
Memory, however, is so important an element in an understanding of
literature that by exciting a recollection of things (through the
employment of familiar metaphor) a fine author can make me feel a
reaction in all the senses. I can "hear," "taste," "feel," "see,"
"smell" the things he describes to such an extent that I can close my
eyes and imagine music or the sounds of wild beasts; my appetite is
stimulated (though never appeased! for here the actual craving of the
body is stronger than any illusion--though description may inspire a
disgust for food); I mentally recoil from an unpleasant sensation; I can
visualize scenes--though not, I am sure, exactly as the author intends
them to be described; and I can imagine odors, if the metaphors are
clear.
It is as difficult to describe the exact limitations of visualization as
it is to find a standard by which to measure all painting. Some stories
bring out a single striking point which is very vivid, with a background
obscure and dim; others have an equally strong central idea, with every
detail worked out in exquisite particular; others are a confused
hodge-podge, vague, unreal, unsatisfactory.
Both plane and solid geometry were the clearest branches of mathematics
to me. The others were disproportionately difficult.
Reading stories written by others often suggests stories or
reminiscences of my own; but in these cases I think the authorship is
defective, because with a really great writer I get "lost" in the book.