Naturally one's imagination works more definitely when he is writing
than when reading. In order to write at all one must bring his mind into
a state of intense activity. But he can read almost passively--often
passing over long stretches merely to get to what he hopes is coming.
No, I never have.
=Joseph Mills Hanson=: When I read a story I see everything vividly,
provided it interests me; characters, action and setting. I do not hear
sounds; merely realize them. Yes, I believe I do taste flavors. Not much
doing on smells. Sense of touch also rather somnolent (hope I'm not
getting atrophied!). But I _do_ feel actual, physical pain, if it is
feelingly depicted.
Often "see things with my eyes shut"; it comes naturally. Things seem in
natural colors and distinct.
Thank goodness, I never studied solid geometry. Algebra was bad enough.
However, I liked plane geometry better than other mathematics--which
isn't saying much.
If I become absorbed in a story, my imagination runs away ahead of the
author; though not always, of course, nor often, to his conclusions.
I usually get different pictures for every church or cowboy, or dog or
barnyard, or anything else.
There is, I believe, a difference in the conduct of my imagination when
reading or writing a story. It acts more slowly, perhaps less logically,
when writing; I have to ponder situations a good deal before deciding
and going ahead.
Yes, I have thought of them as tools of my trade. The sub-divisions have
not occurred to me in that light.
=E. E. Harriman=: In reading a story I see every, smallest detail and if
the author is chary of descriptions I fill in unconsciously. One reason
why I am at times short on descriptions--I see it so plainly myself that
I am liable to forget that others can not. My imagination carries me
into a field of action so completely that I am often under a strain that
tires me out. I have, in writing a gunfight scene, jumped nearly out of
my chair when a neighbor slammed a board down on another one. I am often
so affected by pathos of my own composition that I have to pause and
assure myself that it is fiction, before I can finish. In reading Payson
Terhune's dog story in the last _Ladies' Home Journal_ last night I got
so worked up that I wanted to hammer hell out of that speed maniac who
killed the dog. I feel, see, hear, smell, anything vividly represented
by a good writer.
Seeing in the dark--the colorings are there, to the last gradation.
Every detail is clear cut and distinct. I can see things I saw fifty
years ago, in just that way. As I think of my dog that died forty-two
years ago, I can see the shadings that ran down from his reddish back to
his light yellow belly. I can see the color and expression of his eyes
and the way he would cock his head on one side when listening to me.
Never studied solid geometry, though I made the drawings in the
University of Minnesota. Enjoyed them immensely and took a high mark.
If a writer hints at anything, my mind pictures it instantly. If his
description is stopped shy of completion, I finish it.
I have no stock pictures, though my memory is full of scenes. Any style
or kind is built up instantly by a phrase or sentence.
I think that there is a marked difference in imaginative vision when
writing or reading. In reading I feel that I am looking at a photograph
or watching action by others. In writing I feel that I am in the
scene--a part of it--helping in the action.
I use these "tools of my trade" daily. Often I start with a man or boy
as my central character. Before long he gets into a scrape. At once I
become that character and have to live the situation in order to learn
what he would or could do to get out of a fix.
=Nevil G. Henshaw=: This is rather hard to answer, but in reading a book
or story that I'm genuinely interested in I react far beyond the written
page in all the senses you enumerate. I imagine I feel most the emotions
of the characters, fear, hate, desire, pain, etc. Also taste hits me
hard. Smell not so much. Sound still less. Touch last of all. A scene
well done I see perfectly and I delight in the little touches that make
real and set off the whole, trifles like a puddle in a road, a rock on a
hillside, an odd piece of furniture or ornament in a room.
In writing unless I can see what I'm writing about I can't get it on
paper. The picture is perfectly clear to the last detail no matter how
fanciful. This applies to any picture I try to conjure up. I see the
colors also.
Being a dub at all mathematics, I never studied geometry.
If an author gives me a good hint I can generally go beyond it.
I've no stock pictures, especially in my own work. A place will give me
an idea even quicker than a person. But then I've always thought that
there was a great deal in that ancient expression "Ain't nature grand."
There is, of course, a big difference though it's hard to explain.
Perhaps I can get at it best by saying that writing is work, reading
play.
These matters are most certainly tools of the trade, and I use them all
I can.
=Joseph Hergesheimer=: My reaction to a story is partly to the fineness
of its writing and partly to the depth of its humanity--its pity and
understanding. I see no mental pictures--again all this is simply the
emotion of recognition. Solid geometry? I have never studied anything.
Stock pictures or individual vision? If it isn't the latter it's
nothing! Resent too many images? This is not clear. "Behavior of the
imagination" escapes me. Tools of trade? This, too, is complicated. I
think I am centered on the main thing, and the rest follow
subconsciously.
=Robert Hichens=: I can not answer this.
=R. de S. Horn=: I certainly consider these matters as tools of the
trade. Perhaps this comes from the peculiar situation I find myself in;
_viz._, having to write or do nothing. I had always liked to write; did
a lot of it at the Naval Academy and afterward as a side line mostly for
the pure fun of it. But when I was smashed up and rendered unfit for
most occupations I took to writing with deliberate intent to make it my
one profession. Writing is in mind at all times, whatever I do, wherever
I go. And with such in view I try to make everything useful and
subservient to the end in view.
I find that my imagination is quite vivid, and it immediately interests
itself in every story I read. I smell smells, see sights, hear sounds,
taste tastes and feel emotions provided the author himself has done so
and thus has handed them on to me. In other words I quite enter into the
atmosphere of the stories I read. More than this, I sometimes find
myself seized with a new solution to the story and thinking it out to
see if possibly the story wouldn't have been better that way. Generally
the pictures I see in my imagination are black and white; silhouettes,
you might say, though I still see the colors. The idea is that it is the
outlines that strike me most forcibly, sort of like cardboard outlines
of mountains, for instance, that show the bold characteristics rather
than the tiny details. By focussing I am able to bring out the details
better, however, after a bit. But the first impression is usually
silhouette-like.
Solid geometry and spherical trigonometry did give me considerably more
trouble than the plane branches of mathematics. However by the time I
had finished calculus and a few more like that I seemed to have acquired
the knack of it.
The author's words frequently set my imagination off in its own and
sometimes quite different channels.
I don't believe I have stock pictures. It seems to me that every story
should have its own distinctive characters and settings. However I have
not written sufficiently to say for certain that I don't use them
unconsciously.
I think my imagination works differently when writing than when reading.
In the first case I direct it myself and deliberately put it to work in
most cases after the story actually begins to take form. But when
reading it works purely subconsciously.
=Clyde B. Hough=: The mere printed word does not and never can present
the picture in the fulness of its maturity. The best that the printed
word can hope to do is to suggest graphically, so graphically that the
imagination of the dullest reader will experience no difficulty in
rounding out the picture, in clothing it with all the splendor, emotion,
etc., that the author has suggested. It is my belief that any author's
success will be measured according to the extent that he succeeds in
achieving this goal.
When I read other men's stories, or to be accurate I should say when I
study other men's stories, I see their characters. I am enthralled by
their action which expresses their sensations. My subconscious mind is
aware of the tastes, the flavors and the smells or anything else that
goes to round out a given setting, but I do not physically experience
these things. My imagination does not reproduce the sense of touch, nor
does it cause me to feel pain. I account for this by the fact that all
the rounding out of the story, as a reader supplying what the author
suggests, is left to my subconscious mind, because my conscious mind is
solely occupied with studying the story from the craftsman's standpoint.
To put the whole matter in a nut shell, I do not read for entertainment,
but solely to study the other fellow's craftsmanship in order that I
myself may acquire more craft.
Yes, I can "see things with my eyes shut" and the limitations are,
allowing for the ratio of imagination, in proportion to the number and
variety, or the sum total of all the actual concrete things I have ever
seen. These pictures and objects in my mind automatically take on the
color that is appropriate to themselves. The details are not distinct
unless I make a special effort in concentration. But by an effort of the
will I can generally straighten out the kinks.