My imagination behaves very differently when reading from its manner
when writing. But I confess that I can not adequately describe the
difference. So much can be said of it. When I read I "follow the leader"
and do not run off into my own channels; but when I am writing my fancy
runs wild and I think of the most preposterous and remote things
which--as later analysis often shows--have indirect and obscure
connections with the idea I am working over. When reading I am passive,
more or less; when writing, I am active. There is a curious difference,
over and above this, in the nature of my emotional responses; and this
rather stumps me to set down on paper. It seems as if I give deeper and
surer emotional reactions to the content of what I read than I do to
what I am fancying when in the midst of writing. I find that calculating
and constructing makes me deliberate and a degree cool toward the
subject-matter. This is the result of deliberate intellectualizing, of
course.
I have always considered the functions of imagination as the basic
"tools of the trade."
=E. S. Pladwell=: This question is too broad. It is all according to the
author. Some can make me see, feel, taste, smell. Others merely glue my
attention to the action. Others bore me. Under some authors I will say
that I see the people and action, subconsciously, not as in real life.
My response is with one kind of author limited to the exact degree that
he describes things, while with others I am able to wander all over. A
concrete example: Kipling in a few lines can intimate things which will
make me lay down the book and think. O. Henry, on the other hand, keeps
one so busy keeping up with his sparkling action that there is no time
for another thought. Kipling's mere concept, or hint, can produce
unlimited mental pictures; but O. Henry has to draw them line for line.
I believe that the concept or hint is best.
I never studied solid geometry, being fired from college just in time to
avoid it. All mathematics bore me; and yet I can draw a ship or a city
in perfect proportion and perspective. I suppose it's instinct or
something.
Have no stock pictures for church or cowboy. Each individual case is
interesting in itself.
Imagination to me is clearer when reading than writing. When reading I
can sit back and let things flow by in easy sequence. When writing I
must labor, taking various imaginings as a bricklayer picks up bricks,
and then selecting those which are useful and rejecting those which are
not. When I get a new idea my imagination is vivid; but in writing it I
fade the picture, for my mind is occupied with means for putting the
picture over, rather than the picture itself. The picture is still
there; but it is subordinated.
=Lucia Mead Priest=: If a writer is master of his craft he can do what
he will with my imagination. My senses are alert, particularly those of
sight, taste, smell.
Oh, yes, my mouth waters. Dickens used to make me hungry till I sampled
his edibles. "'am and weal pie" is a sordid delusion, a menu snare.
This is guess-work, but I should say I do respond to the various stimuli
to the senses. Not in the same measure to all. When I read the death of
"Nancy Sikes" I see her in the ghastly light of a London morning, see
the grimy curtain with "Bill," and the horror under it, but I feel no
quiver of flesh when he beats down the upturned face. I respond to
mental hurts not to physical--not _as_ physical.
When impressed I find I carry a mental pain--even for years.
It depends entirely on the author's designs on me. If he paints his
sunset clearly, I see it in color.
I think I must see details, for descriptions, bits of books, here and
there, stand out from the main story often. I fancy the color of them is
ephemeral.
I have no remembrance of any thing in mathematics from the
multiplication table to trigonometry that didn't spell _Trouble_ for me
with a monster T.
My response to an author who interests me is evidently helpful. I have
found, often, that in rereading something I have liked I have built on
many additions, colored it with my imagining.
Sorry, but I'm afraid my "stock room" is bare. Maybe I would find Owen
Wister's or a stage cowboy in it, never having seen a live one.
My pictures come from original locations--geography I have covered
myself.
No great difference in the working of the imagination between writing
and reading. If so, one of degree. By the looks of my hair, when
"genius" (?) has burned, I should judge I may get greater emotional
depths when creating.
=Eugene Manlove Rhodes=: Visual imagination, yes. Hearing, no. Taste,
smell, touch, pain, thirty to fifty per cent. Colors: distinct. No solid
geometry. Concept is as good as three volumes--better; want to roll my
own. No stock pictures. Reading _vs._ writing, no difference. As to
tools, yes.
=Frank C. Robertson=: My imagination reproduces the story-world of an
author, though with limitations. That is, I see a story-world when
reading but I frequently realize later that it is not just the same as
the author's. This, of course, is not the fault of the author, but comes
from my own peculiar reactions. For instance: the author says "the lion
roared." I don't hear the roar, I see a lion open his mouth in the
motions of roaring. He says: "the gurgling brook." I don't hear it
gurgle--I see it cascading over stones and know that it is gurgling. But
if he forces me to it like "out in the darkness there sounded a strange,
droning noise," I actually hear a strange, droning noise. In lesser
measure this holds true with all the senses. The author speaks of his
starving hero eating luscious fried bananas. I can see those bananas and
my mouth waters, but to save my life I can not taste them. My sense of
sight predominates. But where acute physical pain or mental agony is
described I think I actually feel. At every blow of the lash my flesh
shrinks and my nerves recoil. And I am as easily moved to tears as the
veriest schoolgirl--which is why I write he-man stuff. Cold, callous and
indifferent.
The mental pictures that I see are usually clear-cut and the coloring
very much as I see the same objects in real life.
My response is not limited to the exact degree to which the author
describes. I frequently seize upon a mere impression left by the author
and from it build up a whole chain of pictures. I find this a decided
handicap in my own writing for I am prone to leave a mere impression of
the setting, and the scenes which are so clear to me are blurred in the
mind of the reader. In rewriting I find that I always have to make the
setting and atmosphere more vivid. In these mental pictures each case,
or object, has a distinct individuality.
My imagination is never so active when reading a story as when writing
it. In reading I am content to float along with the author, analyzing
what has gone before rather than probing continually into the future as
I do when writing.
To the extent that structure, appeal and atmosphere are necessary to the
story I have considered these things as "tools of the trade." Just
recently I have begun to realize the value of appealing to all of the
reader's senses to get him more fully into the spirit of the story.
=Ruth Sawyer=: If a story is strongly and convincingly written I
generally see characters and action developing with the same degree of
reality that one sees a motion picture. Sounds, flavors, smells--in fact
all sense perceptions become extremely acute. I should say the
relationship to the actual stimuli is comparable with a vivid dream.
I rarely see color. For the most part things are black and white but
with sharp detail.
I studied solid geometry and flunked it. The only examination in
mathematics I ever flunked.
A suggestive concept will start me picturing endless detail provided the
suggestion is true to type and locality.
No, I do not have stock pictures for village churches.
I think that depends largely on the condition of mind when one takes up
a story. I find if I am tired I want the work of detail picturing done
for me provided it is not overdone to the point of weariness. Also I
think if one is generally familiar with the atmosphere the writer is
creating that one enjoys filling in a large part of the picture with
one's own imagination.
Yes. I should say when I read stories my imagination was passive and
receptive; that when I wrote stories it was active and creative.
Not consciously.
=Chester L. Saxby=: In reading, my imagination functions in exactly the
same manner as in writing. I write as I read, trying for the
story-world, trying for reality. I think this explains why with me the
atmosphere is the biggest thing, sometimes too big, bigger than the
story. I write as if I were reading, not creating. I have that feeling.
=Barry Scobee=: I believe my imagination reproduces the story in almost
minute detail, if it is interesting. I am a slow reader, the slowest I
know, too unutterably slow ever to sit in on the newspaper copy desk.
I've tried it to my sorrow.
I will see the scenes minutely--the details of the grove or lot or room
or barn--the vast expanse of desert or prairie or sea or mountains. I
will see the out-of-doors or the things with which I am familiar. I will
see all this without effort. But as to hearing, smelling, tasting,
feeling, I will not catch them nearly so minutely or accurately, unless
the author is impressing them with emphasis. If they are impressed
emphatically, I take them in fairly well.
As to whether the story-pictures in my mind are black and
white--shadowy--or colored, well, it depends on what the author says or
whether I have seen places similar to what is being described.
I prefer to read, and write, where there is a splash and promise of
color and description so that I can form my own pictures or let my
reader do it for himself. A "big man with uncombed hair and in his sock
feet" is likely to be better than a detailed description. It lets the
imagination of the reader work, which is one of the technicalities the
author should take advantage of. However, sometimes the dramatic can be
enhanced by minute description. If I have seen something close to what
the author describes or hints at I can see it in all its color.
Solid geometry, as I recollect--I am nearly thirty-seven--gave me just
the same trouble as all other mathematics, which was trouble indeed,
from addition to trigonometry.
It may be clear in the foregoing that a hint from the writer sets me to
reproducing, if the description is anything at all within the compass of
my experience or previous reading and comprehension.
I do not have a single stock picture in mind, so far as I am aware of
now.
When I write my imagination behaves differently from when I read--it
goes more slowly, because I must ponder and weigh and try out. But
otherwise it brings in the material with clarity, if I have my mind well
on what I am doing.
As tools of your trade? I don't quite savvy. All the thousands of quirks
of technique, all the tricks of the trade, certainly are "tools of the
trade." (And it's funny I can't think of a blooming one right now with
which to illustrate.)
=R. T. M. Scott=: When I read a story my imagination reproduces the
story-world of the author very vividly. If it does not, the story does
not interest me and I pass on to the next. I do not hear sounds in
connection with a story which I am reading except upon rare occasions.
Taste, on the other hand, is very acute. Smells, too, are acute although
not quite so acute as tastes. The sense of touch is not so pronounced,
though I feel it to a certain extent. I feel no actual pain
corresponding to the physical pain described in the story. In the case
of taste my imagination produces the same result upon my sense as does
the actual stimulus itself. (If the above proves me to be weak-minded or
a degenerate please give me a chance to argue the matter with the fellow
who says so.)
Limitations with the "eyes shut" need not exist. Pictures may be
colored, in black and white, blurred or distinct. You are the master or
a child wandering in fairy land. It rests with you if you will but
practise regularly for short intervals of time. Five minutes every day
at the same hour will be sufficient for a starter. Seat yourself in a
chair with your back to the door and with your eyes closed. Imagine
yourself rising from the chair and walking around behind your back
toward the door. See the door and feel the knob so vividly that you have
forgotten that you are sitting in the chair. Open the door and pass out,
closing it behind you. Enter the room again and look at the back of your
own head as you sit in the chair. Open the door and pass out, closing it
behind you. Enter the room again and look at the back of your own head
as you sit in the chair. Sounds silly, but try it once a day for six
months. If you have made no progress in three weeks, give it up. If you
do make progress, however, you will reach marvels at the end of half a
year or earlier. There will be no limits and you will be able to visit
any place that you ever heard of or never heard of as you please to be
the master or the child. London or Cairo, the center of the earth or the
opposite side of the moon await you while something unconscious sits in
your chair with its back to the door. Proof? There is no proof for the
man of science such as the counting of beans in a closed box. The reason
for proof is doubt and, with doubt, the trick vanishes.
Solid geometry gave me more trouble than other mathematics. You can't
prove me a maniac on this, however, for I fooled away my time at the
commencement of the study and a weak foundation may have been to blame.
I am not quite sure that I "get" your next question. Perhaps I can not
answer definitely. Sometimes I follow the author pretty closely and
sometimes I leave the author in my lap while something sits in the chair
with its back to the door.