The slender, olive-skinned man brushed the golden locks out of his hazel eyes. He was so focused on preparing for the assassination that he burned his tongue on the scalding cuppa joe (hazelnut, light cream).
That becomes: There’s an assassin.
This resonates so hard for me! When writing fiction I’ve always felt a bit like I’m doing it wrong because I write almost solely about the characters’ feelings, motivations, and internal monologuing. Visual descriptions are something I shoehorn in because I feel like I’m supposed to have them, and figuring out the blocking of a scene is always a nightmare (has this person stood up yet? how far away are they from the thing they need to go touch?) – it feels totally extraneous; I just want the characters to take the plot-relevant actions and not have to figure out where they’re standing when they do it! God forbid I ever try to write a fight scene. That would not go well...
So yeah thanks for the link; I really like the essay!
Because I find it difficult to imagine how such person could function in everyday life. Like, they go to a shop and they don’t remember what they wanted to buy? Or is it different if they decide in advance that it is important to remember the shopping list, and the “don’t know” only applies to things they did not consciously choose to remember? Or is keeping written notes a necessary coping mechanism?
I think it used to apply to me more – as a kid if people asked me something along the lines of “what did you do today?” I would automatically say “I don’t know,” and then if I thought they wanted a real answer, I would think for a bit. But I could almost always answer after thinking for a couple seconds.
I think part of your confusion comes from conflating experiential memory with verbal memory. In the essay, he also mentions that he’s really good at remembering arbitrary sequences of digits; I presume that extends to things such as grocery lists, and possibly also intentions that he’s formed. For me, I have very few memories of my childhood or even specific experiential memories of more recent years, but I have no trouble remembering what I need to do in a day.
(I do keep a LOT of lists and always have. But I have no idea if this is related.)
Being around people who value talking about abstract things makes me more attuned to the “word content” of the day. It’s like, I can remember going to work on a sunny day or I can remember someone asking her colleague “how do you see/define the depth of a surface in a painting”.
Normally I would say it happens and people forget details. But his case seems like he has a biological issue. I think something serious is happening to him.
I suspect personality, skill level, and now aphantasia in your case impacted on fiction writing. Right now, I put personality as the top reason for this. I like comic books and web comics, thus my fiction consists of a series of images and motions in my head, and I don’t really write them down in texts. In this path, I am also not confident of writing a description with a variety of vocabulary. Oh, at the end, lack of time is the main issue, sadly;)
Whoa...
This resonates so hard for me! When writing fiction I’ve always felt a bit like I’m doing it wrong because I write almost solely about the characters’ feelings, motivations, and internal monologuing. Visual descriptions are something I shoehorn in because I feel like I’m supposed to have them, and figuring out the blocking of a scene is always a nightmare (has this person stood up yet? how far away are they from the thing they need to go touch?) – it feels totally extraneous; I just want the characters to take the plot-relevant actions and not have to figure out where they’re standing when they do it! God forbid I ever try to write a fight scene. That would not go well...
So yeah thanks for the link; I really like the essay!
Does this also apply to you?
Because I find it difficult to imagine how such person could function in everyday life. Like, they go to a shop and they don’t remember what they wanted to buy? Or is it different if they decide in advance that it is important to remember the shopping list, and the “don’t know” only applies to things they did not consciously choose to remember? Or is keeping written notes a necessary coping mechanism?
I think it used to apply to me more – as a kid if people asked me something along the lines of “what did you do today?” I would automatically say “I don’t know,” and then if I thought they wanted a real answer, I would think for a bit. But I could almost always answer after thinking for a couple seconds.
I think part of your confusion comes from conflating experiential memory with verbal memory. In the essay, he also mentions that he’s really good at remembering arbitrary sequences of digits; I presume that extends to things such as grocery lists, and possibly also intentions that he’s formed. For me, I have very few memories of my childhood or even specific experiential memories of more recent years, but I have no trouble remembering what I need to do in a day.
(I do keep a LOT of lists and always have. But I have no idea if this is related.)
Being around people who value talking about abstract things makes me more attuned to the “word content” of the day. It’s like, I can remember going to work on a sunny day or I can remember someone asking her colleague “how do you see/define the depth of a surface in a painting”.
Normally I would say it happens and people forget details. But his case seems like he has a biological issue. I think something serious is happening to him.
I suspect personality, skill level, and now aphantasia in your case impacted on fiction writing. Right now, I put personality as the top reason for this. I like comic books and web comics, thus my fiction consists of a series of images and motions in my head, and I don’t really write them down in texts. In this path, I am also not confident of writing a description with a variety of vocabulary. Oh, at the end, lack of time is the main issue, sadly;)