Stephen King on the importance of imagery

Steven King writes: "imagery does not occur on the writer's page; it occurs in the reader's mind. To describe everything is to supply a photograph in words; to indicate the points which seem the most vivid and important to you, the writer, is to allow the reader to flesh out your sketch into a portrait."

Worth a read.

Are you at the stage where you can visualize within your own minds the key scenes of your novel?

Ah, I wish. At the moment, Fury, Zero, and Lock are all content to let me fumble around in the dark without a clue as to what's going on in the book at all. XD

I tend to think through my stories as if they were movies or shows. Only after I have the scene visualized can I write it down. It sometimes helps me to physically act out what I want the characters to do, to check if the action is both possible and believable. I'm glad I live alone so that I can do that when the desire strikes.

As long as you have an understanding family and/or a door to close when you write to keep them out, you don't have to live alone to act out your scenes ;-)

I think I do need to spend some time thinking, getting to the point where I can visualize my novel this year as a movie...

I'm pretty sure I'm a 'discovery writer,' so I don't usually have that clear of an idea of what I'm going to write before I write it.

I know what characters are in most of my key scenes and what happens, but the real good stuff doesn't usually come until I sit down to put the words on the screen. As far as imagery, for Nano and first draft, I write down every single thing about the setting that might be important, and that includes sounds and scents and touch. A lot of times, doing that reveals aspects of the story that weren't there before, and makes revision that much more fun when I discover what my subconscious is really telling me.

The most vivid scenes are often the ones that I didn't even plan and those are also the ones where I dash to my computer or notebook to write them down because I am so afraid I'm going to lose them!

That said, I have quite a clear picture of my post-Apocalyptic Steampunk Lunar colony setting for this year's Nano. I can't wait to go there. :)

Steampunk story writers unite!