Imagining the characters in a book

[TinkerTiger]

Just wondering how normal this is as I am too embarassed to ask have never asked friends about this.

When you read a book, how do you imagine the characters? So you get a description, a woman with long flowing red hair, do you just conjure up an image of a random woman fitting the description, or is it a woman you recognise?

I alsways choose actors. In fact, I even have to work hard to use different actors across different stories if they sound like they have similar features to one I've 'used' before. I'll make it fit even if the age isn't just right. I can even remember when looking at books I've read which 'actress' had the starring role in it

Is this standard?

I find it hard to visualise things full stop, so I tend to have a blurry "impression" of characters, places etc rather than a picture which I could draw or describe. Sometimes my impressions are stronger than others, especially if it is a favourite book, and a lot of the time I only know what I think a character or place looks like if I see a cover, or the book is made into a film, and I feel it is wrong - then I have to think about why.

For example one of my favourite books is Margaret Mahy's The Changeover and I have a strong image of Sorensen, and he has dark hair, even though the book describes him as being blond. I must have missed that when I first read th ebook as a teen. I had a strong image of Lee Scoresby in His Dark Materials and it was Adam Rothenberg as Captain Homer Jackson in Ripper Street. My image of Lyra wasn't so strong but I knew that the TV adaptation wasn't at all what I thought of.

Interesting. This might be because you think of what is familiar to you.

I worked in a school with a black boy who always coloured in pictures of famous characters (like Disney) as black. He was autistic and don’t think it was a conscious decision. He just recreated what he knew.

That’s what I think too. People naturally colour things their own skin colour, especially when autism is involved (me too)

I just get an instant vague image - and it is really difficult if the author then says that they have red hair (or whatever). Too late! They are already brunette (or whatever)!

Really interesting that some of you 'pick' real people to serve as your mental image. For me, it often has to do with the characters' names. Words are mildly coloured for me, based on the defined colours that each letter has in my head. And the mental image of a character will sometimes be influenced by the colours in their names. Or sometimes the word itself is part of my character image.

I have a strongly visual learning style and tend to conjure up fictional characters in detail.

Even if their physical features are never fully described in the book I collect clues from the story and develop a clear image of them in my mind, which I use to populate the narrated scenes.

It is so inherent in me to do this that I find it difficult to understand how other people don't! I am not judging them, I just can't 'get' how they experience what they read if they don't see it in their mind's eye.

I tend to have an impressionistic idea of a character in my head; their figure, hair and clothes etc. But not detailed of the face. Occasionally an actor's face will fit in my head as the person (usually not a very famous one. Sometimes surprised when, say, author belatedly reveals they are a red head or whatever!

However, I often have extremely detailed idea of a setting; a house, office, garden etc.Probably easier to conjure up a generic place than event a whole new person.

Yes I find this too with places. Can conjure up and imaginary house but not the people who go in it 😂

I have vivid images of faces and places when I read. It's then really interesting when they make a film version to see how images match. Gita in The Tattooist of Auschwitz is exactly as I saw her, Hermione in Harry Potter is nothing like my version.

I cant do it. Really struggle which is a shame as I do like reading.
Ive found it helps to read things ive already seen on TV, eg Strike or various other thrillers.

Oh I do this all the time, again I thought it was just me, so happy that other people do it 😃

When I get right into a book, Its like a movie playing in my head all the characters and the surroundings and when they make a movie of the film I get so excited until I watch it and realise that they had cast actors and used surroundings that to me don't work and are the opposite of what was playing in my head.

It can be a curse sometimes and my imagination ruins what is a perfectly good movie

Yes I remember the first time I saw Hermione in the film I thought she was much more pretty and neat that I’d imagined

Oh Strike was nothing like my head picture, he needed to be much bigger, gruffer and more battered looking.

I conjure up original people, including faces, but I can't for my life create locations. Rooms, outdoor spaces, buildings...they're always some place that I know, even if that doesn't fit the description.

She didn't look how anyone pictured Hermione or how she was described. She didn't have big teeth or bushy hair and she was very conventionally pretty. The worst casting, especially since she can't act to save her life either.

I never picture characters in books. I find it very hard to 'see' anything at all in my head and I can't do it at all if I deliberatrly try to. Faces are the worst - I can't even picture my DH or DS beyond a vague, fleeting glimpse, usually of a photo of them that I've looked at a lot rather than just 'them' in general. Book characters are just names to me. This is handy in a way because I never get outraged if the 'wrong' person is cast for a film or TV adaptation!

Aphantasia?

Yes, I think so. Not fully, though - I do 'see' very ephemeral images.