Does anyone here NOT get a mental picture in their head while reading?

[spookymulder93]

I hear a lot of people say that when they read they get mental pictures in their head of the characters and the environment, but I must admit, that really doesn't happen for me.

The best part of reading to me are the conversations and the thoughts the characters have. I always find the descriptions of what people look like and what the environment is like to be pretty boring unless it's something shocking or powerful, like when Dante described what Hell looks like.

I think this is one of the areas where Graphic Novels outshine regular novels. I mean for those of us that don't have vivid and active imaginations, the setting and the characters are right there.

[glover7]

I find that lately I don't picture things I read very vividly. But I think this has more to do with my recent disconnection with the understanding and purpose of language than anything else.

[punk sheep]

I definitely make a movie while I'm reading--images and sounds. I used to read graphic novels and Heavy Metal but it's been awhile. I just like print and video a lot more.

[Mr.lucifer]

I can not help but get mental pictures.

[mal4mac]

I hear a lot of people say that when they read they get mental pictures in their head of the characters and the environment, but I must admit, that really doesn't happen for me.

The best part of reading to me are the conversations and the thoughts the characters have. I always find the descriptions of what people look like and what the environment is like to be pretty boring unless it's something shocking or powerful, like when Dante described what Hell looks like.

I think this is one of the areas where Graphic Novels outshine regular novels. I mean for those of us that don't have vivid and active imaginations, the setting and the characters are right there.

I found I got a lot more out of authors by making a real effort to visualise what was going on, rather than hurrying through descriptions. By doing this I found I had a feeling of almost 'being there'. This made the conversations and thoughts more vivid. No doubt this was the intention of the author, otherwise they wouldn't have bothered with all that description. There's a reason they are great! Also, they see better than us ordinary mortals, so slow down and learn how to see through their eyes.

Thomas Hardy is a good author to try this with, as I found recently with 'The Return of the Native'. The bleakness of Egdon Heath reflected the bleak thoughts and conversations the characters were having; the storms reflected their upsets. 'Boring decriptions' become much less boring, and often interesting, if you slow down and make the effort to visualise.

One of the great things about Dante is that he is *so* visual that you are forced to visualise or you will get nowhere. Dante makes this a difficult task, you really have to work hard to visualise the levels. Even with trying hard to visualise, I admit to getting a bit lost in places.

Reading graphic novels traps you in the vision of a, usually inferior, artist. Conspiring with a great writer to visualise his descriptions is usually more satisfying. But you need to practice. It's a more difficult pleasure, but worth it.

[dafydd manton]

I don't automatically get mental pictures when reading, although oddly enough I do when writing. I can force myself to visualise what I'm reading, but it takes a will of effort, and more often than not I don't bother. Maybe I'm shallow, but doing so doesn';t seem to enhance the experience.

[dicer]

I'm really glad to come across this topic on the forum because I always thought there was something wrong with me. It's odd because I am also a visual artist, so you'd think I'd have a good visual imagination but I don't really. I had a lot of trouble with this when I was younger but now I try to make some conscious effort. I don't get a clear, movie-like image like others describe, however. It's nothing like watching a movie. I think it's just a lack of practice, really, because I always think with words in every day life, and never with images. I assume you could improve your visualisation with practice (I occasionally try to look at something, close my eyes, and try to remember what it looked like) but I keep forgetting to try. I don't really find it detrimental to my reading, however, because I still engage with the stories and the characters and everything they do.

I do think it would be awesome to have this movie thing going on like everyone mentions, though. I have found it gets easier once you're aware you want to make the transition. I used to daydream in words but I sometimes trail off into visual adventures now instead, which is cool. I think words just come more naturally.

[Rores28]

Reading graphic novels traps you in the vision of a, usually inferior, artist. Conspiring with a great writer to visualise his descriptions is usually more satisfying. But you need to practice. It's a more difficult pleasure, but worth it.

I can't say I agree here. Both have their respective merits and I don't think one can be said to be generally more satisfying.

Comics have a much greater potential for visual subtlety as well as being able to bend time and perception in ways that prose work just can't. Comics also affords interesting opportunities for contradictions between what is being said and what is being seen that is difficult if not impossible in many cases to replicate in a novel.

Furthermore if we are submitting that an exceptional author can, with description, elicit visual experiences and nuances beyond the native ability of us mere mortals, couldn't the same be said than of an exceptional artist?

[kelby_lake]

I view it all as a film. Even the dialogue is evocative.

[aliengirl]

Comics have a much greater potential for visual subtlety as well as being able to bend time and perception in ways that prose work just can't. Comics also affords interesting opportunities for contradictions between what is being said and what is being seen that is difficult if not impossible in many cases to replicate in a novel.

Furthermore if we are submitting that an exceptional author can, with description, elicit visual experiences and nuances beyond the native ability of us mere mortals, couldn't the same be said than of an exceptional artist?

:iagree: An exceptional artist can sure make the narrative more evocative and interesting. I can never understand why graphic novels and comics are often treated as derogatory. They belong to a separate genre and can be great in their own way. As Rores mentioned it can point out contradictions between what is being said and what is being seen very well without that additional "he managed a deprecating smile".


On the other hand, I can and like to visualize the characters and the scene and quite enjoy the descriptions. While reading plays I imagine the style and gestures of the characters.

[DonovanTalbot]

Yeah, I always get visuals, complete immersion in the story unless the story demands abit more thought and concentration upon the prose itself. Stories where the words and language requires the readers fullest attention, then possibly not.

[antiprefix]

I don't know what I think about, but mainly it's the words and the phraseology. From time to time I'll think of images, if the imagery is especially strong, or inviting of a mental picture.

[African_Love]

I hear a lot of people say that when they read they get mental pictures in their head of the characters and the environment, but I must admit, that really doesn't happen for me.

The best part of reading to me are the conversations and the thoughts the characters have. I always find the descriptions of what people look like and what the environment is like to be pretty boring unless it's something shocking or powerful, like when Dante described what Hell looks like.

I think this is one of the areas where Graphic Novels outshine regular novels. I mean for those of us that don't have vivid and active imaginations, the setting and the characters are right there.

I like conversation more than description also. I get a vague, fuzzy, mental picture when reading/listening to narration. I wouldn't want to read fiction like I'd read chemistry, just words and understanding without having to mentally recreate the story. Imo, I think (non-graphic) novels are more stimulating than graphic novels because you have to create those images yourself rather just viewing them. I still like graphic novels though, you have to imagine some things and to put the story together (linking separate pictures, figuring out what means what), I think graphic novels require more imagination than tv/movies.

The truth is, I like all three forms of story telling. A good story is a good story, no matter how it's told.

[inbetween]

I ain't no fan of too much description either.. and yet it's always some kind of film when I read... I always make up some picture... and when there is no description of the looks of a person I always have an idea of what kind this person is (at least when the book ain't too bad...) so it's rather a film made of feelings not of pictures (actually both) but it's always some kind of film when I read...

[RaoulDuke]

It completely depends on what I'm reading. I tend to get a better picture in my head when an author is sparse on specific details, but descirbes the aura of a scene (how a scene, room or view makes a character feel or what it reminds them of, rather than describing in minute detail the style and of a table, then moving onto the carpet, then the curtains for example).

The same applies to describing what characters look like; I know that physiognomy has no scientific basis but I find it helps when an author describes what characteristics they think a person might have based on their appearance. Dostoevsky was a particular fan of physiognomy, and I think it is one factor that contributes to the depth of his characters.

[lyni]

I get a mental picture of what I'm reading. I don't like an author to be too descriptive of every little detail but I like to be able to picture if someone is taller or shorter or if a room is in disarray or is furnished in an old fashioned style.
that's why I think we get disappointed when a movie is made of the book because the characters and settings are not always how we picture them in our minds while reading.

[mal4mac]

I can't say I agree here. Both have their respective merits and I don't think one can be said to be generally more satisfying.

Comics have a much greater potential for visual subtlety as well as being able to bend time and perception in ways that prose work just can't. Comics also affords interesting opportunities for contradictions between what is being said and what is being seen that is difficult if not impossible in many cases to replicate in a novel.

Furthermore if we are submitting that an exceptional author can, with description, elicit visual experiences and nuances beyond the native ability of us mere mortals, couldn't the same be said than of an exceptional artist?

Are any comic book artists exceptional? I know of no art/literature critics who mention any comic book artist in the same breath as Shakespeare or Michelangelo. I read comics a lot in my childhood, and they were fun then, but when I look at them now I realise that taste definitely does develop! Comics are visually unsubtle. They are hastily drawn for a commercial marketplace, are bland, full of visual cliches, and cater for the childish mind (hence all that violence & cars :)

Remember the pop art phenomenon? Blowing up comic pictures to gigantic proportions and calling them art? Maybe worth doing once as 'a happening'. But note how quickly it died out. If comics had any intrinsic merit that movement would not have died. Comics are easy food for the childish mind, sherbet for the soul.

Of course comics, being a visual art form, have more potential for *purely* visual subtlety. That's an oxymoron.

Michelangelo shows more visual subtlety than Shakespeare in the mode of the purely visual (ink on paper doesn't look that good...) But Shakespeare can conjure up visual images and use language to enhance them, hence (ultimately) showing more subtlety involving the visual - you might say that's cheating, but you have to allow this if you are to allow talk of the visual in the literary context at all. (This expects the reader to have some capacity for visual imagination - if you don't perhaps studying Michelangelo and other great painters will help, I doubt comic books will...) I greatly admire Turner and I'm sure that helped make Shakespeare's "The Tempest" more interesting to me. Pirate comic books, no.

[Rores28]

I started to attempt a in depth reply but inevitably saw all the back and forths that would occur outside of a live conversation and will simply say a few things.

When you and I use the term comics we are referring to vastly different things.

If you are interested, pick up a book at your library called "Understanding Comics" by Scott McCloud. It is a non-fiction book about comics presented in graphic novel form.

[Jive One]

I also get a mental picture of characters and environment although I tend not to visualize specific features unless they somehow stand out to me. Then again, maybe I'm just not making the effort and instead creating generalized images.

The timing of this thread is great because I also have questions related to this topic. I'm currently reading The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, and the first part contains extensive geographical descriptions of the island and certain specific regions. As I was trying to hold all these together, I couldn't help thinking how great a map would be and I began wondering if it would be useful to illustrate one myself based on the in-book descriptions.

Does anyone ever do this(draw out environments, maps, character sketches, etc...)? My visual art skills are probably on par with a pre-schooler, but would this help with visualization and/or understanding of setting and characters? The reason I ask is that drawing/mapping would detract heavily from the "flow" of reading, so it would need to be worth doing.

[Drkshadow03]

Are any comic book artists exceptional? I know of no art/literature critics who mention any comic book artist in the same breath as Shakespeare or Michelangelo. I read comics a lot in my childhood, and they were fun then, but when I look at them now I realise that taste definitely does develop! Comics are visually unsubtle. They are hastily drawn for a commercial marketplace, are bland, full of visual cliches, and cater for the childish mind (hence all that violence & cars :)

Remember the pop art phenomenon? Blowing up comic pictures to gigantic proportions and calling them art? Maybe worth doing once as 'a happening'. But note how quickly it died out. If comics had any intrinsic merit that movement would not have died. Comics are easy food for the childish mind, sherbet for the soul.

Of course comics, being a visual art form, have more potential for *purely* visual subtlety. That's an oxymoron.

Michelangelo shows more visual subtlety than Shakespeare in the mode of the purely visual (ink on paper doesn't look that good...) But Shakespeare can conjure up visual images and use language to enhance them, hence (ultimately) showing more subtlety involving the visual - you might say that's cheating, but you have to allow this if you are to allow talk of the visual in the literary context at all. (This expects the reader to have some capacity for visual imagination - if you don't perhaps studying Michelangelo and other great painters will help, I doubt comic books will...) I greatly admire Turner and I'm sure that helped make Shakespeare's "The Tempest" more interesting to me. Pirate comic books, no.

Times 100 Best Novels Post 1923 List (http://205.188.238.181/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html). Watchmen by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. Wow, a comic book on a best of list.

Comic Adventures in Academia (http://www.comixology.com/columns/comic_adventures_in_academia/) - a site dedicated to exploring comics from a scholarly perspective.

Honors course at University of Maryland on the Graphic Novel (http://www.honorshumanities.umd.edu/Graphic%20Novel%20Course%20Syllabus,%20Spring%2020 10.pdf). Dr. Michael Hancock's course on graphic novel (https://www3.imsa.edu/system/files/Hancock+Graphic+Novel+syllabus+BD++F09.pdf) at an Illinois Private School. A Comics course (http://www.csun.edu/~ch76854/comicssyllabus.html) offered at California State University. Another comic book course (http://class.georgiasouthern.edu/writ3030/syllabus.htm) at Georgia Southern University. A course on the graphic novel and Jewish Experience (http://libguides.wustl.edu/content.php?pid=97685&sid=732066) at Washington University. A graphic novel (http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:Yz0LnoMhBZQJ:www.stanford.edu/dept/english/deptWebFiles/syllabi/2043syllabus.doc+graphic+novel+syllabus+site:.edu&cd=10&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us) course at Stanford. A graphic narrative (http://www-personal.umich.edu/~esrabkin/417GNw06.htm) course at the University of Michigan. Understanding Comics (http://www.geneseo.edu/~pitcher/syllabus2006REV.pdf) course at Suny Geneseo.

[Mr.lucifer]

Watchman is fmaous for its subtle imagry and foreshadowing within the background. You don't have to like comics, but don't judge an entire industry you know little about. There has some fine comic book writers, while not up to par with the great writers of literature, have produced good quality stories.

Seriously, you know little about comic books, so don't judge what you know little about. Comics have made a lot of progress in the last 40 years. Thats like me dissing sculpture when I know little about it.

[spookymulder93]

Watchmen, V for Vendetta, The Dark Knight Returns, The Long Halloween, 300.

[OrphanPip]

Are any comic book artists exceptional? I know of no art/literature critics who mention any comic book artist in the same breath as Shakespeare or Michelangelo. I read comics a lot in my childhood, and they were fun then, but when I look at them now I realise that taste definitely does develop! Comics are visually unsubtle. They are hastily drawn for a commercial marketplace, are bland, full of visual cliches, and cater for the childish mind (hence all that violence & cars :)

Remember the pop art phenomenon? Blowing up comic pictures to gigantic proportions and calling them art? Maybe worth doing once as 'a happening'. But note how quickly it died out. If comics had any intrinsic merit that movement would not have died. Comics are easy food for the childish mind, sherbet for the soul.



This is so ridiculously condescending and insulting to anyone who enjoys comics. It also displays that you have absolutely no knowledge of graphic novels. Stinks of outright snobbery by someone who simply doesn't know what they are talking about.

How a graphic novel like Thompson's Blankets, about a boy's conflicting feelings about sexuality and religion, caters to a childish mind is beyond me.

Nor is something like Benchel's Fun Home, which took seven years to complete, hastily drawn.

Edit: Serious artistic comics suffer from the same lack of interest that serious films do. Efforts at creating serious art in comics is often undermined by the cost of production and lack of any significant markets to sell such work. There have been a few independent comic magazines that have cropped up, like the one that originally published Maus, but most of them flop from financial problems.

[dicer]

The timing of this thread is great because I also have questions related to this topic. I'm currently reading The Mysterious Island by Jules Verne, and the first part contains extensive geographical descriptions of the island and certain specific regions. As I was trying to hold all these together, I couldn't help thinking how great a map would be and I began wondering if it would be useful to illustrate one myself based on the in-book descriptions.

Does anyone ever do this(draw out environments, maps, character sketches, etc...)? My visual art skills are probably on par with a pre-schooler, but would this help with visualization and/or understanding of setting and characters? The reason I ask is that drawing/mapping would detract heavily from the "flow" of reading, so it would need to be worth doing.

I think it's a good idea. I found it very difficult to visualise the island in 'Lord of the Flies'. I didn't actually draw the map out, though; I found one on google. :P But I found it really helpful as the novel progressed in keeping the position of things in mind.

[mal4mac]

I could definitely have benefited from a map of heaven & hell in Dante's Comedy. I kept on pulling up short - "where is that ditch exactly", "where does that bridge go". Mandelbaum's translation has some superb drawings by Bottiacelli which definitely enhanced my visualisation of some scenes, but doesn't help with the floor plan. In glancing through various translations I spotted that some had these architectural drawings. Anyone suggest which have the most useful drawings? I didn't try and draw my own plans - life's too short!

[Brad Coelho]

Certain authors may strike you more vividly than others. Frivilous peripheral descriptions require you to do the work, but striking creations w/in a gripping story do the visual work for you- all you have to do is slow down and look at it.

[andrewoberg]

This is so ridiculously condescending and insulting to anyone who enjoys comics. It also displays that you have absolutely no knowledge of graphic novels. Stinks of outright snobbery by someone who simply doesn't know what they are talking about.

How a graphic novel like Thompson's Blankets, about a boy's conflicting feelings about sexuality and religion, caters to a childish mind is beyond me.

Nor is something like Benchel's Fun Home, which took seven years to complete, hastily drawn.

Edit: Serious artistic comics suffer from the same lack of interest that serious films do. Efforts at creating serious art in comics is often undermined by the cost of production and lack of any significant markets to sell such work. There have been a few independent comic magazines that have cropped up, like the one that originally published Maus, but most of them flop from financial problems.

Completely agree, there are so many great graphic novels out there that simply don't fit the traditional category of "comic". But even some that do are great, too. And for my money, I'd put Alan Moore up there as one of the greatest fiction writers of modern times--regardless of medium.

As for mental imagery, I usually don't unless I try to when reading, but usually do when writing. Well, when writing fiction, anyway.

[mal4mac]

I glance at modern comics now and again (e.g. Maus) and film offshoots ("Spirited Away", "Batman",...) but I've not been that impressed. My favourite critics have never inspired me to look deeper. One of the more positive reviews I've read is:

"...the graphic-novel sections in bookshops are easily identified by “the young bodies sprawled around it like casualties of a local disaster”. And in The Simpsons, Comic Book Guy is the most alarmingly inadequate of all Springfield’s inhabitants. There is, it seems, still something a bit iffy, not quite right, about books of illustrated stories. " - Brian Appleyard

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1453970.ece

(He gets a bit more positive later on :) but not enough to inspire me to visit the comic book store...)

[blazeofglory]

I always have in fact. I feel when I read a book I am in the world described in the book and I get lost there and feel I form part of the story and fantasize I am there speaking with the characters and at times I cry and laugh and the like and sometimes I plunge into a funny state while I read a book and I get possessed of the things I read or get spirited

[Scheherazade]

My favourite critics have never inspired me to look deeper. I don't understand why we shouldn't form our opinions after actually reading the books? Why second hand experiences and views?

[spookymulder93]

My favourite critics have never inspired me to look deeper.


Critics are like the Gods around this place.

[Mr.lucifer]

Lets just not bring up the subject of comics anymore. I mean it.

[_Shannon_]

I don't read with a mental picture in mind. I think often descriptions of things are a way to pace a novel. Depending on the skill of the author descriptions can also give us important information in advancing the story, as well as the basic tone of the novel. I find it helpful to know through descriptions of people and settings the narrator's POV. Also there's just some freakin' beautiful language sometimes in the descriptions of things--Nabokov leaps to mind, as does Fitzgerald.

[JuniperWoolf]

I'm exactly the same as the OP, the idea of your brain just "making a film" while you read a book has never even occured to me until I read it on this forum. I'm reading the words and thinking conceptually, I don't see how my brain could have time to make a picture from that unless I pause and try to picture a character or something.

[andrewoberg]

I glance at modern comics now and again (e.g. Maus) and film offshoots ("Spirited Away", "Batman",...) but I've not been that impressed. My favourite critics have never inspired me to look deeper. One of the more positive reviews I've read is:

"...the graphic-novel sections in bookshops are easily identified by “the young bodies sprawled around it like casualties of a local disaster”. And in The Simpsons, Comic Book Guy is the most alarmingly inadequate of all Springfield’s inhabitants. There is, it seems, still something a bit iffy, not quite right, about books of illustrated stories. " - Brian Appleyard

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/article1453970.ece

(He gets a bit more positive later on :) but not enough to inspire me to visit the comic book store...)

Check out Alan Moore's "From Hell"--if that doesn't change your mind than probably nothing will.

[ktr]

people who can visualize have the hardest time imagining what it is to not have the capability =)

The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley
I am and, for as long as I can remember, I have always been a poor visualizer. Words, even the pregnant words of poets, do not evoke pictures in my mind. No hypnagogic visions greet me on the verge of sleep. When I recall something, the memory does not present itself to me as a vividly seen event or object. By an effort of the will, I can evoke a not very vivid image of what happened yesterday afternoon, of how the Lungarno used to look before the bridges were destroyed, of the Bayswater Road when the only buses were green and tiny and drawn by aged horses at three and a half miles an hour. But such images have little substance and absolutely no autonomous life of their own. They stand to real, perceived objects in the same relation as Homer's ghosts stood to the men of flesh and blood, who came to visit them in the shades. Only when I have a high temperature do my mental images come to independent life. To those in whom the faculty of visualization is strong my inner world must seem curiously drab, limited and uninteresting. This was the world - a poor thing but my own - which I expected to see transformed into something completely unlike itself.

you have a verbal acuity probably, it is not required or, imo - at all necessary to have a visual mind for reading. in fact, as a verbal/nonvisual dude, i think it's kind of a blessing.

i have to jet outa here but i'll give you some info later that can help - if you have a ton of patience, but without constant practice and attention you will lose it quickly.

really, not worth the effort, imo - but i spent a lot of time thinking about it and digging around for info a while ago and i'll share what i found if youre interested.

[minstrelbard]

For me, it depends on the writer. Some writers seem to trigger visuals in me quite strongly and others do not. Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories are, for me, very visual. Nabokov's Lolita is not. Nabokov, though, was more interested in the language he used than in the images it conjured, it seems to me, and his language kept calling attention to itself and pulling me out of the visual dream.

Sometimes I read a story and get almost no visual impression of the characters, and then I see a movie version and find myself criticizing the casting. "That actor is TOTALLY WRONG for that character!" I say, even though as I read I had no idea what the character looked like. Maybe that's weird, or maybe I get more of an image than I'm giving myself credit for.

Anyway, I have very little visual imagination, and no visual artistic ability. I am drawn to music and literature, not to visual arts, so I guess I should be grateful for any visual impressions I get as I read at all.

[JBI]

I don't particularly; my mind I think skips a step and associates words directly with abstract emotions, or abstractions rather than a visual - at least when reading poetry. I don't particularly read novels any more, and even if I did not really a visual, just a sort of dramatic similar association of abstractions with abstractions - if it is describing a tree, I don't see a tree.

Then again, nature poetry comes closer, as sometimes the way the gaze moves paints more of a landscape sort of vision, which though not exactly an image, seems pretty close.

[Scheherazade]

I find this very interesting. It is impossible for me to read a book or take part in a conversation without getting vivid mental images rushing through my mind. I can often hear the dialogues in my head as well.

I think this is one of the reasons I dislike watching the movies based on the books I have already read; I have already clear ideas how the characters/places would look like and when they do not match the ones I have in my imagination, I feel very disappointed.

[Mr.lucifer]

For as far I can remember I have gotten images in my head from reading.

[Thom Holliday]

Funny you should mention 'mental imagery'. Recently I became aware that when I read, I don't make enough effort to picture what is happening in my mind. So now, whenever I'm reading, I'll go over a lot of passages twice to create a clear image in my head. Not sure if it's benefiting me or not, but I do seem to be taking more notice of stylistic choices.

[Eiss]

The best part of reading to me are the conversations and the thoughts the characters have.

How could you, Spookymulder93, discern character without mental picturing? Are you schizophrenic in any sense? I hope you know what I mean when I say that reading dialogue only as selfperceived is not reading dialogue, is not enjoying conversation as such - a 'character' experienced cannot, I think, be but a mental picture. Am I right here?

[mayneverhave]

Since I don't think words have anything but an arbitrary connection with what they mean to represent, I don't bother trying to visualize what I'm reading unless it's for some particularly comic reason. What JBI said about abstractions is interesting, especially when what you're reading tends to treat language as a particularly slippery phenomenon - like in the puns of Falstaff.

Hell, I don't even visualize scenes when I'm reading plays.

[windup_bird]

i only get the mental picture when the imagery is especially powerful. most of the times it's just a stream of barely perceptible feelings passing through the subconscious.

[Mr.lucifer]

I visualize anything regardless.

[dicer]

Sometimes I read a story and get almost no visual impression of the characters, and then I see a movie version and find myself criticizing the casting. "That actor is TOTALLY WRONG for that character!" I say, even though as I read I had no idea what the character looked like. Maybe that's weird, or maybe I get more of an image than I'm giving myself credit for.

I totally do this as well. Any images I have of a character are supremely vague and, when I try to focus on their apperance, perhaps, the image is still obscure and shifting. But I hate watching films of books because the characters 'don't look like how I imagined!' I think it is maybe more to do with the 'feel' of the character than the pernickety details of their visual appearance.

[Annamariah]

I simply cannot understand how one can think of a red ball without seeing a red ball inside their head. I'm a visual person myself, I always see a "film" when I'm reading and my memories are images and video clips too.