What You See

Do you have a character you can just see? One person that you read, and you can see them, hear them, watch them do whatever it is the author is having them do?

I'm not that kind of person. I think in words. There are very few characters I can give you an adequate physical description of, mostly because I'm not paying that much attention. The superlatives they use may stick out, only because of their ridiculousness, but I often don't have a clue.

For the longest time, I thought that Anita Blake (written by Laurell K. Hamilton) was a blond with straight hair, and I couldn't figure out why she had to look up to everyone (she's short. Like, 5'2 short, not 5'6 almost average short).

I have almost no mental image of Edward Cullen. Pale, I've got that much. Eyes that change color. But hair? Muscle tone? Not a clue. Bella either. She's shorter than Edward, and pale, but not as pale. That's all I've got. Rosalie is blond...I have no idea about Alice or Esme or any of the other Cullen males.

The only character I can for sure tell you about is Eve Dallas, and Roarke (from Nora Robert's In Death series). Eve is medium height with brown hair and brown eyes. Not too pale, and she has a dent in her chin. Roarke is tall, blue eyes, nice mouth, and black hair.

But then again, I've read all of those books multiple times. So it makes sense that I can remember them.

I'm more likely to be able to tell you about the details of the book then the details of the character. Just a quirk, I guess.

But it makes me wonder...do other people really see images when they read? You read a battle scene, or a love scene, or a scene where they're staring at a body, and do they really see the images in their head? Because I see the word, the sentences, the paragraphs, the pages, but I don't see the images.