What comes to you first? Images or words?

I've been thinking about this a lot lately as I have been discussing how ideas come about with friends (and my Mum!).

My Mum is also a writer and I was telling her that when I get an idea for a story/novel/scene I see visuals in my head. I see an image in my head that I try to capture in words, which is sometimes frustrating. When I was having problems with my first chapter of my novel I told my Mum that if it were a film, and not a novel, I already know exactly how I would film it shot by shot.

I've talked to some other people, asking them whether they seen an image in their head first or just words (as in how to write it). Writers, who solely write, tend to say words and my film friends say images.

I guess this means I am a visual person? I wonder if that means I shouldn't write? Or perhaps it is why I do Film at university and not Creative Writing.

So to pose a question to you lovely YWSers! When you get an idea for a story/scene, do you see it visually in your head and then try to capture that in words or do you see the words and how to write it? I'd love to know!

Also it could be interesting to see if you say visual, whether you do photography or art as a hobby and if you say words whether you have an visually related hobbies.

Visuals for the most part, with the odd splash of words at parts of the story that I need to focus on them, such as creating an interesting opening sentence. The very challenge of capturing an opening usually means I start with one sentence that leaves me, and readers, figuratively in the dark for a line or two as setting builds from words and emotions.

I do dabble in photography, but usually I need to be in a setting before I figure out what pictures I'm going to take. If I try to do it the other way around things don't line up and I get frustrated. I do have a half-decent eye, though, I like to think, but that's primarily because I've taken a few classes.

I've always put pictures and words together though. Could be why I use both (scenes from words and prose from images).

I think images, usually.

Yesterday I told you that I almost always think of words first. But actually, now that I think about it again, I get the images too. Most of all, though, I would say that I don't really get either of them more than the other, I just get this random entity that is neither words nor images. /insane

For me, I get images.

Dems hears voices o.0

Just like me!

Demeter wrote:Yesterday I told you that I almost always think of words first. But actually, now that I think about it again, I get the images too. Most of all, though, I would say that I don't really get either of them more than the other, I just get this random entity that is neither words nor images. /insane

You know you're a writer when you're not alarmed at this.

I get a mixture, I think. Sometimes I'll get an image, and it's not just something out of the blue. Just yesterday, I was driving in the country with some friends. I saw an abandoned farmhouse, with a lone tree beside it in the middle of a huge field. I "saw" an image (hallucination? o.O) of this young girl on a tire swing, and heard something like an echo of a laugh. Oh, gosh, I'm insane, aren't I?

Other times, I get random phrases. The most recent one, and not a very good one, was, "amphetamine sunset."

...I hope none of this alarms any of you.

I guess sometimes I will hear characters talking in my head and get lines of dialogue that set me off writing.

I suppose the conclusion so far is...writers are all freaking nuts!

I suppose the conclusion so far is...writers are all freaking nuts!

So very true.

And I always see images! But I definitely don't think that means I shouldn't be writing. xD It's just that I imagine scenes as being real, existing, playing out in front of me, just like they would if they were to actually occur. I'm also a visual learner. It seems really odd to imagine words first, for me, just because words are so specific whereas pictures can be more general, and I go from vague ideas and images to precise phrasing and sentences. But to each their own, I suppose.

beckiw wrote:I guess sometimes I will hear characters talking in my head and get lines of dialogue that set me off writing.

Yup. Definitely images for me.

I see images! Which probably explains why I loved writing Script Frenzy last your so much. I have a hard time thinking up the words I need when I write, but images are much easier, and dialogue comes naturally to me. If I had to choose between film and writing, I'd go film all the way. I've always been interested in art (drawing really), and writing was just one of those things I wanted to try out. I don't have a knack for writing like I do for visual expression though. Not that I'm a professional artist. XD I just enjoy it more and it comes much more easily to me.

Images.

I think that is the goal of writing is it not? To create and present a world that seems real, and how do we do this? We instantly form pictures of the places and people in the world. It is then the writer's job to translate that into a written form. I doubt many people "see" words.