by Lynne | May 11, 2020 | Visualizing the Scene, Writing
Years ago I saw a terrific IMAX film called To the Limit. In it was a scene I never forgot. A champion downhill skier was sitting on top of a mountain, skis and poles by her side. Her eyes were closed and she was moving her arms and upper body as if she were skiing downhill. She was picturing the course with its turns and moguls as she traveled down the mountain in her mind. She was teaching her brain to prepare for those 
bumps and curves by visualizing the course over and over. Something similar to muscle memory ie: when you play an instrument and your fingers seem to move on their own, almost apart from your brain.
This visualization technique is crucial in writing. Close your eyes. Picture the scene you’re about to compose. Perhaps it’s a cop getting ready to interview a suspect. From Val McDermid’s The Torment of Others, visualize Detective Chief Inspector Carol Jordan:
“Carol stared through the two-way mirror at the man in the interview room. Ronald Edmund Alexander looked nothing like the popular image of a pedophile. He wasn’t shifty or sweaty. He wasn’t dirty or sleazy. He looked exactly like a middle manager who lived in the suburbs with a wife and two children. There was no dirty raincoat, just an off-the-peg suit, an unassuming charcoal grey. Pale blue shirt, burgundy tie with a thin grey stripe. Neat haircut, no vain attempt to hide the way he was thinning on top.”
Picture the room and a man seated there through the glass. Visualize the suspect, very possibly a child molester, and feel Carol’s frustration at his very ordinariness, the exact antithesis of what she expects a monster to look like. Could she be wrong? Are we being misled by his description?
Follow Harry Bosch in Michael Connelly’s Reversal, when he makes a trip to Fryman Canyon Park, an unexpected natural enclave above the madness of LA.
“Fryman was a rugged, inclined park with steep trails and flat-surface parking and observation area on top and just off Mulholland. Bosch had been there before on cases and was familiar with its expanse. He pulled to a stop with his car pointing north and the view of the San Fernando Valley spread before him. The air was pretty clear and the vista stretched all the way across the valley to the San Gabriel Mountains. The brutal week of storms that had ended January had cleared the skies out and the smog was only now climbing back into the valley’s bowl.”
Harry has been here before and is familiar with the area, its quirky smog patterns and unpredictable weather. Now, so are you.
Visualization is more than “description.” It’s about engaging the senses (see an earlier blog I wrote about this) to get a visceral feel for the scene. Picture a brown leather couch sitting atop a Persian rug in front of a teak coffee table. Now give the couch history–every crack in the leather represents a different house it has lived in or a different person who curled up on its soft hide. It was loved, it was beaten, it was ruined. Even a couch can have personality. What does it say about its owners?
Visualize a woman. She’s not just a blond in a blue dress, wearing high heels and red lipstick. She’s a woman, teetering outside a motel room, black roots showing through the teased mass, blue dress torn at her hem, lipstick smeared like a clown. Picture her. There . . . there she is. You can see her clearly. You know her.
Write your scenes as if they were movies. Let us see what’s happening through your words. You’re the director. Direct.
by Lynne | Dec 26, 2017 | Visualizing the Scene, Writing
Years ago I saw a terrific IMAX film called To The Limit. In it was a scene I never forgot. A champion downhill skier was sitting on top of a mountain, skis and poles by her side. Her eyes were closed and she was moving her arms and upper body as if she were skiing downhill. She was picturing the course with its turns and moguls as she traveled down the mountain in her mind. She forced her brain to prepare for those turns 
and bumps by visualizing the course over and over. Something similar to muscle memory ie: when you play an instrument and your fingers seem to move on their own almost apart from your brain.
This visualization technique can be very useful in writing. Close your eyes. Picture the scene you’re about to compose. A family about to sit down for dinner. What does it look like? How many people are there, who are they? Two adults, two children. What are the ages, sex, and ethnicity of the individuals? What are they wearing? What is the room like? Who sits where?
Sounds totally boring. But the way you set the scene visually, has a huge impact on your story. Close your eyes again. You’re in a kitchen, white crooked cabinets, dirty fingerprints on the doors, dishes in the sink. No windows. Floor is black and white tiles, heavily scuffed and greasy. The table has no cloth, just bare, scratched wood. Chairs do not match. Refrigerator has one child’s drawing stuck on it with magnet.
The adults are about forty, the man is black, the woman white. Mom is wearing tank top, shorts. Dad is in a spotty tee and jeans. The kids are a boy, nine and a girl, twelve, both with latte skin. The girl is wearing torn jeans, t-shirt falling off one shoulder and her face is in a perpetual sneer. The boy is chubby and his forehead and upper lip are sweaty. On the table is a platter of suspicious looking meat, kind of pink and gray. Rap music pounds in the background. Both parents and daughter text and surf on their smart phones.
No one seems to be interested in eating except the boy. He stabs at the meat and brings a piece to his plate. His nose curls up and he pushes plate aside, leaves the room. A huge gray cat jumps onto his chair, then onto the table. He begins licking the piece of meat on the boy’s plate. No one shoos him away.
If you painted this family portrait, you already had a definite image in mind. As a reader, however, you provided us with copious amounts of useful information. We know it’s warm, maybe it’s the summer in the south. We know quite a bit about the parents and the kids, in terms of attitudes and interests. We know something about their home life (at least at the dinner table.) We know a lot about their attitudes, toward themselves and each other. We see the interest they show their smart phones but the lack of interest, respect and caring for each other.
We also know the food was spoiled, but the cat didn’t mind. And I could picture the house (more likely apartment), the heat, the jarring sound of rap music, and the sad plight of the boy.
Visualization is more than just “description.” It’s not just a brown leather couch sitting atop a Persian rug in front of a teak coffee table. It’s not just a blond wearing high heels and red lipstick or a wet dog shaking after his bath. It’s about emotions, attitudes, the idiosyncrasies of the characters.
When my cop, Mead is feeling the acid rise into his throat, he doesn’t complain about it. He just pops a few Tums. When my character, Maggie, is anxious, she doesn’t whine. She paces the room, throws her arms around, babbles a mile a minute.
Your character might chew her nails to the quick and always be embarrassed about them. Or maybe she throws mugs against the wall (very satisfying as long as they’re not too expensive to replace.)
Visualize a woman. She’s not just a blond in a blue dress, wearing high heels and red lipstick. She’s a woman, teetering outside a motel room, black roots showing through the teased mass, blue dress torn at her hem, lipstick smeared like a clown. Picture her. There . . . there she is. You can see her clearly. You know her.
Write your scenes as if they were movies. Let us see what’s happening through your words. You’re the director.
Direct.
