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[imbecominggayer]

How To Put Your Imagination On The Page

Thank you to @melda0m3 for asking for this on my post :3 you are an absolute dear(gender-neutral)

The topic I will be covering is "how in the world do you translate the perfect picture you have in your mind of a place or the epic one of a fight scene with words??" -melda0m3

Of course, because of the nature of this question and the nature of writing in general, this is more of a generalization since there are an infinite amount of scenes that could possibly exist!

FIRST QUESTION: Why Is This Actually So Hard?

The reason why translating your imaginary scene to the paper is hard is due to the fact that your brain naturally fills in the "gaps" of your scenery.

It's the reason why you implicitly understand everything that is happening in a dream and what settings look like despite not being able to recollect the actual physical details.

So when you take this abstract vision of scenery and try to apply it to the page, now you have to consciously examine your scenery from an observor's gaze. Since you are critically studying the imaginary scene, now your brain is forced to put actual detail into the image.

Combined with the a struggle for an apt metaphor and you will inevitably struggle to contextualize visual fog into actual physical detail.

So let's get working on fixing this issue.

Detail Is Influenced By Emotion

Let's be honest with ourselves, no one walks into a room and starts obsessively counting the number of windows, all the occupants of the room, and mentions literally every single detail in their "private" monologue.

No one, during a fight, keeps perfect track of all the punches that are happening.

Which means you shouldn't either.

Look at your imaginary place, epic fight scene, and any other fantastical viewing and say to yourself "this is a foundation. inspiration. it's not the final image or even a good image"

Utilize cinematography and learn how to encorperate that into diction and sentence structuring.

In general with some exceptions, shorter and choppier sentences invite feelings of anxiety, desperation, and a higher emotional state while longer and passive sentences invite feelings of calmness, curiousity, and a more static sense of "contentment".

Use more visual language that excites a reaction out of you. Fighting/disgusting scenes are the perfect time to use all of your "disgusting" words such as flesh, moist, sloughs, engourge, and other words

I literally looked up "disgusting words list" in order to get that list.

Detail And Emotion Influenced By Perspective

Of course, what decides what detail makes the "final cut", if you will, is your camera. Your perspective character.

For example, if your character is the type to be paranoid then the "camera" will be constantly fixing itself at everything. Violently snapping their eyes to everything as hysterical thoughts ooze out of the minute cracks between every single moment. Very intense, I would say.

This would contrast against a character who is completely zeroed in on something, someone?, with such an unrelenting gaze that their camera is permanently marked on their target.

The paranoid character would bring in a hod-podge of various incomplete details while the stubborn character couldn't even tell you if it was day or night.

Of course, the emotions that a character has associated with this scene will also bring to mind different details.

For example, in a fight, the perspective character might be someone who is swarming with desperation. In this case their thoughts are going to be centered less on the specific timing of things or what exactly is happening but instead on their emotions and possible consequences.

However, the perspective character might be someone who isn't scared at all of losing or winning. They're fighting with a more observant gaze. The kind expected of someone in a chess match. In this case their thoughts are probably directed on the timing their opponents with consistently precise questioning and observations. What is their opponent thinking? They're slowing down which means they're losing stamina. They're staring at my leg. A bold mistake.

Again, the desperate character isn't focusing at all on their opponent and couldn't tell you at all about what is objectively happening. Their mind is racing across thoughts of doubt, pride, existential fear. They're wondering what's going to happen if they lose. If they win? What about their loved ones?

The observant character is entirely focused on the setting and opponent from an "objective" perspective and so their personal feelings paint the world in a rather sterile perspective.

Motivation: What Is This Scene Trying To Do?

The scenes I have illustrated of a paranoid character sporadically crawling their eyes across the place, a stubborn character hunting for something, a desperate character fighting the battle of their life, and a professional observor passively observing the fighting they're currently engaging in all serve various different necessities.

Paranoid character's perspective allows the audience to understand what the paranoid character is feeling, emotionally invests the audience, provides possible backstory for the setting if it's emotionally relevant to the character, and raises the tension for a surely delightful climax and subsequent release of that tension.

Stubborn character's perspective allows the audience to understand what the stubborn character is feeling and forces the audience to either cheer for the bloodshed or look upon with despair at the fallen character. It also kickstarts conflict.

Desperate character's scene is more affilated with conflict itself and the result of tension. It invites the audience to participate in this unrelenting fear as the desperate character's own internal narration about the stakes serve the character's motivation and the reader's emotional involvement. It's heavily effective!

Observant character's scene could serve to establish a status quo for this character of a stoic professional which could be broken later on. This is also a well-written example of "show, don't tell" as the audience can easily guess that the observant character is a professional fighter.

I'm sorry @melda0m3 if I have failed to properly cover this topic. It's incredibly hard to help someone on a case-by-case basis so all I can do is provide some general guidelines and hope this assists you in your writing journey :)

Feel free to ask for any more specific advice posts if this attempt didn't scare you off!

[imbecominggayer]

Thank you @melda0m3 I always check out my activity notications and I have just answered your question :3

What Do YOU Need Writing Advice On?

This post is basically my questionaire with everything being revealed in the title.

If this post doesn't get any recommendations, which is probably what going to happen, I will do a multi-part series on writing villain characters!

If that isn't your cup of tea, feel free to recommend me another topic.

This topic can literally be anything you want!