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Art Mirrors Life

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a writer friend; she made the joke that she needs to work on passive voice in her writing, and how it was funny because she's also pretty passive in real life.

BUT that made me think--do I have any weaknesses/strengths/quirks that span both my writing and real life? The first thing that popped into my head was the fact that I generally don't worry much about my appearance--beyond being clean and relatively neat, I don't mess with fashion or accessories or make up. As a writer, I also have to force myself to include description. It just doesn't occur to me to write it unless I am being intentional about it. I'd say those two are relatively similar aspects.

So of course now I'm curious if anyone else has ever noticed something similar. Does your art and the habits connected to it mirror your real life personality or tendencies?
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
Now that you mention it...

I'm very visual, and descriptions come quite easily to me. However, I've got bad color vision, and I have a hard time telling certain shades and nuances apart. I don't use much color in my descriptions, and when I do, it's largely plain, ordinary colors (red, green, blue) rather than detailed nuances (peach, mauve, faucet, etc).
 

Chasejxyz

Inkling
I'm faceblind and I have that thing where you can't picture things in your head clearly (it was going around social media a bit back). I can either see/picture details in a small area (this item looks like this) or on a very big scale (this is what the vista looks like), but not both at the same time, or a bunch of stuff at once. So things like "she had high cheekbones" literally mean nothing to me, I describe characters by hair/eyes/voice/what they wear/etc (which is how I recognize people IRL). It's a thing that people really don't know exist, and it's caused me a lot of issues both as a kid and as a professional.

But the not-picturing-the-whole-picture thing I make work. When I describe a battle, it's not going to be like a big-budget Hollywood film where you see thousands of people doing all these different things. Instead, the action is focused on the POV character and the things that they're doing, what they're thinking and feeling. The combat is highly personal, because this is a character we care about, this character doesn't want to die or they're fighting for some greater goal. That's more interesting than "oh we lost 32 archers when their cavalry charged us over the hill."
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
I'm faceblind and I have that thing where you can't picture things in your head clearly (it was going around social media a bit back). I can either see/picture details in a small area (this item looks like this) or on a very big scale (this is what the vista looks like), but not both at the same time, or a bunch of stuff at once. So things like "she had high cheekbones" literally mean nothing to me, I describe characters by hair/eyes/voice/what they wear/etc (which is how I recognize people IRL). It's a thing that people really don't know exist, and it's caused me a lot of issues both as a kid and as a professional.
I remember that. Aphantasia, isn't it? It caused quite a stir a while back, and it made me rethink a lot of what I thought I knew about how humans process words.

But the not-picturing-the-whole-picture thing I make work. When I describe a battle, it's not going to be like a big-budget Hollywood film where you see thousands of people doing all these different things. Instead, the action is focused on the POV character and the things that they're doing, what they're thinking and feeling. The combat is highly personal, because this is a character we care about, this character doesn't want to die or they're fighting for some greater goal. That's more interesting than "oh we lost 32 archers when their cavalry charged us over the hill."
I like this. Even for people who are highly visual, too much detail just slows down the pace and clogs up the attention. I prefer to just include the bare essentials and let the reader fill in the rest on their own.
 

Chasejxyz

Inkling
I remember that. Aphantasia, isn't it? It caused quite a stir a while back, and it made me rethink a lot of what I thought I knew about how humans process words.

Yup! It reminded me a lot of this girl I knew who had synthesia; she only discovered she had it when she said "oh I love the colors of this song!" and her friends looked at her like she had 3 heads. The thing about your brain is you don't know how other people's brains work, so you just assume everyone else has a brain like yours.
 
I'm faceblind and I have that thing where you can't picture things in your head clearly (it was going around social media a bit back). I can either see/picture details in a small area (this item looks like this) or on a very big scale (this is what the vista looks like), but not both at the same time, or a bunch of stuff at once. So things like "she had high cheekbones" literally mean nothing to me, I describe characters by hair/eyes/voice/what they wear/etc (which is how I recognize people IRL). It's a thing that people really don't know exist, and it's caused me a lot of issues both as a kid and as a professional.

But the not-picturing-the-whole-picture thing I make work. When I describe a battle, it's not going to be like a big-budget Hollywood film where you see thousands of people doing all these different things. Instead, the action is focused on the POV character and the things that they're doing, what they're thinking and feeling. The combat is highly personal, because this is a character we care about, this character doesn't want to die or they're fighting for some greater goal. That's more interesting than "oh we lost 32 archers when their cavalry charged us over the hill."

I remember learning about that! I do find it fascinating how differently people think. I'm reading a book from the POV of an autistic character right now, and I kind of love it. Seeing how others process and view the world is just... really cool.

I 100% agree with Svrtnsse, that sounds like a way better way to write the scene anyway. I really don't like big battle scenes that try to tell me what is going on everywhere. I'm not gonna remember all those details. I just want to know what is going on with the character I'm here for.


Now that you mention it...

I'm very visual, and descriptions come quite easily to me. However, I've got bad color vision, and I have a hard time telling certain shades and nuances apart. I don't use much color in my descriptions, and when I do, it's largely plain, ordinary colors (red, green, blue) rather than detailed nuances (peach, mauve, faucet, etc).

Meh, the most I use is a modifier on a color, like, "light blue" or "royal purple". I don't want to do color math while I'm reading, why would I subject others to that? XD
 
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