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What we see and what really is.

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
This post is anecdotal and only indirectly related to writing.

When something is unclear, or when an image is incomplete, our minds try to fill in the missing piece on their own. It's how it works for me, and I'm pretty sure it works the same way for most of the rest of you as well.

Terry Pratchett made use of this a lot in his stories. He often explains how the inhabitants of his world just completely ignored things they didn't expect to see, or that were too out of the ordinary to readily accept. That's perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, but the theory as such is sound. We, as humans, like it when things fit in neatly with how we perceive the rest of the world to be.

The other day, I experienced this very clearly in person.
I was out jogging, and ahead of me on the trail a girl shows up running the other way. At first I don't notice anything odd about her, except she seems to run in a strange way, as if slightly off balance. Perhaps she's favouring one leg over the other? Other than that she seems ordinary enough: fit, healthy, good looking, and bit tired from the effort.
It's just that thing with her running that seems a little bit off.
And then, just as we pass each other, I notice she only has one arm.

Seems like a pretty big thing to not notice, right? If someone is missing an arm, that's not really something you have to stop and think about in order to figure out.

Only, I wasn't really thinking, or looking very closely. I'd run a fair while. I was pretty tired and my main focus was on getting home to my shower and my bottle of water, not on counting how many arms people have. I had enough presence to notice something was off about the girl, but as she wasn't particularly important to me at the time (other than as something not to run straight into) it took me a while to register.

So, how does this tie in with writing?
For me, personally, it really highlights how easy it is to flesh out an incomplete image based on my own preconceived notions of what I think I'm seeing - or reading about. Sometimes you don't have to describe something in great detail in order for the reader to know how it looks. You really only need to highlight the things that break off from the ordinary.
 
A lot of thoughts sprang to mind when I was reading your post, but I'm going to try to limit the mess of my thoughts, heh.

Essentially, the issue is deciding which details are important and which aren't.

Let's take a look at the narrative you've given us. You didn't tell us much about where you were jogging (although we know it's a trail), what the weather was like, how many others were also out and about, what that girl was wearing, what you were wearing, the color of her eyes, etc. These details weren't important for your narrative, for that scene and the story goal. We who read your little story were free to imagine any of these details however we wished; or, perhaps more realistically, we simply instinctively filled in whatever blanks existed on a reader-by-reader basis. (Maybe some were picturing a mountain trail with dense foliage and never pictured eye/hair color or clothing. Maybe others pictured clothing but no foliage.)

For me, this relates in multiple ways to writing, but two broad areas are POV character development and scene or story needs.

One of the ways to develop a distinctive character is to present that character noticing only the sorts of things such a character would notice and doing the sorts of things that character would do, regardless of the near-infinite things one might pick. Your "character" (yourself, heh) was tired, distracted, thinking about getting home; if I were to write that scene, I might focus on ways to show this distraction while adding details of the girl and environment which exacerbate this state. (Maybe it's a dusty day, making the need for that bottle of water stand out. Maybe this bit of the trail is sloping down, thankfully, because the POV character is tired.) But if the POV character was someone who'd have a reason to notice more details about strangers—a spy, a victim of previous random violence, whatever—I'd maybe have her focus in on this girl in more detail, perhaps seeing that she's missing the arm right away.

The other area involves needs of scene and story and anticipating reader preconceptions or expectations. This is something I've been contemplating very consciously for a current project. MY POV character and companions are going to enter a tavern while traveling between two cities—a midpoint—and I've thought to myself, "Well, this is a tavern, and most readers of fantasy already have strong images of what a fantasy tavern is like, so how much detail do I really need to use?" For this story, there's a theme of culture clash, since the POV character is from one somewhat marginalized culture. This tavern is more in the territory of the other culture, and I imagine it should appear slightly different than the taverns he's visited frequently in his home city. But how far should I go in drawing that picture, the distinctions? This is a rubber-meets-road juncture for me. I haven't written the scene, but I suspect that for pacing reasons I'll not want to go too much in depth on the detail, let the reader fill in many blanks, but nonetheless offer key details to give the impression of difference. Ultimately, I'll need to see what serves the scene and story best. (I may not find a perfect solution until I've written it and reworked it more than once, heh.)
 
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This made me think of how I always need to step away from my WIP before self-editing, because my mind during writing has filled in the blanks so the story makes sense to me. I have to give myself some distance from the story and come back to it fresh, clearing out the blanks so I can fill them in again from a reader perspective, to do a decent self-edit.
 

elemtilas

Inkling
When something is unclear, or when an image is incomplete, our minds try to fill in the missing piece on their own. It's how it works for me, and I'm pretty sure it works the same way for most of the rest of you as well...

So, how does this tie in with writing?

For me, personally, it really highlights how easy it is to flesh out an incomplete image based on my own preconceived notions of what I think I'm seeing - or reading about. Sometimes you don't have to describe something in great detail in order for the reader to know how it looks. You really only need to highlight the things that break off from the ordinary.

Well, to me, it looks you just tied it up with writing and put it under a bow!

I can easily see what you just wrote as part of a larger story, an introduction to a character who's going to play a larger role upcoming. But anyway...

As far as the phenomenon goes, that of (passively) seeing without (actively) looking, I think that's kind of ordinary. You, like most people in the same situation, had other things in mind. Mind was wandering. Focus was elsewhere. Eyes were seeing without examining.

But unlike many people, your "writer senses" kicked in, prodded your half-conscious mind into action. You began to more actively look at your surroundings. Mind coalesced into the everpresent. Focus sharpened on the here-and-now. Eyes other than the two that merely see began to examine what was really going on.

A fancy term for this is "situational awareness". An active examination of all sensory input in the here-and-now. Basically, knowing what's going on around you. It's a good tool to learn how to use. For a writer, it will help clarify matters of setting and description and also matters of plot and action; what fits, what doesn't, what is likely or plausible; what's going on at any given moment in the characters' immediate arena of activity.
 

pmmg

Myth Weaver
I am not sure that really works for me. I can step away and not visit something for months, or even years, but if I get back to editing, the benefit of distance wears off quickly, and I am back into the editing mode that created the scene in the first place. So, I think the benefit is marginal.

Clearly, it is not important to capture every detail, just the ones that matter. Often, that equates to what matters for the POV character cause if they don't notice something, there is possibly no window through which to show it. However, it does not do to have the character making use of things that the author has not put in scene. As an example, if the one armed jogger above was to get suddenly attacked, and pull her battleaxe to do battle, the reader might go...um, where did the battleaxe come from? So there is always type of wrestling match to include the right details, not break the window, and keep it interesting for the reader to read.

But honestly, I don't fret over the unobservedness of myself or my characters. It just kind of is what it is. If it becomes important to the scene that the jogger has only one arm, I do think, even it if not something that might get noticed, it needs to mentioned before it is used.

On another note, I also cannot say how many times I have been presented with the descriptions of the trees of the forest or the color of the mountains in great detail and decided to skip. In my mind, I just kind of go, trees, mountains..got it. I don't need the waxing on.


PS: I am pretty sure, I would not have first noticed her missing arm either. I would more likely have wondered why her gait was off. She might have passed me by and I would never have noticed if it did not seem important to know. But, you know, there are a lot of things I might notice about another jogger first.
 
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I am not sure that really works for me. I can step away and not visit something for months, or even years, but if I get back to editing, the benefit of distance wears off quickly, and I am back into the editing mode that created the scene in the first place. So, I think the benefit is marginal.

I hear what you're saying. That's why when I come back to a work, I read it through before editing, so my mind doesn't have time to start filling in the blanks with the same info as before. Quick highlights of areas of concern are all that's allowed during the read-through, before the edit.
 
Clearly, it is not important to capture every detail, just the ones that matter. Often, that equates to what matters for the POV character cause if they don't notice something, there is possibly no window through which to show it.

[....]

So there is always type of wrestling match to include the right details, not break the window, and keep it interesting for the reader to read.

I think of this wrestling match as being between POV and needs of the scene and story.

It's a little like playing with dolls or puppets who happen to be sentient. You can understand their personalities and immediate states (hesitant, scared, distracted, etc.), but you still have to build the dollhouse or stage for them. There needs to be something within the environment to capture their attention and draw their focus.

So...What do I put there? A character might realistically and authentically to his character notice many details, but which are most important for the current scene and the story as a whole?

On another note, I also cannot say how many times I have been presented with the descriptions of the trees of the forest or the color of the mountains in great detail and decided to skip. In my mind, I just kind of go, trees, mountains..got it. I don't need the waxing on.

So for instance a character might realistically see the mountains and forest, might be in a lull allowing for a slower pace and might even find the view of the mountains and forest pleasantly distracting from the tedium of the travel, but would two paragraphs of description be right for the story and scene? Maybe yes, maybe no. But I think the wrong approach would be to put those descriptions in the story simply because they are convenient distractions or particular interests for the author, without considering character and needs of scene/story.

I ran head first into this problem in another project that I'd decided to write in omniscient. In a way, the limited POV is a great help because at least that POV can serve as a guide and, well, limit on what to include. But the omniscient view, in which anything could be included? I found myself putting in a lot of interesting tidbits about the world that ultimately weren't particularly needed for the scene.

Another general problem is the fact that "need" will depend somewhat on author voice or style and also could include considerations of tone, theme, and other things not particularly dependent on the plot or action elements in a scene. One author's approach might include a lot of tone- and theme-setting details that another author wouldn't choose.

Maybe author voice is another kind of limit that can serve as a guide. What is noticed, what goes without saying, and what is not noticed?
 
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