When you are reading, how do you envision the story?

[TehCookie]

It all depends on the book and how it was written. Most of the time I see them as live-action, but at other times I switch to an anime version. If the scene is more descriptive I usually go with live-action but if it has a unique fantasy feel I go with anime.

 

[Vakz]

I usually attempt to envision it as realistic to the story as I can. Sometimes, when someone e.g. sighs in the book, I find myself doing the same thing. Same with stuff like coughing, or when the book describes how a person is moving his hand to form a symbol, I sometimes unconsciously do the same thing, as a sorta "obsessive compulsive"-thing (this doesn't describe it very well, but I couldn't think of anything that explains it better). I suppose it's really weird, or I just have a very vivid and controlling imagination.

 

[GrinningManiac]

Real life, though with a slightly film-y easieness about everything (I.E. every scene seems to have been designed as like in a film to be of a unified palette of colours and things are all in the right place)

 

[RAMBO22]

Very realistically, like I'm seeing the world described by the author from a character/first person POV.

Sometimes, strangely enough, supernatural things occur in my realistic visions while I'm reading, but only if they're described by the author, so that's still somewhat realistic, I guess.

 

[UltraDeth]

I envision a written story in live-action.

 

[Tallim]

I don't visualise while I am reading. I know I used to when I was much younger but now I just read. However if I think about what I have read later then the visualisation occurs.

 

[freakyalex]

Usually either in live action or a sort of anime-cartoony thing. It depends on the story.

 

[TilMorrow]

I imagine the story, depending on what genre, the way I think it should look however if I ever see a movie version of a story before reading the book I then instantly see the characters as their movie selves albet in different environments. However if I read the book first and then see either a movie or graphic novel version of it I immediately disagree with the way the characters look. E.G. Artemis Fowl Graphic novel characters are nothing like the ones I envisioned.

 

[Sleepingzombie]

I dont envision the events, no visualasation at al. I just get a vague feeling on the mood of the text/what happens and "know". Some weeks ago I trained to relax so I could draw better and paf!. . .suddenly i see things.

 

[Orcboyphil]

I don't generally when reading a story I'll hear it spoken in my head often in the voice of whoever normally reads the story. Such as whilst reading the last Harry Potter I heard it in the voice of Steven Fry and whilst reading a discworld I'll hear it in the voice of Stephen Briggs, though it used to be in the voice of Tony Robinson.

 

[jomala]

Fascinating - good question!

I see a mixture of real first-person and film-like third person angles, I think, depending on how well I'm empathising with the character. (I don't read much that's in the first person.) It's pretty low-res though, especially faces, but then I couldn't do a photofit of even my closest family, so I'm clearly not good at faces generally.

 

[2012 Wont Happen]

A fluid sequence of action with realistic people, as they are described in the book.

edit-
If the description of someone in the book is very similar to someone I know, I will envision that person performing the action. For example, I know an actress prone to randomness with red hair, named Rachel. So, when reading the last couple of Perseus Jackson books, I pictured her whenever Rachel, the random red haired actress in those books, was mentioned.

 

[ComicsAreWeird]

i imagine it in a cinematic way. When i read a book and character descriptions i instantly «cast» an actor who resembles the description and stick with it through the story.

Is this weird? :\

 

[Fury Is Me.]

I imagine it in a random flickering of anime-esque, realistic, scratchy, morbid, dark, light, cartoony, and exagerrated. Most in a mix between Anime-esque and Real. More real than anime.

 

[Dfskelleton]

I'm reading Lovecraft's works right now, and I envision everything as real, but with somewhat of a painted look. For the characters, I usually envision an actor or a person I know who fits their description. As for bigger things such as Cthulhu or really any inhuman thing in a book, unless there's art of them, I can't really get a good idea. Cthulhu is easy though, and applying my style in my mind looks very cool amidst the realistic but painted ocean.

 

[Simulated Eon]

I usually imagine the books realisticly but sometimes there are very cartoony moments i.e. when I imagined Lupin from Harry Potter as a villain from a Tiny Toons episode I had watched recently when I read the books. That image changed the more I learnt about Lupin but sometimes I had to try really hard not to see him like the Tiny Toon villain. When I have an image about someone/something it is really hard for me to re-imagine them.

 

[Professor James]

Mine are always fairly realistic, though often things can be a bit foggy and unspecified, especially if the book fails to mention the details of those things. For example if it doesn't specify what the background of the scene is, there just won't BE one.

Pretty much this but although sometimes I have a hard time envisioning and end up making the characters look like silhouettes with mouths