For example, I’m currently reading “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” (no spoilers please), and Hugo’s commitment to describing Goth Architecture and 1400s Paris in meticulous detail is admirable. Still, I take wayyyyy too long trying to visualize the setting as precisely as possible. I’m a perfectionist at heart, and I haven’t spent much of my life thinking about Gothic architecture, nor have I ever seen it in real life. Usually, I will use a previous setting from real life to imagine something, for example when I read “Crime and Punishment”, the protagonist’s room was a similar layout to my dorm room from college. However, I created the visual for the rest of the apartment building from scratch as I have no basis for 1800s Russian apartments. Do you guys have a similar issue? Do you not care enough to visualize everything perfectly, or does it come easily to you?
by Mindless_Patient2034
1 Comment
So in these situations I try one of two strategies depending on how much I care about the setting of a given book:
1. Spend the time to take breaks when I’m not sure what something looks like to go look it up and at least learn what the terminology refers to
2. Go with the first thing that pops into my head and just commit so that I can enjoy the story