Can not really "see with my eyes shut" with the vividness that many writers describe. Instead, I get a mass-impression instead of one in detail.
Undoubtedly the requirement of solid geometry, by universities, was sponsored by Torquemada.
Detailed description is not essential. If the story is vivid, the locale shapes itself without effort.
No stock pictures. Each new story has its own images.
One of the great charms of certain authors lies in their lapidary-accuracy of detail. So, in case of the real artist, there is no question of "too many images." I can not answer the next inquiry—have never analyzed so far. Nor have I considered any of these matters as "tools of the trade."
F. R. Buckley: This is a very big question: I can't answer it more exactly than by saying that when I read or write I have a subliminal self which feels, tastes and smells, so that I get the effect of stimuli quite vividly without any semblance of reaction on the actual physical senses. This is extremely difficult to explain. I might say that when there is a smell or a sight or a sound before me, either in my writing or some one else's, I rather know it, than feel it. It is rather as though (I am now thinking of a revolver-shot in a small room) the essence of the roar, denatured of the qualities which appeal to the physical ear, had been poured into my consciousness by some other channel. Until I started to answer this questionnaire I should have said I heard the crash; of course, I don't; I don't even—I think—imagine it. Yet the effect of it certainly impinges on me; an exciting passage of action will even speed up my heart, and fast action will make me work the keys of the typewriter faster. Normally one doesn't keep tab of reactions, but it seems to me I've caught myself grinning with pain when somebody was getting hurt. But the speeding-up and the grin are not, I think, direct action—such as I should experience from actually going through the action or watching it with my eyes. I think they are the manifestations of the imagined action's impact on the subconscious, duplicate me, whose sole business it is to receive them. And this duplicate self's control of my own person is only partial; which is why my mouth doesn't actually water when my hero eats lemons.
I can see pictures with my eyes shut; in full color but they are still pictures—not movies. I can't shut my eyes and see action; but before describing it I can close them and see the picture of its effect; see the man who's just been shot and how he lies and how his garments hang and where his hands are and how his feet look. I have actually seen a good many men after violent deaths. This may help. And I can see every detail of the man who fired the shot—his attitude, what he's doing with the revolver now he's fired; also, I can see the room and feel it. You know that there is a distinct feel about a room when something abnormal's happening. A pretty gilt clock you've always liked will look entirely different—tawdry, pitiful, cold-hearted, if a dead man's lying in front of the fireplace. I get all this, and I couldn't write if I didn't.
As for solid geometry, ALL mathematics were abomination and to pick on solid geometry would be invidious.
I haven't any stock pictures at all. In reading, if the author doesn't give me a picture, I use Shakespearean scenery—blank space with "This is a Church" written on it. Writing, I invent quite definite and different "sets" and so on, for each story.
Big difference between imagination reading and writing. Very, very rarely does reading speed heart-beat and so on; writing, comparatively frequently.