Prefer things to be suggested rather than minutely described.
Probably a difference as to reading and writing.
They are tools of life—therefore of one's work also.
John Joseph: If it is a really good story my imagination reacts to all the emotions and sensations mentioned except "physical pain." Very few stories belong to this class, however.
The author's "pictures" (in good stories) are reproduced in every detail, and distinctly. My mental pictures often go far beyond anything the author has actually described. I have no "stock" pictures; every "cowboy" and "village church" differs from all the others.
There is little difference in "behavior of imagination" whether reading or writing. I think that all these points are valuable to the writer.
Lloyd Kohler: In reading a story I am very apt to puzzle out in my own mind the outcome of the story long before the end is reached. Often the author's ending of the story, however, is radically different from what my own imagination had planned. Sometimes I can't overcome the idea that my own solution would have bettered the story; at other times I can easily see that the author's solution was vastly superior to my own.
In writing a story, or planning a story to write, my imagination generally runs—well, we'll say "wild." For instance: I may carefully plan a certain climax—and then find when the story is finally written that the first climax has been substituted for a more fitting one which flew into my mind during the last stages of the writing.
I don't want to commit myself on this question—I can't even agree with myself regarding the different angles of it. But I will say that when reading a story generally I do see in my imagination the characters, action and setting, though perhaps not so clearly as if looking at the actual scene. The vividness of the picture, of course, depends upon the clearness and vividness of the author. It depends also on just how familiar I am with the picture presented by the author.
The pictures described by an author which "I see with my eyes shut" are more in black and white. The details are very apt to be indistinct.