My imagination is never so active when reading a story as when writing it. In reading I am content to float along with the author, analyzing what has gone before rather than probing continually into the future as I do when writing.
To the extent that structure, appeal and atmosphere are necessary to the story I have considered these things as "tools of the trade." Just recently I have begun to realize the value of appealing to all of the reader's senses to get him more fully into the spirit of the story.
Ruth Sawyer: If a story is strongly and convincingly written I generally see characters and action developing with the same degree of reality that one sees a motion picture. Sounds, flavors, smells—in fact all sense perceptions become extremely acute. I should say the relationship to the actual stimuli is comparable with a vivid dream.
I rarely see color. For the most part things are black and white but with sharp detail.
I studied solid geometry and flunked it. The only examination in mathematics I ever flunked.
A suggestive concept will start me picturing endless detail provided the suggestion is true to type and locality.
No, I do not have stock pictures for village churches.
I think that depends largely on the condition of mind when one takes up a story. I find if I am tired I want the work of detail picturing done for me provided it is not overdone to the point of weariness. Also I think if one is generally familiar with the atmosphere the writer is creating that one enjoys filling in a large part of the picture with one's own imagination.
Yes. I should say when I read stories my imagination was passive and receptive; that when I wrote stories it was active and creative.
Not consciously.