Having a vivid imagination is a blessing for a writer – but I can also be a curse at times, especially in real life when it's not connected to reading and writing. I want to share an anecdote and some thoughts to illustrate the two sides of the coin.
Imagine the Unimaginable
Vivid imagination - a curse
This incident actually happened during my childhood in Germany. I must have been about 7 or 8 years old. My parents had befriended another couple in the village and their daughter J and I were thrust together to play. She was a year younger than me, but we got along fine. One day when she was searching for one of her toys in her room and couldn’t find it, this story just popped into my head. I told her that the little people living under the earth must have stolen it. They lived in tunnels and burrows underneath gardens and houses and knew magic. They controlled small animals and sent moles out through mole hills and rats out through rat holes to find food and toys and useful things from human households for them. I really warmed to the topic and told her we’d use the next meetings for hatching a plan and for digging in the garden to find their hidden underground dwellings. Next thing I know, J’s parents had called my parents and told them in no uncertain terms to keep their lying daughter to themselves. Apparently, they had found her digging a hole in the garden and she had spilled the beans about my story. I got scolded and wasn’t invited to play with her again.
Now here’s the thing: It hadn’t felt like lying to me. My vivid imagination had gotten the better of me and I had spun a tale, but I hadn’t exactly told a lie. In a mix of loving a fantastic adventure and actually believing that magic like this was possible, I had shared what was on my mind. Little had I known that other children were not like me, that she would be unable to recognize the story for what it was. From that day on, I fought to understand that I was different and that stories were best kept to my mind or books…
Now here’s the thing: It hadn’t felt like lying to me. My vivid imagination had gotten the better of me and I had spun a tale, but I hadn’t exactly told a lie. In a mix of loving a fantastic adventure and actually believing that magic like this was possible, I had shared what was on my mind. Little had I known that other children were not like me, that she would be unable to recognize the story for what it was. From that day on, I fought to understand that I was different and that stories were best kept to my mind or books…
Vivid imagination - a blessing (in disguise)
Now, roughly 20 years later, I’m glad that I can imagine anything and everything so easily, because it’s one of the tools a writer most certainly needs. My vivid imagination makes it easy to slip into a character’s shoes and walk through their life, to think out a scene and to create worlds. It’s also the reason why I react to visual writing prompts so powerfully. I just have to look at a picture, and I can feel a whole story unfold in my head. While reading, imagining the happenings makes the story twice as great.
A vivid imagination also helps with the important advice of “show, don’t tell” that authors should heed. If you write down that a character is a loner, the reader may or may not believe it. If you describe her curled up with a book alone at home while everyone else is out and about partying, or if you share a scene of awkward social interaction, it’s much more believable and comes alive.
Sometimes, letting your imagination run free is a wonderful way of escaping. When I feel sad or bored, when I can’t sleep or when I need to distract myself from something unpleasant, I switch to imagination mode and get lost in my own little world, most of the time focusing on a story idea or reliving things read.
A vivid imagination also helps with the important advice of “show, don’t tell” that authors should heed. If you write down that a character is a loner, the reader may or may not believe it. If you describe her curled up with a book alone at home while everyone else is out and about partying, or if you share a scene of awkward social interaction, it’s much more believable and comes alive.
Sometimes, letting your imagination run free is a wonderful way of escaping. When I feel sad or bored, when I can’t sleep or when I need to distract myself from something unpleasant, I switch to imagination mode and get lost in my own little world, most of the time focusing on a story idea or reliving things read.
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