Thanks very much, Paul, for this comment. I only k...

2009-06-28T21:29:51.028-04:00

Thanks very much, Paul, for this comment. I only know about the brief report made by Thalia Goldstein in Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts; but in that article there was no mention of what goes on in the mind of the audience/reader. But I completely agree with you, that the audience/reader does exactly as you say, namely put the character in clothes of his or her own, and sometimes these are not what the writer had in mind. To follow up the theatrical metaphor: the audience/writer creates his or her own inner performance. When I am writing I find it rather good that the reader will do this. I like it that this person will take over, so that the imaginative creation is a collaboration. I think being able to step out of the way at this point means we have done our job properly.

I find this interesting and instructive, but I won...

2009-06-27T04:44:00.675-04:00

I find this interesting and instructive, but I wonder if the study took into account the equivalent function in the mind of the audience/reader. I've found that readers will attribute all sorts of background and motivations, as well as appearance, to a character, often in spite of whatever description the writer will give. A reader may clothe a character in a certain way, for example, regardless of how the writer may have dressed him that morning. I suppose our role as writers is to nudge the reader in the direction we want but then to step out of the way once the reader's imagination begins to work.

Comments on OnFiction: The Psychology of Actors

Thanks very much, Paul, for this comment. I only k...

I find this interesting and instructive, but I won...