Pereception/learning style and writing
Mar. 12th, 2012 12:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firefly124Someone on my flist was asking about how others write. This particular writer is very visual, as I suspect most are. So were most of the commenters. No surprise, since that's true for the majority of people.
I'm weird. If you've been reading my random posts for any length of time, this is not exactly a news flash. But in terms of how I process information, I'm definitely outside the norm. I'm fortunate in that it's worked to my advantage, mostly, but still: weird. And my thinky-thoughts got a bit much for commenting, especially as they ventured afield into the links between writing/inspiration style and learning/processing style, so they ended up turning into a post.
When doing learning style assessments, my results are always the following, separated by about a point each: primarily kinesthetic, secondarily auditory, and last but not least, visual. I forget the figures but some ridiculously high percentage of people are primarily visual learners and processors, next up are the auditory folks, and even most folks who are primarily kinesthetic learners have visual as a secondary, so I'm essentially backwards.
(Aside: this is, I think, one of the reasons I'm like the Worst Study Partner Ever and yet a good tutor. Once I've got the information down pat, I can present it all kinds of different ways until I find something that works for a tutee. After all, I've had the information generally presented to me in a way that's designed for primarily visual and/or auditory learners and had to do whatever to bring the kinesthetic in myself, so eventually all bases got covered, and I can pull from each until I find something that fits. While I'm learning it, though, I'm in my ass-backwards-to-the-rest-of-the-world mode, and trying to get into synch with other people's learning styles at that time mostly just doesn't work.)
With writing, I think the gap is bigger. I "get" most of my stories primarily in movement and tactile sensation, followed shortly by dialogue. For example, (jumping into the way-back machine) the scene that got To Know Who I Am started was Snape and Celia, back to back, wands drawn. But I didn't "see" it. I felt it. Standing in the snow, robes whipping around in the wind, adrenaline pumping, and looking desperately around to see if there was about to be another vampire attack. And I felt it as both of them, because there was both the sense of, "WTF was that vampire doing on my turf?" and "WTF are vampires following me here or something?" Then I got each of their lines that defined the story to me: "You're the Slayer?" "I'm one of them", and it ran from there.
So kinesthetic and auditory, pretty close together. To show the gap to visual, though, I was a good five or more chapters in before I realized I hadn't given Celia any physical description whatsoever and had to backtrack and get it in there. Once I figured it out, that is, because I wasn't even sure. This is a recurring theme, because while I try to catch myself before it gets to that point, knowing this is one of my weaknesses, there is still always at least one scene, sometimes several, in which a beta will have to ask me, "What does he/she/it/the setting LOOK like?" My gut reaction is to shrug and say, "I dunno," though I dutifully try to figure it out and put it in. Visual dead last, is what I'm saying, and not by one measly point.
It's worth noting that I also read this way. I pick up on the dialogue and the action/blocking of what's going on, but mostly skate right by most of the visual description, sort of but not always taking it in. More than once I've discovered that some visual detail mentioned earlier is suddenly important, and I'll have to go back and reread. (Often, the author has mentioned it several times, as it was going to be important, and I still managed to miss it. This leads to much kicking of self for being a lazy reader, and yet the pattern continues.)
I suspect this is one of the reasons I suck at world-building and prefer playing in established settings. Someone else already decided what stuff looks like. I don't have to!
I don't think that's the whole of why I write fanfiction and don't have any particular drive to write ofic. Patsfan and my chiropractor are both rather baffled by this and keep addressing it as if it's a confidence issue. No, it's actually a "what I want to do" issue. I do also think there's a difference in drive between writing fanfiction (or even, to an extent, historical fiction) as opposed to original fiction. Not better or worse, just different. The desire to reshape or explore an existing world versus creating a new one, which may or may not also have some correlation to learning/processing styles, though possibly a very different one.
That, however, is another post for another day. I'm surprised I had the energy to write this one, frankly.
So, your thoughts? If you're a writer, how do your story ideas come to you? If you're a reader, how does the information on the page/screen come through to you? And in either case, does this seem similar to how you learn or just approach the world generally?
I'm weird. If you've been reading my random posts for any length of time, this is not exactly a news flash. But in terms of how I process information, I'm definitely outside the norm. I'm fortunate in that it's worked to my advantage, mostly, but still: weird. And my thinky-thoughts got a bit much for commenting, especially as they ventured afield into the links between writing/inspiration style and learning/processing style, so they ended up turning into a post.
When doing learning style assessments, my results are always the following, separated by about a point each: primarily kinesthetic, secondarily auditory, and last but not least, visual. I forget the figures but some ridiculously high percentage of people are primarily visual learners and processors, next up are the auditory folks, and even most folks who are primarily kinesthetic learners have visual as a secondary, so I'm essentially backwards.
(Aside: this is, I think, one of the reasons I'm like the Worst Study Partner Ever and yet a good tutor. Once I've got the information down pat, I can present it all kinds of different ways until I find something that works for a tutee. After all, I've had the information generally presented to me in a way that's designed for primarily visual and/or auditory learners and had to do whatever to bring the kinesthetic in myself, so eventually all bases got covered, and I can pull from each until I find something that fits. While I'm learning it, though, I'm in my ass-backwards-to-the-rest-of-the-world mode, and trying to get into synch with other people's learning styles at that time mostly just doesn't work.)
With writing, I think the gap is bigger. I "get" most of my stories primarily in movement and tactile sensation, followed shortly by dialogue. For example, (jumping into the way-back machine) the scene that got To Know Who I Am started was Snape and Celia, back to back, wands drawn. But I didn't "see" it. I felt it. Standing in the snow, robes whipping around in the wind, adrenaline pumping, and looking desperately around to see if there was about to be another vampire attack. And I felt it as both of them, because there was both the sense of, "WTF was that vampire doing on my turf?" and "WTF are vampires following me here or something?" Then I got each of their lines that defined the story to me: "You're the Slayer?" "I'm one of them", and it ran from there.
So kinesthetic and auditory, pretty close together. To show the gap to visual, though, I was a good five or more chapters in before I realized I hadn't given Celia any physical description whatsoever and had to backtrack and get it in there. Once I figured it out, that is, because I wasn't even sure. This is a recurring theme, because while I try to catch myself before it gets to that point, knowing this is one of my weaknesses, there is still always at least one scene, sometimes several, in which a beta will have to ask me, "What does he/she/it/the setting LOOK like?" My gut reaction is to shrug and say, "I dunno," though I dutifully try to figure it out and put it in. Visual dead last, is what I'm saying, and not by one measly point.
It's worth noting that I also read this way. I pick up on the dialogue and the action/blocking of what's going on, but mostly skate right by most of the visual description, sort of but not always taking it in. More than once I've discovered that some visual detail mentioned earlier is suddenly important, and I'll have to go back and reread. (Often, the author has mentioned it several times, as it was going to be important, and I still managed to miss it. This leads to much kicking of self for being a lazy reader, and yet the pattern continues.)
I suspect this is one of the reasons I suck at world-building and prefer playing in established settings. Someone else already decided what stuff looks like. I don't have to!
I don't think that's the whole of why I write fanfiction and don't have any particular drive to write ofic. Patsfan and my chiropractor are both rather baffled by this and keep addressing it as if it's a confidence issue. No, it's actually a "what I want to do" issue. I do also think there's a difference in drive between writing fanfiction (or even, to an extent, historical fiction) as opposed to original fiction. Not better or worse, just different. The desire to reshape or explore an existing world versus creating a new one, which may or may not also have some correlation to learning/processing styles, though possibly a very different one.
That, however, is another post for another day. I'm surprised I had the energy to write this one, frankly.
So, your thoughts? If you're a writer, how do your story ideas come to you? If you're a reader, how does the information on the page/screen come through to you? And in either case, does this seem similar to how you learn or just approach the world generally?
