The other day when I was listening to the
Archers someone started talking to me. Nothing unusual there. My children are
unable to understand, it seems, that in order to know what’s going on in a
radio programme you have to be able to hear it. There are no visual clues to
keep you going for the duration of whatever vital exchange they need to have right
that minute. You can imagine, can’t you?
Me: deep sigh
Child: “Blah, blah, blah.”
Me: flaps hand towards the radio
Child: “Blah, blah, blah-di-blah.”
Me: grabs remote and turn up radio
Child: “Oh, err, sorry. I’ll come back
later.”
Me: “Well, if it’s not important...”
So the next day, we’re all sitting there
and somehow the Archers comes up again. They want to know why their dad and I listen
to it. Nothing ever happens, they say, and they’re right. In fact, on the
occasion when there has been a Big Story, you know, Ruth having an affair (or
not, I can’t remember if she actually Did It), Nigel falling off the roof,
those things irritate me. What I like about the Archers is the buzz and hum of life,
the mundane nothingness of the everyday. I used to like that about Coronation
Street until it turned all Eastenders and I stopped watching.
OK, so by now maybe you’re thinking this is
supposed to be a blog about books, why’s she wittering on about soap operas.
Well, what happened was this: I had a little moan about the kids interrupting when
I was listening to the Archers, and one of them asked if I had a picture of each
character in my head, if I actually knew what they looked like. And I had to
say no, not in the way that they were imagining. Their idea, I suppose, is that
you sit there with a sort of Archers movie playing in your head. It isn’t like
that at all though, any more than when you read you have the movie of the book
playing in your head. However I do think that if a book or a radio programme or
an audio book captures you sufficiently, in some way it must stimulate some
visual sensors in your brain as well as the auditory and understanding ones.
Even though you can’t see it, you have a sense that you have seen it. Think of
it like this, you know what your husband or your mother or your dog looks like,
don’t you? But when you’re not with them, you don’t have an actual image of
them in your head, just a sense of them.
There is one downside I have found with
this whole inner visualisation thing. Sometimes when I’m driving, if I’m
listening to something interesting, or making up stories, there are moments
when I have to remind myself to focus on what’s ahead of me on the road instead
of what I can see with my mind’s eye.
Does this make any sense to you? What I’m
talking about is the imagination. It’s the same thing you get when you write.
You don’t need a photo of your character to know you’d recognise them if you
came across them in the street. And what you’re hoping to do as you write is to
implant that visual sense of the character in the mind of your reader.
