Perla's hatI have a Pinterest board for each of my novels. The one for Miracle in a Dry Season, for example, includes dresses Perla might have worn. I also have pictures of Casewell’s truck and some examples of the kind’s of woodwork he might have done. I find this helps me as I’m writing.
When I come to a place in the book where a character climbs into a car and drives away, I want to know what the car looks like. When I write that Perla’s wearing “a scrap of a hat” I wonder what that might look like. Sometimes, I can’t keep writing until I KNOW. Pinterest is great for relieving that tension in my own head.
And maybe, once the book is out, readers will get a kick out of seeing what I was picturing. But I wonder . . .
A big part of the pleasure of reading for me is in imagining what’s being described. I can SEE characters, settings, and situations based on the author’s description. And seeing an actual photograph might spoil MY impression.
Have you ever listened to someone on the radio and then been surprised when you saw a picture of him? We’d listened to Chip Ingram for years and then saw him in person and . . . it was downright distracting. I kept thinking, but he’s not that tall and his hair should be lighter.
So what do you think? Do you like peeking at the images in an author’s head? Or would you rather come up with your own?