Is your mind constantly filled with words? And another question.

[AG31]

A few days ago @MadilineMasoch launched a thread about Emotional Immersion, which was basically a thread about rule breaking when writing in close 3rd POV, rule breaking in service to emotional connection. The example rules were the use of "fillers" and "filters." (I had to go look those up.) It got me thinking about another possible rule break, using vocabulary that is not actually available to, or natural to, the MC. Although I'm not actually sure that that's a "rule."

That got me thinking about whether one ought to be worrying about the MC's vocabulary at all, since much of our experience doesn't involve words, yet the point of the story is to describe the wordless emotions and sensations and (don't-have-a-word-for-it) stuff that we thoughts that contribute to the story. Indeed, I think some characters' vocabulary can be assumed to be very limited. But should we limit our descriptions of their experiences?

Some people claim that their mental experience is only in terms of words. Well, one person that I know claims this.

I know that most of my conscious experience is full of words, but that's because I'm constantly composing things aimed at articulating things that I don't yet have words for. I compose answers to e-mails, and posts to AH and other forums, and posts to a political forum site, and sometimes to put a fantasy into words. But there's always that something there for which I don't yet have the right words.

Two questions.

Are you totally dependent on words for your mental activity?

Do you think narratives in close 3rd person POV should be limited to the vocabulary available to the MC?

 

[SimonDoom]

Are you totally dependent on words for your mental activity?

No. I'm verbal, but I'm also visual. I often think in terms of images that can't always be rendered just right in words.

Do you think narratives in close 3rd person POV should be limited to the vocabulary available to the MC?

That's what close 3d person POV writing IS. But there's no obligation to write that way. One can blend this style with a more omniscient style. But if you are freely using vocabulary that would not be available to the MC then you are not writing in a close or free indirect 3d person POV.

 

[AG31]

That's what close 3d person POV writing IS.

That might be overstating it a bit. In my extremely brief look at Google, I didn't see any reference to sticking to the voice of the MC, just sticking to what they knew. But the reason I was looking is that it seems to be a logical addition to the definition of close 3rd person POV.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Are you totally dependent on words for your mental activity?

I don't think in words. It's to the point where I have occasionally believed that I just thought up the perfect bit of dialog only to sit down and try to type it out, and realize that I was thinking about the flow and emotions of the conversation but not the actual words.

My SO on the other hand doesn't really think in pictures. You'd think that'd make reading boring but he still loves it so I guess it works for him.

Do you think narratives in close 3rd person POV should be limited to the vocabulary available to the MC?

Usually yes, but if you're describing a feeling that they don't have the words for then I'd put something like, "Even without the proper words to describe it he felt an incredible up welling of sadness and grief."

 

[ElectricBlue]

Two questions.

Are you totally dependent on words for your mental activity?

Psych tests have shown I'm highly verbal, highly visual, and my numeracy skills way up there too (which my career has attested to, but I wouldn't have thought it if you asked me a long time ago).

I have the knack, it would appear, that my literary style somehow conjures an almost visual response in readers. The number of people who've commented on the "visual sense" of my writing: cinematic, like a film, almost as if I could touch...

Damned if I know how I do it, though - although I suspect my left/right brain switches are flickering constantly, and that comes through in my words.

Do you think narratives in close 3rd person POV should be limited to the vocabulary available to the MC?

No. The point of limited third is that the narrator gets right in close to the protagonist, but is still omniscient in what the narrator "knows". The narration can still be observational about the character, but to limit the narrator to the character's vocabulary? That would never occur to me.

 

[VallesMarineris]

Do you think narratives in close 3rd person POV should be limited to the vocabulary available to the MC?

A person’s vocabulary is an important part of their character (whether the person is real or fictional). Imagine having a conversation IRL with someone who is, say, an accountant. If they mention “EBITDA” (and you understand that term) the conversation will roll along. But if they start talking about “tourrage” (a pastry term), that may surprise you. But it’s not a problem, it’s an opportunity. You’ll ask the accountant about that term and have a new conversation about the avocation you’ve just discovered they have (they’re an amateur pastry chef!).

However, if your POV character starts thinking or talking with terms that the average person doesn’t know (or that they won't expect your character to know from what you've shown them so far), you can’t ignore that knowledge gap. You have to deal with it or you’ll confuse and maybe lose your reader. Readers keep track of these things, even if only subconsciously.

There are ways to bridge the gap:

— You can simply explain: “Yes, nine to five I’m immersed in numbers, but at 5PM my fingers leave the keyboard and immerse themselves in the croissant dough that’s been sitting in the fridge since I mixed it this morning.”

— You can have another character ask: “Jean-Luc, have you been hiding something from me? Did you study more than economics in Grenoble?”

— You can trust your reader to stay with you while you build up your character’s world: “Jean-Luc pondered the mix of fungible cryptocurrencies his new client needed him to manage as he folded the eggs into the frangipane mix. Both would puff up when heated, though the pastry would do much better in the oven that the crypto in the hot market.” And on like that, gradually filling in (heh heh) with more of your character’s particular world.

If you’re interested in the third possibility, check out this glossary I made for a recent story. My POV character is a very, very nerdy young woman with highly specialized interests (including very nerdy sex, of course). I wanted the reader to be immersed in her world without diluting it with explanation, but readers of the first few chapters commented that they wish they had some kind of reference. I guess that was a good idea. The glossary hasn’t received as many views as the chapters, but it did earn a red H!

 

[ICantLeafYou]

I have aphantasia, I'm at the severe end of the spectrum and can't picture anything in my mind. But I have a mental narration going 24/7. As I'm writing this, I hear the words in my head. If I'm reading or thinking something, I hear the words.

I also have OCD, which adds to it in my case. I'm constantly counting every I and T in everything that I write, read, hear, think, say...

I also have music in my head sometimes [which does often contain words, now that I think about it]. It's not an ear-worm--I can control the songs that I hear in my head, start or stop them at will. And I can't just bring up any song I've ever heard, it has to be one I'm very familiar with.

 

[PapaRomantic]

Are you totally dependent on words for your mental activity?

I have the mental ability to have different activities depending on what stimulation is happening to my brain. I think differently when I see something versus when I read something versus when I hear something. I'm a life-long musician and was a public school music teacher for many years and I think my mental activity is higher when I hear or play music than at any other time. I love to pick it apart and analyze it and decide how I'd do it differently. I have the ability to sit the piano and make up random music on the spot, which requires a lot of mental activity to keep it smooth and different over a long period of time, such as playing background dinner music.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

However, if your POV character starts thinking or talking with terms that the average person doesn’t know (or that they won't expect your character to know from what you've shown them so far), you can’t ignore that knowledge gap. You have to deal with it or you’ll confuse and maybe lose your reader. Readers keep track of these things, even if only subconsciously.

There are ways to bridge the gap:

This is a great point, and one I dealt with as I start my third series. I’ve got Elvis - yes that Elvis, trust me it makes sense - as a minor character and I have him talking to one of the MCs, who asks how he’s doing.

He responds with “Just the usual, TCB baby.”

This is an obvious thing he’d actually say, but I doubt many people in the 2020s still remember this and I had to explain it or else I expected the reader to be lost. I wanted to keep the line because it’s authentic to him at the time. TCB = taking care of business, his catchphrase. It was in the back of his jet, and a ring he wore constantly, which you can see in Graceland.

I think this kind of thing comes up a lot, and I hope I’ve done a good job of making it clear to the reader without an info dump.

 

[madelinemasoch]

Thanks for the mention.

My perspective on this is highly convoluted-sounding to everyone aside from my therapist and perhaps a close friend, I’m sure.

I don't think in words. It's to the point where I have occasionally believed that I just thought up the perfect bit of dialog only to sit down and try to type it out, and realize that I was thinking about the flow and emotions of the conversation but not the actual words.

I was like this as a kid. I didn’t think in words. I was always highly emotional instead. Which is odd because I was also a high achiever in school from elementary until college. Even though I’ve always been more heart than head. I just found intellectual topics and abstractions easier to handle than most kids did.

As I became an adult I started thinking in words more.

Then, in college when I was like 20 years old, I started not being able to tell when my (emphasis on my) internal head voice was internal or external, whether I was mumbling out loud or if I was just thinking in my head, or if other people could somehow hear my thoughts either way. This was scary because I’d have intrusive thoughts that were the worst possible thing I could say in the moment or the opposite of what I actually thought. I had a bunch of weird experiences like some old man sitting right in front of the TV on his porch in a building since demolished responding to what I was thinking when I walked by, by repeating it in a questioning tone (it was a character’s name from a fantasy novel I never finished).

More recently (about a year ago) I was in the store in line behind three fat redneck guys and I said to myself in my head “I’m not gonna let anyone stop me” and then one of the guys physically turned around and said it back. “You’re not gonna let anyone stop you.” Then turned back around to the cashier, paid for his stuff, and walked away.

Time goes by and in my head I can hear other people’s voices from their houses that other people can’t hear both as I walk by and in my own house. I can also hear an extra voice in videos I watch and music I listen to. None of these voices ever have anything constructive or kind or positive whatsoever to say to me. It’s a great negative cloud of confusion and hysteria. It’s as if I have externalized my own teenage depression to the outside of my own heart and soul, and now it attacks me in the form of thoughts that aren’t mine that come from external voices that have physical directions I can hear. Oftentimes they tell me the exact opposite of my own perspective and opinions, kind of like the old intrusive thoughts did. Also, they always repeat themselves. There’s only about 60 different things I’ve heard them say. At one point when it was the worst they were saying the same sentence on repeat 3,500 times a day (I’ve counted).

So obviously that started me on a bunch of therapy. Odd thing is anti psychotic medications don’t make them stop.

This all informs a theory I have about the nature of the human being and reality. I think this negativity exists in words in the mind because it’s an illusion. It’s surface-level. It isn’t physical or emotional or sexual. And there’s a deeper reality beyond it. Words in the mind are a trap and visuals and feelings are a liberatory thing from that trap. At least, for me this is true.

 

[XerXesXu]

1. Are you totally dependent on words for your mental activity?

I doubt anyone is. Current AI models, model language in 2288 dimensions. The brain is capable of modelling in many more dimensions. Visual imagery is limited to three or four dimensions.

It’s likely that most thought is non-visual and non-verbal and that the sensation of words and images are some sort of epiphenomena. These epiphenomena may be experienced to different degrees by different people. Possibly, they’re simply described differently by different people.

My guess is that most people think much faster, and include much more knowledge in their thoughts, than could be possible using just images and words.

This is a quite recent recap by the ‘discoverer’ of aphantasia.

Aphantasia Updatehttps://www.bing.com/videos/rivervi...5E73D5A6F75AD0&mmscn=mtsc&aps=720&FORM=VRDGAR

2. Do you think narratives in close 3rd person POV should be limited to the vocabulary available to the MC?

Available? We have two vocabularies, one we use, and the other we have available. The usual example of a noticeable mismatch is, in indirect attribution, when writing a story for young children, in 3rdP Close. The writer, in attributing thoughts and sensations to the child, may use adult words, metaphors etc, that the child would not use. The reader might find that jarring. If there’s no reason to believe the reader has a different ‘available’ vocabulary to the character, it’s unlikely to be noticeable.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

1. Are you totally dependent on words for your mental activity?

I doubt anyone is. Current AI models, model language in 2288 dimensions. The brain is capable of modelling in many more dimensions. Visual imagery is limited to three dimensions.

In the sense AI modelers use, "dimension" doesn't mean spatial dimensions, just something you can assign a number to in order to define the state of a system. Visual imagery would have far more than three dimensions in this sense, such as color, shape (which could easily have a dozen dimensions included, e. g. roundness), light intensity, contrast, flicker ....

-Annie

 

[NuclearFairy]

My perspective on this is highly convoluted-sounding to everyone aside from my therapist and perhaps a close friend, I’m sure.


I was like this as a kid. I didn’t think in words. I was always highly emotional instead. Which is odd because I was also a high achiever in school from elementary until college. Even though I’ve always been more heart than head. I just found intellectual topics and abstractions easier to handle than most kids did.

As I became an adult I started thinking in words more.

Then, in college when I was like 20 years old, I started not being able to tell when my (emphasis on my) internal head voice was internal or external, whether I was mumbling out loud or if I was just thinking in my head, or if other people could somehow hear my thoughts either way. This was scary because I’d have intrusive thoughts that were the worst possible thing I could say in the moment or the opposite of what I actually thought. I had a bunch of weird experiences like some old man sitting right in front of the TV on his porch in a building since demolished responding to what I was thinking when I walked by, by repeating it in a questioning tone (it was a character’s name from a fantasy novel I never finished).

More recently (about a year ago) I was in the store in line behind three fat redneck guys and I said to myself in my head “I’m not gonna let anyone stop me” and then one of the guys physically turned around and said it back. “You’re not gonna let anyone stop you.” Then turned back around to the cashier, paid for his stuff, and walked away.

Time goes by and in my head I can hear other people’s voices from their houses that other people can’t hear both as I walk by and in my own house. I can also hear an extra voice in videos I watch and music I listen to. None of these voices ever have anything constructive or kind or positive whatsoever to say to me. It’s a great negative cloud of confusion and hysteria. It’s as if I have externalized my own teenage depression to the outside of my own heart and soul, and now it attacks me in the form of thoughts that aren’t mine that come from external voices that have physical directions I can hear. Oftentimes they tell me the exact opposite of my own perspective and opinions, kind of like the old intrusive thoughts did. Also, they always repeat themselves. There’s only about 60 different things I’ve heard them say. At one point when it was the worst they were saying the same sentence on repeat 3,500 times a day (I’ve counted).

So obviously that started me on a bunch of therapy. Odd thing is anti psychotic medications don’t make them stop.

This all informs a theory I have about the nature of the human being and reality. I think this negativity exists in words in the mind because it’s an illusion. It’s surface-level. It isn’t physical or emotional or sexual. And there’s a deeper reality beyond it. Words in the mind are a trap and visuals and feelings are a liberatory thing from that trap. At least, for me this is true.

That sounds incredibly scary.

 

[XerXesXu]

In the sense AI modelers use, "dimension" doesn't mean spatial dimensions, just something you can assign a number to in order to define the state of a system. Visual imagery would have far more than three dimensions in this sense, such as color, shape (which could easily have a dozen dimensions included, e. g. roundness), light intensity, contrast, flicker ....

-Annie

Exactly. That's why the illusion of seeing 'in the mind's eye' is probably an epiphenomenon.

 

[Nynah]

Are you totally dependent on words for your mental activity?

On the opposite end of the spectrum, many people have told me that I am strange for not having an internal monologue (according to some cursory research, 30%-50% of the general population don't seem to have one either so maybe I'm not that weird after all). I don't "talk" to myself in that sense so by that definition I am largely dependent on sights, sounds and feelings for my own internal thought processes. I think about words a lot (obviously, as a writer), but when I am writing internal monologue for my characters, I'm modeling it based on what I've read in other literature, as I don't have a frame of reference for it.

I don't think those of us who can see depend 100% on words as we process visual things around us all the time. I can't speak for folks who are vision-impaired, however.

Do you think narratives in close 3rd person POV should be limited to the vocabulary available to the MC?

I suppose the moment that a word that they do not know is used by the narrator, it shifts from a closed to an omniscient perspective if we're sticking to the strictest definition of those POVs. Personally I wouldn't even notice it unless it was extremely obvious as I tend to prefer readability over strict adherence to method/style.

 

[AG31]

if your POV character starts thinking or talking with terms that the average person doesn’t know (or that they won't expect your character to know from what you've shown them so far), you can’t ignore that knowledge gap

I was referring to the author's voice, not the MC's. In this thread it's up for debate how much the 3rd person author should try to reflect the MC's voice. That's the question. Of course, when quoting the MC's thoughts or utterances, you need to use their available vocabulary.

 

[AG31]

I have aphantasia, I'm at the severe end of the spectrum and can't picture anything in my mind. But I have a mental narration going 24/7. As I'm writing this, I hear the words in my head. If I'm reading or thinking something, I hear the words.

I also have OCD, which adds to it in my case. I'm constantly counting every I and T in everything that I write, read, hear, think, say...

I also have music in my head sometimes [which does often contain words, now that I think about it]. It's not an ear-worm--I can control the songs that I hear in my head, start or stop them at will. And I can't just bring up any song I've ever heard, it has to be one I'm very familiar with.

The person I referred to in the OP who claims to only "think" in words happens to have severe aphantasia. But I'll ask you, as I ask him, don't you "think" without words sometimees? Just concepts? That thing you're chasing after when hunting for the right word? I have almost 100% aphantasia myself, but I have flashes of partial pictures on rare occasions.

Edit: Good stuff up thread that I hadn't seen before writing this.

 

[AG31]

This is a great point, and one I dealt with as I start my third series. I’ve got Elvis - yes that Elvis, trust me it makes sense - as a minor character and I have him talking to one of the MCs, who asks how he’s doing.

He responds with “Just the usual, TCB baby.”

This is an obvious thing he’d actually say, but I doubt many people in the 2020s still remember this and I had to explain it or else I expected the reader to be lost. I wanted to keep the line because it’s authentic to him at the time. TCB = taking care of business, his catchphrase. It was in the back of his jet, and a ring he wore constantly, which you can see in Graceland.

I think this kind of thing comes up a lot, and I hope I’ve done a good job of making it clear to the reader without an info dump.

This side-track about the MC's "ordinary language" is interesting, but I just want to remind everyone that the topic refers to the narrator's language, not the MC's language.

 

[AG31]

Thanks for the mention.

My perspective on this is highly convoluted-sounding to everyone aside from my therapist and perhaps a close friend, I’m sure.


I was like this as a kid. I didn’t think in words. I was always highly emotional instead. Which is odd because I was also a high achiever in school from elementary until college. Even though I’ve always been more heart than head. I just found intellectual topics and abstractions easier to handle than most kids did.

As I became an adult I started thinking in words more.

Then, in college when I was like 20 years old, I started not being able to tell when my (emphasis on my) internal head voice was internal or external, whether I was mumbling out loud or if I was just thinking in my head, or if other people could somehow hear my thoughts either way. This was scary because I’d have intrusive thoughts that were the worst possible thing I could say in the moment or the opposite of what I actually thought. I had a bunch of weird experiences like some old man sitting right in front of the TV on his porch in a building since demolished responding to what I was thinking when I walked by, by repeating it in a questioning tone (it was a character’s name from a fantasy novel I never finished).

More recently (about a year ago) I was in the store in line behind three fat redneck guys and I said to myself in my head “I’m not gonna let anyone stop me” and then one of the guys physically turned around and said it back. “You’re not gonna let anyone stop you.” Then turned back around to the cashier, paid for his stuff, and walked away.

Time goes by and in my head I can hear other people’s voices from their houses that other people can’t hear both as I walk by and in my own house. I can also hear an extra voice in videos I watch and music I listen to. None of these voices ever have anything constructive or kind or positive whatsoever to say to me. It’s a great negative cloud of confusion and hysteria. It’s as if I have externalized my own teenage depression to the outside of my own heart and soul, and now it attacks me in the form of thoughts that aren’t mine that come from external voices that have physical directions I can hear. Oftentimes they tell me the exact opposite of my own perspective and opinions, kind of like the old intrusive thoughts did. Also, they always repeat themselves. There’s only about 60 different things I’ve heard them say. At one point when it was the worst they were saying the same sentence on repeat 3,500 times a day (I’ve counted).

So obviously that started me on a bunch of therapy. Odd thing is anti psychotic medications don’t make them stop.

This all informs a theory I have about the nature of the human being and reality. I think this negativity exists in words in the mind because it’s an illusion. It’s surface-level. It isn’t physical or emotional or sexual. And there’s a deeper reality beyond it. Words in the mind are a trap and visuals and feelings are a liberatory thing from that trap. At least, for me this is true.

Thanks for the clearest description of an unusual mental state that I've ever read.

 

[AG31]

My guess is that most people think much faster, and include much more knowledge in their thoughts, than could be possible using just images and words.

Yes. Just think about how many words would be required and at what speed to register a reaction to something someone said. Even a post here.
The aphantasic person I mentioned in the OP e-mailed me this a while ago.

 

[madelinemasoch]

Thanks for the clearest description of an unusual mental state that I've ever read.

Thank you for that one.