When reading a book, do you imagine the characters exactly like they are described in the book?
By the way they look on the cover?
Do you picture an actor, or someone you know in real life?
Or, if you saw the movie first, do you picture the movie actors?
I usually picture someone I know in real life that reminds me of the character or that has the same name, a random actor or actress that seems to fit the description, or in the case that I saw the movie first, I picture the movie actor.
Does the character’s name influence the way anyone imagines characters?
Let’s say that a character in a book has the same name as someone you know in real life, or a fictional character from a show or something.
Do you automatically start picturing that character as the other person with the same name?
It has happened to me on a few occasions.
I tend to use their descriptions and imagine them myself instead of using the book cover. If movie adaptations are really similar, then sometimes I’ll incorporate the actor’s face.
If the characters are on the cover of the book, I use that as my guide for what the characters look like. Beyond that, I develop a vague image of the character in my head based on the descriptions within the book. Usually I’ll have an image in my mind that tends to be of a profile view, or of the character in the middle of an action. Its not usually so detailed of an image in my mind where I could say they look like someone specifically.
Of course, if there’s a movie or a tv show that I’ve seen prior to reading the book, then the image I have in mind for the characters will be based on how I saw them in the movie/tv show.
I go off the description and if there are any illustrations I look at those, sometimes I look at fanart just to be like “oh I like that depiction” but mostly I piece it together in my head from the information I’m given
I also read alot of manga