Choreographing a Novel… (and getting lost in your own head-movie!)

I know not all writers (or readers) see pictures in their heads while writing (or reading), but I certainly do. I see all of my stories and books as movies in my head, and translate them into novel form, and that’s how I write things. (That’s also how I read things… everything is a mental movie.)

But that also means I need to basically “block” scenes before writing them, or at least certain scenes. Some scenes have a life of their own and just roll out super easily and I can barely write fast enough to keep up with that mental movie.

Others are more complicated and I have to make sure I SEE all the little details, or at least NOTE the most important little details, before I dive into the scene so I can be sure the scene is structured correctly and that readers are able to follow along and hopefully see in their heads (if they also see pictures) as close to what I see as possible. Or at least see the right things so that everything makes sense to them like it should.

This is especially true with big action scenes. Those usually take a few rounds of choreography in my head before I’m able to go ahead with writing them down, and it’s usually done in chunks, where I pause to play the scene in my head, go through a few iterations before I’m happy with one version, and then move to writing that version down.

For the big action scenes, I plan out a few moves at a time. Maybe 5-6. Try a few things mentally, let it play out, decide if I like it that way or not, rewind if I need to, reposition everyone, maybe try something else, let that play out, decide which one I like more and so on and so forth…

Then, once I am happy with that sequence, write those 5-6 moves down in novel form… and then go to the next set of 5-6 moves, until the sequence has been resolved to the desired outcome.

But… sometimes during this visualization I get very deep into the head-movie, and sometimes when I come out of it, it’s almost disorientating to realize I’m actually sitting in front of the computer. It’s like I sort of forgot where I really was or what I was really doing. O_o

And that… freaks me out a little bit, not gonna lie. LOL.

I mean I guess the same thing happens when I read, for sure, and always has… but for some reason I don’t find that alarming.

Obviously I get fully immersed in a book when I’m reading it, to the point I have no idea what’s going on around me and don’t even hear people talking directly at me, if I’m into it. And when I stop reading it’s like “Oh right. I’m actually NOT in the book. Darn.”

But when that happens because I’m just essentially choreographing my own novel… that’s when I find it bizarre.

Anyway, just some random musings, because this happened to me today, lol. While planning out the main action sequence for the Demon at Devil’s Deep’s climax scene, and I just thought it was weird. Just as I do every time it happens when I’m choreographing my novels or stories, hahaha.

So there you go. Heh. *shrugs*

How about you? Do you get lost in your own head-movie sometimes, either as a reader or writer? Or do you not see pictures when you read or write? Inquiring minds want to know!