Everyone: Visualise things
My head: Or they could be part of the 3% of people unable to visualise and it ends up unconstructive
Nothing much I can parrot in here besides saying my random thought there
Hey, do not fear. I have aphantasia too, and I don't think it prevents us from writing things well and describing objects.
It just means you can't summon an image of the thing in your head and simply describe what you see.
But you can still list all of the things you know of the object.
If I say "picture a table, with a ball on it", some people will tell me they see a picnic table, or a fancy dining room table one, or square or round one. The ball might have a colour, size and pattern (some might see a golf ball, or a tennis ball.)
Me? I don’t see a thing. And since I know nothing about the table or the ball, all I can say is that there's a ball, and it's on a table.
If someone really forced me to draw this, from what I know? It would probably end up a round table with a white table cloth, with a white ping-pong ball. Because those are primitives (cylinder, sphere) with no details.
But if I know that a warrior in my book is wearing a magical greataxe enchanted with ice magic and forged in the north?
Well, I can infer that it probably emits snowflakes. The edge of the axe might be covered by a thin layer of ice. Because of the northern vibe, I probably imagine that there is mammoth tusks involved in the creation of the weapon, so I'd picture it as an assymetric axe, wirh only one cutting edge. The shaft would probably be leather bound, for warmth and grip. I could imagine leather fringes at the bottom of the shaft, drawing inspiration from native american aesthetic. And since the weapon is the reward for slaying a wyvern, then I'd probably throw in some dragon bones or scales on it for theme.
None of those details simply came to me in an image in my head. I reasoned them from my understanding of the culture behind the object, and its properties.
And I think anyone can do that, even us with aphantasia!
