fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2405 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2405 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 099 secrets from Secret Submission Post #344.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

11. http://i.imgur.com/saCTFcj.png

Man, are you me? It's very difficult for me to remember that my head!canon architecture is often not even close to actual canon. It becomes a problem when writing fic, honestly.

Suggestion: Try drawing a floor plan for the fic. I've had to do that a couple times, it's really fun too (or maybe that's just me). I think there are even websites that'll help you with it, like have templates, but the last one I used wouldn't save.

nice

(no subject)

reactions_r_us - 2013-08-03 20:22 (UTC) - Expand

Whenever I read anything - fanfic, profic, doesn't matter - I quickly form fairly concrete ideas of how everything is laid out, from individual rooms, to buildings, to cities, to entire landscapes. I really can't picture any of the action if I don't.

I then get very frustrated when anything in the story contradicts my mental image. ("Wait, how could she... oh, you mean the door was on the other wall?") It takes a long time for me to adjust my mental image. Sometimes I can't and just keep using my inaccurate version and ignoring the bits that conflict with it.

I wish authors were required to include maps and floorplans at the beginning of every story.

I draw up floorplans when I write. I also spend a lot of time figuring out character's commutes. It's fun!

This happens to me too! Same with body positions (wait, wasn't he hanging from his left arm?).

I try to make sure I don't break continuity with these sorts of things when I write.

Same.

And this actually goes for character appearances too. In one particular series the main characters weren't described early on so my mind went ahead and imagined them. Later on when the main character's blond hair and blue eyes were a regularly mentioned thing, I kept ignoring it in favour of my original mental image.;;

(reply from suspended user)

Ahah we are such obsessive geeks in this community.

Same!
I tend to do that with geography. Even if the story has a map drawn in it, if it doesn't match my headmap I get completely thrown for a loop, and then usually end up just using my own headmap anyway because that's what makes sense to me.

This is probably why I need my Garmin to orient myself when driving around town. The streets just don't go to the places my brain says they should! XD

Yes, that's me, although I have an advantage of being able to easily adjust my mental images to new information from the canon source.
That's why I love drawing maps for both my own stories and any other pieces of fiction that allow doing this.

Edited 2013-08-03 20:41 (UTC)

This is how my brain works too, op. I heart authors that give brief and comprehensive descriptions of room layouts!
Related: I know pacific rim was just a popcorn flick but i was constantly trying to reconcile the actual size of the Pacific ocean with how quick the kaiju seemed to be able to pop up. Maybe I should read the novelisation just to settle it in my head.

[Picture is a simple blueprint of the first floor of a house, showing the entry, a staircase, a hallway, an office, the living room, the kitchen with a back door, and the dining room.]

I almost always have a mental image of what a character's place looks like when I'm reading fic (general idea of a floor plan, what furniture they have and where it is, etc.). If something in canon (whether it's because it's revealed after I thought of my mental image, or because I forgot about something) or in a fic contradicts my mental image, I spend a lot of time trying to reconcile it, and if I can't, I happily ignore it in favor of my mental image.

[Picture of the blueprint.] This is one of my headcanon houses.

It's never a deliberate thing to think up my mental image. I just sorta realize halfway through a random fic, 'oh yeah, I totally know what their house would look like'.

Bonus secret: Sometimes I find myself reusing a mental place, or elements of it, kind of like the previous owner moved out and someone else moved in.

My mental image of settings when I read a book usually looks like something out of a TV sitcom or play. A few pieces of furniture in a specific room and that's about it. I only imagine the rooms they're seen in. I never imagine what the outside of their house looks like unless there's a scene of the character(s) describing what it looks likes. No hallways or foyers either unless they're described in the book. I read books as if I'm watching a TV show or play and the characters disappear from my thoughts if they're not in that particular scene.

I think it's cool that you think up floor plans. Whatever makes you happy :)

I basically do the same!

I don't think in pictures so imagining rooms that are not described would be pretty close to impossible for me.

(Anonymous) - 2013-08-04 00:17 (UTC) - Expand

I do this, but also most houses are just based of friend's houses because my mind jumps to them quickest.

(Also, where's the bathroom on that house? Another floor? That was just my first thought upon finishing the secret.)

OP

(Anonymous) - 2013-08-04 00:16 (UTC) - Expand

Re: OP

(Anonymous) - 2013-08-04 00:21 (UTC) - Expand

Me, too! I figured out after a while that I was using the floorplans of houses I lived in as a child or houses of kids I was friends with. I couldn't for the life of me tell you what the original houses looked like, but I always seem to end up mapping the floorplans of fictional houses onto them.

..I actually do make an MSPaint floorplan for fics when it's relevant. and in high school AUs, I write out all of the main characters' class schedules. just for me.

Idk I guess the detail is part of the fun for me. I am a bit of a perfectionist I guess.

I get this way. I feel like I'm gonna have a bit of a problem with the new SHIELD show when Agent Coulson's office doesn't have a couch in it. (Which for me came less from fic and more from the fact that when I used to go to my Dad's office as a kid, there was a couch in it.)

But yeah, I do apartment-layouts in my mind a lot too.

All fics ever, anywhere, are set inside the 1970s-1980s-era TARDIS.

Elegant, no?

Re: Solution!

(Anonymous) - 2013-08-04 18:23 (UTC) - Expand

I build floorplans for my stories in the sims and I am never sorry

I think I must be the opposite because every time I visualize a character existing in a space it's like they've got a strange amorphous background blob around them that changes constantly and is never consistent

oh, god, I do this too!