A writer is a creator of universes
Most writers don’t have a clue about the mind, but it is essential to know what it is and how it works. The mind is an amazing filing cabinet filled with pictures. One takes pictures of every second of life, containing the image itself and over 52 perceptions, such as sound, smell, tastes, feeling, emotion, joint position, temperature. Under hypnosis and other means of recovering the past, it has been proven one will recall all of these sensations. They are locked away in your “memory” but are recoverable. Digging deeper, many of these subtle sub-parts of the scene may be recalled, though perhaps not even noticed at the time of the incident. Everything in that scene is recorded and filed away. Reading the written word evokes and creates these images to compare with those in the file to give the story reality. So the duty of the writer is to make it easy to evoke images he or she intends to make. So go easy on the big fancy words.
A good writer creates pictures for the reader to see, and remember, calling on similar images. For example, the word DOG brings up an image of a four-footed animal. If it is a Greyhound he sees a different image than a Dachshund or Collie.
Recalling anything can bring up the pictures of what happened in that past incident. Try closing your eyes and relax and “go back” to some event in the past, really “return” to it (different from just remembering it). Returning allows you to see things again in a new unit of time – it opens up the whole scene, and you can hear, smell, feel, see things as if you are seeing, knowing them again in present time. Just remember what you had for breakfast, or your latest meal. It is in pictures, loaded with its sensory perceptions. The picture you call up may be so strong your mouth may water because the steak was so good. A good writer can do that by writing great description. (Excerpted section from Chapter 1 of my most recent book, “Do you have a story that should be told? This book will help you write it.)