My Memory is Only Good For Useless Things: Settings in Stories
This isn't really a series but I gave it a title like a series anyway, because this is something I encounter often and so I might write about it again. But yes, my memory is only good for useless things. In this case, I have a strong memory for vividly picturing the settings in things I read. What I've noticed is that I can pick up a book I read ages ago and still picture a room within the text the same exact way that I did the first time I read it. And I'm not even talking about a room that is heavily described. For example, something I'm reading right now takes place at a cabin and the author only mentions the types of rooms within, not where they're located in relation to one another or what they look like. Despite this, I can see the place perfectly again, though I'm certain it's been some ten years since I read this.
I've always thought this was interesting, especially since other aspects of a story can change the more I read them. For example, when I was younger, I would sometimes imagine characters the way I wanted them to look, or I just replaced them with characters from my own stories (like actors playing parts). The most infamous case of this was Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series, who my eight-year-old self decided was not appealing as an elderly bearded man, so he became an attractive raven-haired man in his thirties instead, lol. I also found when I read those books over again at an older age, I noticed aspects of a character's appearance that I did not remember from before. I wonder why that is? Like I said, the settings aren't even always described, and yet details that were plainly there escaped my memory entirely.
It seems to me I'm better at remembering the things I've created in my own imagination than the things that have been described to me. Hence why I can remember details from my story without having ever written them down, and yet was absolutely terrible at memorizing material back in school. Hmm~
I've always thought this was interesting, especially since other aspects of a story can change the more I read them. For example, when I was younger, I would sometimes imagine characters the way I wanted them to look, or I just replaced them with characters from my own stories (like actors playing parts). The most infamous case of this was Dumbledore from the Harry Potter series, who my eight-year-old self decided was not appealing as an elderly bearded man, so he became an attractive raven-haired man in his thirties instead, lol. I also found when I read those books over again at an older age, I noticed aspects of a character's appearance that I did not remember from before. I wonder why that is? Like I said, the settings aren't even always described, and yet details that were plainly there escaped my memory entirely.
It seems to me I'm better at remembering the things I've created in my own imagination than the things that have been described to me. Hence why I can remember details from my story without having ever written them down, and yet was absolutely terrible at memorizing material back in school. Hmm~