How deep do you go into the visuals and audios of a story that you write? I know you have to visualize the characters and the settings, but what I mean is perhaps drawing or making a sculpture of your character, or making a collage of the story's setting(s) just so that you can really see it?
Sounds like procrastination. Drawings and sculptures aren't going to make you work more vivid. Why not try ... uhm, writing, so you can really see it.
It depends. For the most part, I don't do a whole lot of that, even though I tend to really enjoy drawing. My mind just considers them two very different parts of the spectrum. Drawing and writing. Even though they do go together quite a lot. However, I do have times where I'll just draw out a character that I've been having trouble visualizing. I'll have a couple of ideas of what they look like, and that's it. It helps me immerse myself in their character. It really does depend though. Sometimes I'll just look up some pictures online. And other times I'll just visualize it in my mind, like I would when actually reading a book. Though I will admit that the other day, when I was writing my steampunk/post-apocalyptic/fantasy book, I sketched out a few of the buildings, because I had a really cool idea while I was writing and I wanted to see if it would actually work. So it's more the structural aspects for me than it is the characterization aspects.
I draw the main people in my stories repeatedly. Does it really help their story? Possibly. It may help me connect with them a little better. However, it works more in reverse for me. The more I write about them the better my drawings come out. Watch out though, the more time you expend on drawing and sculpting will take away from time you could have used to really connect with your characters better by writing. So as Jack said, the best thing you can do to become familiar is write with these characters. That way instead of focusing on the physical your understanding who they are as people. The better you understand them the better your art surrounding them will be whether it be writing, drawing, or sculpting. I guess you could think about it this way, how do you get to know someone? Do you look at their picture or talk to them?
Also, consider that unless you're going to publish such pictures of the characters with the writing they're associated with, the reader will often see in their mind's eye something different anyway, no matter how much detail you go into in the text of the book. That 'problem' of inaccurate visualisation by readers is one of the irritating but also rewarding aspects of how readers receive your written work.
Absolutely. Trying to dictate to the reader what (s)he "sees" when reading your work is a very common error among novice writers. Let the readers work somethings out themselves.
The replies seem very interesting. I think a cool thing to do is ask people (readers) to read (a) piece(s) that contain descriptions of your characters, and have your reader tell you what they think about the character, what they look like, and have them draw an example of them.
The easiest way is give the reader a few pieces of information about the character and let them built it up. One of my MC's is 5'4, with curly silver hair that reaches just past her shoulders and has a rather large appetite for men (military person..anything that moves doesn't just mean bullets). The MC who's POV is used the most has silver hair, that reaches her shoulders, pale blue eyes, and is two or three inches taller then the first and has an athletic build. Other then that, the reader can fill what they want. Most character's aren't described to the minute detail by established authors either. If one did, then the first 10k of words in a book would be in description of all the characters. Somethings are just left to the imagination.
I prefer to use auditory and visual cues (and don't forget the other three senses!) to coax the reader's imagination to create its own scenery. The reader will do so anyway, so why hammer him or her with the minutiae of your version of the scene or character, unless you're a control freak?
