Picture this
How do we write about what’s in our IMAGINATION?
A few fiction manuscripts have come across my desk lately with these types of sentences:
‘She pictured in her imagination standing in front of them all and telling them what she really thought.’
‘He pictured in his mind a place where she couldn’t hurt him anymore.’
‘He pictured in his head the sort of place that Alex would buy.’
We all have imaginations and we reflect, daydream and picture things. We’ve had experiences that we think back on and we have future visions. The only place we can do this is in our minds, so you don’t have to tell the reader where this happens. Unless your character has an anatomical anomaly (or you’re writing some sort of fantasy where the protagonist can picture things in his/her fourth toe) then the only place we can do this is in our minds, so you don’t have to tell the reader where this happens. Get rid of where the protagonist pictures things. It is much better to simply say:
‘She pictured standing in front of them all….’
‘He pictured a place where she couldn’t hurt him anymore.’
‘He pictured the sort of place that Alex would buy.’
It is all right to say something like, ‘In her imagination she saw…’ If we don’t tell the reader that this is happening in her head then ‘she saw’ might be interpreted literally.
Now you get the picture.