Writing is telepathic alchemy. With kittens.

When you think about it, writing books, or writing of any kind I suppose, is a kind of telepathic alchemy.

I think of a scene.  Let us say, for argument's sake (because you know I love a good argument), that I am thinking of a scene where a woman is sitting reading.  Are we all settled on that image?

So I write, 'I sat down and opened my book'.  You see in your mind

because you are a romantic soul who secretly really wants a big puffy chair, and who likes frocks.  I might see

because I really want to look all slim and lovely in beige, and be able to hold a book up to read it without having to do the squinty thing, where you have to move the book in and out until it's in focus and then read at arm's length because you won't give in and admit you need glasses.  Someone else may see

because that his how they like to read, although I have to question whether that fire is real, I mean, doesn't that look a bit suspiciously tidy for a real fire?  And those logs aren't even burning, are they?

But if you sit and think about it, writing is putting little symbols on the page, which the reader then decodes in their own brain (because you are not allowed to go round and act it out for them, I've tried) into scenes and actions.  So whatever we writers see in our heads as we write, it is never going to be the same as the reader sees when they read.  And yet, somehow, the stories manage to make sense!  Which is why it's important, as writers, to properly build the scene as we go along.  I mean, if you write 'Steve lay in the grass' and they see

and the following line is 'and slowly took off his headphones', they have to retcon what they have imagined to include said headphones.

But if you write 'Steve lay back in the grass, Bach playing through his headphones', then they have the right idea all along!

And all because of those little squiggles we call words.

I lied about the kittens.