Imaginary People and Places

Stars Hollow (of Gilmore Girls fame)reminds me of my hometown. Okay, technically Haddonfield is my adopted hometown, but it's where I spent my adolescence, and the place I still identify with as home.  

Maybe that’s why I like Gilmore Girls. Not too long ago, I watched the episode where Lorelei and Max went on a double date with Rory and Dean. After dinner, they walked through town together and went for ice cream. There was little traffic, everything was safe and well-lit and…

....inviting. In fact, it reminded me a lot of home.

Setting can be a big part of story, but it's one that I often don't pay a lot of attention to as a writer. I'm not a very good visualizer, so I have a tendency to create non-specific settings to allow my readers to create their own ideas of where my characters live, work, eat, drink and make merry. I find that I do this with character descriptions as well. Because reading is an act of imagining, I feel comfortable leaving the details of character and setting to my readers, allowing them to collaborate in just how Marita's house looks or just how Lukas's blue eyes twinkle. 

Creators of visual media don't have that luxury. We know exactly how Stars Hollow, Grey-Sloan Memorial Hospital and the apartments and work spaces on The Big Bang Theory look. Whether inspired by actual locations or crafted fully from the imaginations of the shows' creators, these settings are more than a backdrop; thanks to collaborations every step of the way, they reveal bits and pieces of the characters who inhabit them. 

Authors, however, don't have set dressers or props procurers, let alone the budget for these things. Still, some authors create lush and lavish settings, allowing readers who are visualizers to fill in every conceivable gap. While I admire those authors, I don't fall into that category.

As a reader, what do you prefer? Do you want every last detail, or should a writer leave some things to the imagination?