In a way, yes . . .
I do all my writing and music stuff in the sound isolation studio--which is 7' by 12' by 7' (width, length, height)--and, since I do everything myself, I find it to be both entertaining and enlightening to create a virtual festival of pretend personalities, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!
And one of the pretend personalities is a radio announcer who is a bit like
Pretend Ed McMahon in a Bunny Suit™ but with a higher pitch voice and a much smaller overall vocabulary, for sure . . .
For sure!
Basically that personality likes to repeat the last phrase of certain sentences, which is pretty cool . . .
Pretty cool!
However, the real reason is that I decided to start writing dialogue sometime in the late-1980s, which I discovered was not such an easy thing to do, so I thought about it for a while and decided that it is easier to write dialogue (screenplays, movie scripts, and whatever) if you actually take the time (a) to create characters in your mind and (b) to discover how to get them to have conversations among themselves, which is patently strange but FUN, really . . .
Really!
When you think about it for a while, it is no different from hearing music in your mind, especially when you discover how to play a lot of instruments in your mind simultaneously . . .
Stated another way, if you already have an orchestra in your mind, then having a bit of FUN with dialogue is just a matter of discovering how to get the folks in the orchestra to talk to each other, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!
It also helps if you are what I call a "hearing reader", which as best as I have been able to determine over the years by asking various neurologists and other folks is something that perhaps only 10 percent of the people on your planet do . . .
In other words, when you read, if you actually hear the words spoken in your mind, then you are what I call a "hearing reader", for sure . . .
For sure!
How do folks learn to write screenplays for motion pictures, television shows, and so forth and so on?
I have no idea . . .
Yet, I think that they must be able to imagine everything very realistically in their minds--all the actors and actresses, scenes, and whatever--at least to the level of detail required to do scripting, storyboarding, and so forth and so on . . .
So how do you teach yourself to do that?
Great question!
I think that you do it the same way that a composer writes music for an orchestra, marching band,
Rock and Roll group, or whatever . . .
Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and all those folks probably heard music in their minds, so if they were able to do it, then other people should be able to do it, albeit with a bit of work and whatever . . .
And I think that the best way to get good at it is to do it a LOT, for sure . . .
For sure!
So, I certainly have a bit of dialogue happening most of the time, and nearly all of it is intentional in the sense of being something I do consciously as a goal-directed activity . . .
Yet, occasionally,
Pretend Richard Nixon on LSD™ appears and makes a few observations to the group, but everybody likes him, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!
P. S. I will be the first to admit that creating a virtual festival of pretend personalities in my mind and allowing them to have conversations might be a bit strange, but it is not so much stranger than deciding to design and to build a sound isolation studio--which incidentally has triple walls, with each wall being insulated and having an air space between it and the other walls, along with assorted Helmholtz resonating panels and whatever, with the triple ceiling also done this way, as is the floor, except that the floor is floated on (a) thick mats made from ground truck tires and (b) two layers of 30 lbs. tar paper--which has interior walls that are painted Cosmic Blue and an interior ceiling which is painted Deep Space Blue . . .
How strange is that?
Pretty strange!
P. P. S. And while focusing on strange activities, another thing I like to do is to memorize all the items in the local Walmart® Supercenter, which is something I started doing with non-food items when I was putting price stickers on several million tubes of Crest® toothpaste and was a lot more focused on the non-food aspects of grocery business, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous!
