I have partial facial blindness which makes it hard to picture faces that aren’t super familiar and I can’t create new faces in my head. I end up picturing faces of people I know and celebrities.
It becomes frustrating when I’m reading as the faces morph constantly into my head. I constantly stop to get the faces right. Sydney Sweeney ended up as 2 characters when I read “Bunny” lol. I also get a biased view of the characters this way. It makes it really hard to enjoy reading nowadays. Any suggestions? Different strategies for picturing or reading without picturing?
I’m not faceblind but I don’t really imagine faces for characters. I build a broad generalisation of their characteristics in my head, like hair colour/style, height body type, specific gestures, any accessories they always have, etc. All the things you likely use to tell people apart. Even after a TV show/movie comes out for the book, I don’t add actors faces on the next read through.