Writing and Memory

I was watching the news tonight. There was a story about people who are participating in a memory competition. All of the participants said they remembered abstract things, like numbers, by attaching an image to them. For example, the number 2 might be a pretty restaurant server. One man uses pretty movie stars. A minister uses imagery from the bible.

I got to thinking, this is really what fiction writers and poets are doing: attaching images to concepts.

Somehow it all seems simpler when you think about it that way.