I'm confused -- are you saying the writer is wrong because of your anecdotal process for coding?
As someone who writes I would have a very hard time imagining writing without the ability to have a mental monologue. I do know Alan Moore said in an interview that he would talk to himself in the mirror. Maybe he's an instance of a writer who doesn't think in words.
I would not think of a blue elephant as the word 'blue elephant' it would be the mental image of one. However, when it comes to thinking about a multiple choice question on a practice test or a quote I've recently read I can recall the words on the page of paper and the words mentally "read out".
The fifth natural language I learnt any conversation in was BSL (British Sign Language)[1]. Later, doing further language training, when I was trying to recall words (particularly in German) I would recall instead a sign. Not an image in my mind of making the sign, but a feeling that if I let them my arms/hands/fingers/face would make a sign.
Can you imagine writing through an interpreter without any audio/vocal use at all, as a BSL user could?
Without using a word, can you think what your favourite vegetable that isn't a carrot is? Like, can you call it to mind without using the word?
[1] Kinda, fwiw I just know smatterings of lots of languages.
How would a writer decide what a character will say? By trying random words until something makes sense? Or by an idea of what their values and emotions are at the point in the plot? Lots of thinking going on, without rehearsing "she's in a paint factory, its dark, she's stalking the victim…" as words in our mind.
As someone who writes I would have a very hard time imagining writing without the ability to have a mental monologue. I do know Alan Moore said in an interview that he would talk to himself in the mirror. Maybe he's an instance of a writer who doesn't think in words.
I would not think of a blue elephant as the word 'blue elephant' it would be the mental image of one. However, when it comes to thinking about a multiple choice question on a practice test or a quote I've recently read I can recall the words on the page of paper and the words mentally "read out".