Blindness - Writers Forum

Words of Ivory · 04-05-2008, 12:42 AM

Obviously, this is going to be a tricky one to get answered on a message forum, but I'll go with it anyway. I'm not sure where to put this honestly, as I'm looking for both advise and information. If the staff feels this would be better off in a different section though, go right ahead and move it.

I'll try to be as detailed as possible.

---------------------

Okay... where to start?

I won't go into an elaboration upon how I came up with the idea, but recently I was inspired to actually consider sitting down and getting serious about writing a full novel, or least an extensive story, based around the following premise.

The idea revolves around the idea of first person perspective story... written by a blind man. I think this could come up with some very interesting challenges in trying to build perspective through someone who cannot actually see their surroundings, but still needs to detail what he / she is doing.

My stories always start off with the basic concept. Character names, plots, little details, those can come later.

But... I'm curious to hear other writer's thoughts on this.

- How would you approach this kind of story?
- Do you think the idea has scope for a meaningful tale?
- What kind of challenges would you make the character face?
- Do you have any experience or knowledge on the subject matter?

Random thoughts:

Having had chronic eyesight problems all my life, and dealt with temporary blindness when I was younger, it's something I'm familiar with to a limited degree. The real challenge for me isn't so much about the simple fact that he's blind, but how exactly one would write a first-person story with a barrier deliberately opposed upon what can be detailed.
I think it would definately be important from a reader's perspective to put the character into a tense situation (such as a burning building) where his blindness inherently hampers his capacity to achieve the goal set before him. I also want to look into how people deal with the condition under extreme circumstances.

perilperilperil · 04-05-2008, 10:36 AM

I've never been blind, so I don't know any of this for sure. But I'd imagine that a story without vision would simply refer to everything happening through the senses other than sight. Just like we never focus on the absence of a sixth sense, a blind person wouldn't focus on a lack of sight -- they'd just describe everything having to do with taste, touch, smell, and hearing. And you can still give physical descriptions of things. Instead of saying, "I looked around the luxurious ballroom", you'd just say something like, "This was the largest ballroom in the city, known for its luxurious design". Even though the guy can't see the ballroom, he probably still knows enough about its design to give us the basic idea.

I know I've read stories starring a blind person, but I can't cite them off the top of my head. I think there was one about a blind man who witnessed a crime, and somehow his testimony solved the case because of something he heard more carefully than anyone else. To me, the most interesting part of that story would be the parallel between the things that get in the way of a blind person moreso than anyone else (like a fire) and the ways that the blindness would help. For instance... a blind person could survive an H. P. Lovecraft story without going insane! Imagine that! XD

Monkuta · 04-05-2008, 10:48 AM

I like the idea, Ivory.
Here's my thoughts:

-I think you should do it in first person from the perspective of the blind man. One thing people always say is that when you lose a sense, your others get stronger. Because most many stories is based on what can be seen and imagined in the reader's mind, it will be a challenge to write, I think. You have to include a lot of what can be heard, smelled and felt. "I heard the birds above me, chirping as the wind passed under their wings. I could smell someone making dinner. Probably an open window in a nearby apartment building. As I felt my way along the hard, jagged concrete wall, I thought back to the previous day during my meeting with John." Or something of that type. It would be difficult because you'd have to compensate for the lack of vision all throughout the book, but it would be an interesting experiment.

-There should be foil characters. Because the main character has a disability, there should be a prejudiced or cruel person he often has to come in contact with.

-My grandmother is blind, and I--luckily not so often--hear stories about her tripping or falling or bumping into things around the house. I think this should be a problem he faces in life as well. It could be something that really annoys him, giving him good thought dialog for the story.

-As you said you were doing, you definitely should consider how to tell the story before you tell it. I always consider perspective and thought of the story before writing.

As for the main plot, I'm not sure what you could do with that. If I think of something, I'll tell you. It's a good idea, definitely. Keep thinking.

lin · 04-05-2008, 11:37 AM

It's a good idea. The sort of thing that IF a book is good enough could lift it out of the pack for reviewers. It wouldn't be easy. And I say the best bet would not to make the blindness the big show, but only a POV (so to speak) for telling a story. It might be fun to to reveal that the guy is blind right away, by the way.

Things necessary to be physically described could be told to him by others.

This would be a tricky thing to pull off, but worth trying.

BTW are you familiar with the blind pingpong referee? He's been on TV shows and such. He can judge within millimeters where the ball hits the table purely on sound.