[stylist] What you experience verses What you read?

Mon Apr 20 22:11:45 UTC 2009

Hi John,
I haven't subscribed to book share yet. I will probably eventually.
Hoping they will except orders from people from overseas. Up till now
I mainly just relying on books from NFB braille library. I'm into
junior and teenage fiction mainly as I find a lot of adult books
difficult to get into.
So of course I don't know everything that is in print.  Just
mainstream books that make it into braille.

Helene

On 20/04/2009, helene ryles <dreamavdb at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the encouragement Tami. There is actually an entire family
> of female deafblind characters in 'a deafblind girl'.  You even have a
> deafblind cop. She has a distant cousin in the Darthrilian police
> force who gives her a leg up.
>
> Helene
>
> On 20/04/2009, Tamara Smith-Kinney <tamara.8024 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> Helene,
>>
>> Really great questions!  Through the NFB lists and other dog-related
>> lists,
>> I'm getting to know deafblind people who are really great writers!  I
>> love
>> reading their informal e-mail list stories of their daily activities and
>> challenges -- usually based around how they train and use their dogs, of
>> course.  /smile/  Just as I have been learning to re-experience the world
>> with less and less sight, I find myself experiencing it without hearing
>> through their words.  Funny how losing senses we take for granted can
>> actually enrich the ways in which we perceive the world around us.
>>
>> I don't have any useful advice to offer, but I think your putting a
>> deafblind character in a mainstream work is a great one.  Technology and
>> the
>> occasional advancement in social enlightment are breaking down the
>> barriers
>> between the "blind community," the "deaf community," et al., and
>> mainstream
>> culture.  The more we all understand and can relate to each other without
>> being frightened of the differences (and that can work both ways!), the
>> more
>> enlightened we all become.  So keep up the good work.
>>
>> Tami Smith-Kinney
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
>> Behalf Of helene ryles
>> Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 7:00 PM
>> To: Writer's Division Mailing List
>> Subject: Re: [stylist] What you experience verses What you read?
>>
>> Hi John,
>> Thanks for the incouragement.
>> Their are a few books with blind characters that I like. For example
>> 'Annerton Pit' about an independant blind boy who goes with his
>> brother who is being held captive by eco terrorists. The blind boy in
>> that is really mobile and independant.
>>
>> However, for deafness, it doesn't seem like their are any mainstream
>> books with deaf characters since most writers seem to portray the deaf
>> even more as sad characters then the blind do and their isn't too much
>> about deafblind at all. There is nothing at all about a deaf person in
>> a fantasy setting. Which is why I felt the need to fill the nich.
>>
>> "A deafblind girl" is differant in another way too. Part of it is set
>> in Darthrilia. A country that is run by Dragons. In the fact the
>> opening scene is described from the point of view of a dragon. He over
>> hears this wizard making a curse to make his ex wife and all her
>> future generations deafblind and female so their are actually several
>> female deafblind characters in the novel.
>>
>> Helene
>>
>> On 19/04/2009, John Lee Clark <johnlee at clarktouch.com> wrote:
>>> One reason I keep on encouraging writing about blindness is because,
>>> right
>>> now, there is not much precedence in English language for describing the
>>> blind experience.  True, the lexicon is rich in words and phrases
>>> related
>> to
>>> sounds and music, and hearing blind people certainly have a lot to draw
>> from
>>> if they want to express and describe voices and things like that, but
>>> there's very little for tactile stuff and other aspects of blindness.
>> This
>>> is a wonderful opportunity to do truly creative writing and make
>> significant
>>> contributions to English literature as a whole.  Not only the content is
>>> cool and interesting because it's different, but your breaking new
>>> ground
>>> will help sighted people appreciate things they have never noticed
>>> before--you're giving them a new language and a new way to understand
>>> themselves and the world around them.
>>>
>>> So, no, it's not easy writing.  But if it was easy writing, your work
>>> probably would be less significant, less original, and more like many,
>>> too
>>> many other books.
>>>
>>> One possible technique is to use common verbs and nouns but in new
>> contexts.
>>> Take the word purr.  Most people would use that for a cat, maybe a car.
>> But
>>> you can use it in a tactile context for something totally new.   Or take
>> the
>>> word sing.  Most writers would use that strictly for music, but maybe a
>> few
>>> other things.  But if, for example, you have a sex scene, you can say
>>> that
>>> one body sang to the other.  You can even play with color words but not
>>> actually to describe color.  For example, there is this great bit in
>> Himes's
>>> classic novel If I Holler Let Me GO: "His tongue tasted brown."  Nothing
>> to
>>> do with the actual color of his tongue, but everything to do with the
>>> connotations of the color brown previously established in literature but
>>> this time used in a new way.
>>>
>>> One good rule is not to overdescribe.  Understatement is great.  Just a
>>> touch and move on with the story.
>>>
>>> John
>>>
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>>>
>>>
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