[stylist] on writing from the blind perspective

Tue Oct 11 21:26:33 UTC 2011

Hi Chris and all,
This is a very interesting perspective which caught my attention 
because I am in a college Creative Nonfiction class where my 
professor said one of my first writing assignments read like a 
procedure manual.
I agree that our writing needs to appeal to sighted people 
because they are the book buyers, and the majority of the 
population for that matter.  But I love the advice this teacher 
gave me.
After class, she talked with me one-on-one and I told her I know 
my writing would be better with physical descriptions and scenes, 
but had no idea how to do this as a totally blind person and 
feared that any attempts would sound cheesy and forced rather 
than seamless and natural.  She told me she understood this, but 
said to try capitalizing on the senses I have.  What did a 
particular event sound like or feel like? Since then, my writing 
has gotten much better.
So I think I would argue that yes, we do need to appeal to 
sighted people with physical description and scenes.  But I 
disagree with the fact that we need to force ourselves to do 
something that cannot come naturally to us, at least those of us 
who have been blind our whole lives, by adding physical 
description related to sight because with our other senses, we 
can write scenes and incorporate physical description that is 
just as beautiful.
I apologize if I sound like an arrogant college kid who thinks 
she knows everything, and I suppose my opinion is based on the 
fact that all of my writing experience has been with short 
stories and personal essays which don't have to go as indepth as 
350 page novels.  So feel free to challenge me.  These are just 
my opinions at my stage of life as a writer.
Allison Nastoff

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Chris Kuell" <ckuell at comcast.net
To: "Stylist" <stylist at nfbnet.org
Date sent: Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:15:51 -0400
Subject: Re: [stylist] on writing from the blind perspective

Thanks to all who shared their thoughts and feelings on this 
subject.  Obviously, writing from a totally blind perspective has 
it's limitations, and before anyone jumps on my back for that 
comment, I could argue that black and white photography is more 
limited than color, but that doesn't mean it isn't just as 
beautiful or powerful.  I chose first person POV instead of some 
form of limited omniscient because I wanted to see if I could 
write 350 pages with little to no visual description, convey that 
a blind person can get around and do just fine, have fun and get 
into trouble-- just like anybody else.  I have taken time to 
paint in what I can using the other senses, and I hope I've been 
able to convey a sense of place, of season, of emotions, and a 
feeling for the characters involved in the story.  If I haven't, 
it's nobody's fault but mine.

Next, continuing my trek across the swiftly cracking political 
correctness ice, I think we need to keep in mind who our audience 
is.  The truth of the matter is, blind people rarely buy books.  
There are many reasons for this, which I won't get into here, but 
if you or I hope to sell a million books some day, 999,000 of 
them will be purchased by people with working eyeballs.  So, my 
critique group friend who wants to know how a blind guy could do 
this or that probably represents a measurable part of the 
book-buying collective.  Bridgit gave some good examples of 
'showing' without visuals or too much detail, which would make my 
novel read like a how-to manual.  It's up to me, the craftsman, 
to decide how and where ,and when too much is too much.

Likewise, the woman in my group who wants to know what my main 
character looks like has an MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop, 
and she's an excellent writer.  I've read a dozen or more books 
on the craft of writing fiction, and a common piece of advice is 
to put a physical description of your central characters in 
there, and do it early.  If you read novels, especially genre 
novels, you'll find this is a standard part of the formula.  So, 
while part of me wants to say 'screw that', if I want to sell 
those million books and get on the Ellen show, perhaps I should 
listen.

Again, this won't be easy when writing from a first person, 
totally blind POV.  However, not much that's worth doing is ever 
easy.  I could have my main character  remember a photograph 
(he's formerly sighted), but that red-lines my cheesy meter.  I 
could have someone else describe him in dialogue "My, aren't you 
a handsome, six foot two, Marlboro Man looking kinda guy, except 
you're bald and have a paunch and one ear seems to be 
significantly lower than the other...", but this is also a bit on 
the cheesy side.  The trick will be to weave in details 
seamlessly.  The only sneakers I can find in an 11 and a half, EE 
width, were at the New Balance store.  Bernice, one of my least 
favorite clients, was about 2 feet shorter than me at four foot 
two.  "Wow--you look great," Joel said, squeezing my bicep.  
"Been working out?"  I smiled and answered, "Twelve ounce curls, 
every day." I sat in the chair at the unisex salon and prayed 
this haircut would turn out better than the last.  A  middle-aged 
woman with a thick Slavic accent sprayed my head with water and 
said, "I'd kill to have curls like these.  You want me to leave a 
little over the ears? And how about the mustache--you want me to 
trim?"

I haven't yet painted in any of these details, but I think I'm 
going to.  After all, I really, really want to be on the Ellen 
show someday.

chris

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