[stylist] Writing from a blind perspective

[Bridgit Pollpeter]

Chris,

I completely agree with you. Any writer has to decide who their audience
is. Since blind people only make up 1 percent of the population, it
stands to reason, if you want to make a living from writing, that a
writer should find ways to create material that others will enjoy and
relate too.

As blind writers, we have to decide what type of perspective we are
going to portray. Well, any writer has to do this, but I mean in terms
of a blind perspective or keeping visual details. It's not wrong either
way; it's a choice.

And if an Iowa writers grad alum has advice and suggestions, you listen!
Grin. University of Iowa's writing grad program is the top writing
program in the country. Only the best are given the opportunity to
pursue a grad degree there. One of my instructors had graduated with a
masters in writing from Columbia, and I made sure to follow her advice.
Not that these people are always right. I didn't agree with everything
my instructor thought and said, but I learned a lot from her. One of my
favorite professors was an Iowa alum too, graduating with his degree in
writing from Iowa too. He had a different approach to teaching than the
other instructor, which I enjoyed, and he was my favorite professor. If
we're lucky enough to have such people in our lives, we should digest
their in-put.

You're a good writer, Chris, and I know you'll figure it out. Whether
visual or another sensory description, writing one-o-one teaches that
details are important. We have to figure out what details are important
and what perspective we want to present those details in.

Good luck.

Sincerely,
Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter
Read my blog at:
http://blogs.livewellnebraska.com/author/bpollpeter/
 
"History is not what happened; history is what was written down."
The Expected One- Kathleen McGowan

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2011 13:15:51 -0400
From: "Chris Kuell" <ckuell at comcast.net>
To: "Stylist" <stylist at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [stylist] on writing from the blind perspective
Message-ID: <8D2BC2C789674ACDB272FADDA4624053 at ChrisPC>
Content-Type: text/plain;	charset="iso-8859-1"

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