"Write what you know" is a thing I've heard a lot, and I honestly feel it is one of the best pieces of advice I've been given. Write Hard of Hearing Characters as Normal, Rounded People. As a deaf person, I always feel it is important that at least one of my main characters is deaf or hard-of-hearing because there are not enough authentically-written deaf characters in any genre of writing, and the world needs more of them written by authors who understand what it is like to actually be deaf or hard-of-hearing. In a fantasy world, your character might use charms or rune stones; and in a sci-fi world, you can develop AI or even cyborg elements. Writing about deaf characters tumblr tumblr. Get Sensitivity Readers. Making up your own fictional sign language is fun, but it's essential to understand regular sign language first. To better illustrate my point, I am a 30-year-old woman, and I have worn hearing aids since I was 26. This doesn't mean that the book or story necessarily focuses on their deafness, but I think the important thing is to bring it into focus when it can highlight an experience most hearing people don't realize that we have in our daily lives. I have a glowing academic track record and intend to get a doctorate. One amazing writing retreat called AROHO that I've been to multiple times had instead given me two interpreters that followed me wherever I decided to go for the week. Follow our tips to ensure you're writing hard of hearing characters the way they deserve to be written.
While having a conversation, anything in the background works to obscure sound, and my hearing is less reliable as a result. Her multicultural, lyrical fiction plays along the boundaries of magical realism, fantasy, and horror. I don't actually know of any deaf characters in horror except the ones I've written myself, so I would like hearing authors to sit back and allow deaf authors to write more of these characters into existence so I could actually have characters to choose from and be able to answer a question like this. It's crucial to remember that there are many different types of hearing loss; from hard-of-hearing to deafness, and even Deafness. It's essential to get more than one sensitivity reader, and you'll want to make sure someone who uses the same tools as your character (e. g., hearing aids) reads your work. However, you may want to discuss this with the community in-depth first. Hard of hearing people are not always old, and we're not unintelligent. She lives with a French Bulldog and a tortoiseshell cat. How to Write Deaf or Hard of Hearing Characters. Certain writing events/conferences like AWP have done things like put a Deaf-centered event in a back room that is hard to find and access.
As a writer in the horror genre, what advice would you have to give to up-and-coming writers? To what degree does your writing deal with deafness or being hard of hearing, and how does it present in your work? Don't let each difficult step make you turn around and climb back down because I truly believe that we all have something important to say. Writing about deaf characters tumblr list. I feel the horror genre has always been a way that people can explore their deepest fears and face them. Don't forget to think about how your lipreading character will understand speech in the dark. They shouldn't exist in your story because they're deaf; neither should you toss a hearing disability into a character for the sake of it. Avoid depicting your hard of hearing characters as unintelligent.
Many of us are uncomfortable with this representation and prefer to be represented as regular, everyday people. Writing about deaf characters tumblr photos. What attracted you to the horror genre, and what do you think the genre has taught you about yourself and the world? As a writer in the horror genre, are there any portrayals of deaf and hard of hearing characters that you particularly like, or dislike, or would like to talk to our readers about? Keep writing anything and everything that you want to read that you have not yet found on the shelves. We also spent every Halloween together trick-or-treating and watching as many horror movies as we could.
Lipreading and Sign Language. If this is not possible, I always ask a panelist/author to give me a paper copy of their presentation/reading ahead of time, which interpreters usually like to see ahead of time, too, so they can prepare for interpreting. Kris Ringman (she/they) is a deaf queer author, artist, and wanderer. Hearing loss has no direct bearing on intelligence, although access to education might be a factor. Most days, if I am surrounded by family or friends who use ASL to communicate with me, I don't even notice my own deafness, but when I go out in public and have to deal with strangers who get flustered, upset, overly nice, or act rude to me because of my deafness, then those are the kinds of moments I try and bring into my fiction for readers to understand the full experience of a deaf or hard-of-hearing person in life and art.
Talk to people who use ASL, and watch videos on YouTube. The first longer work of fiction I wrote when I was thirteen was a horror story based on a true account of two fishermen who drowned in the lake I've gone to every summer of my life. Horror teaches us that our worst fears are inside ourselves, not outside, but the key to facing those fears is in our imagination as well. I've loved it when panelists and authors doing a reading have used a huge overhead projector to put the words they are speaking on the wall or a screen behind them. We all have readers out there that need our unique perspective on life to cope somehow, get through another day, and maybe to write something of their own or be inspired to do something they didn't think they could do. A poorly written hard of hearing character will do much more harm than good, and you run the risk of ostracizing a lot of your readership, whether they relate to deafness or not. As I write this alone in my apartment, I have music playing quietly, so I don't get tinnitus. If you do refer to lipreading or sign language, make sure you research thoroughly first. For members of the Deaf community, sign language is a cultural distinction.
However, not all of us do and having a hard of hearing character who can neither lipread nor sign is acceptable. One of the best things about including hearing aids or cochlear implants in your book is the fun you can have creating fantastical or sci-fi versions of them. Lipreading relies on faces being unobscured, and a hard of hearing person will need a clear view of the entire face. Many members of the Deaf community consider deafness and signing cultural differences, and not disabilities. However, in a silent room, I will begin to suffer tinnitus, which is maddening and impossible to shift once it starts.