Facial cues / blind character

July 25, 2019 9:30 AM

Please help me with a character depiction in a story. My character lost their eyesight completely at an adult age (for magic related reasons).

At this point, he has been blind for a good ten years. I‘ve run into several scenes now where normally I would have characters blink in surprise, cover their eyes in shame, turn their face away when unwilling to maintain a conversation, raise their eyebrows etc.

So many of these cues to me seem tied to vision that I‘m unsure whether someone who can‘t see would use them. Is this a thing dependent on the blind individual, or is there advice along the lines of „well, usually we would use these expressions but not others“?

Is there any other advice you can give me to write realistic interaction in dialogues? (FWIW I‘m not planning to make a big deal out of the blindness angle; there will be no movie like face touching orwhatnot!)

posted by Omnomnom to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

One key thing, I think : was the character born blind, or seeing and then later blinded? I'd think in the latter case, the gestures would be habitual and not necessarily problematic. If the former, I would definitely defer to someone more in the know than I.
posted by jquinby at 10:20 AM on July 25, 2019

Response by poster: They lost their eyesight as an adult, so you may well be right.
posted by Omnomnom at 10:28 AM on July 25, 2019

While I can't speak for anyone who is blind, I can speak as someone who's in a relationship going on 20 years now with a blind person who began losing his vision in his teens.

So as someone who can see a blind person using them, I can say that he uses facial/primarily visual expressions just like a sighted person - raised eyebrows, a grimace, a contemptuous toss of the head, dropping his head in resignation, facepalming, etc.

When I'm being obnoxious, I still get the stink eye or upraised middle finger, even if it's sometimes slightly off-target.

So your character could logically raise his eyebrows in surprise, for example.

As far as dialogue goes, my advice would be to just be sure that it makes sense from his POV when he's interacting with other characters. For example, if another character was speaking to him, you might write:

"I think that would be a bad idea," she intoned ominously.

Instead of:

She winced. "I think that would be a bad idea."

Visual metaphors as part of regular dialogue would be perfectly natural. All of the blind people I know, including the person I'm married to, use them unironically as parts of speech. Statements like "I see," or "that's a bad look," can be used unironically.

there will be no movie like face touching orwhatnot!

Excellent. It sounds like common sense is already guiding you, so I'd just add that the Mary Ingalls staring-straight-ahead thing is ridiculous. The human eye moves in the socket, even if it belongs to someone who can't see.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 10:40 AM on July 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

This may be of interest as well:

Elsa S. Henry: So, You Wanna Write A Blind Character?
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 1:02 PM on July 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

Yes, blind people communicate with body language. You can watch some videos from Molly Burke about her journey. She has videos answering people’s questions as well. She can’t see body language - but that’s what our bodies do naturally to communicate. She’s extremely expressive with body language even though she can’t see - and hasn’t for 10 years. She also says she can kind of sense it through things like voice cues.
posted by Crystalinne at 1:42 PM on July 25, 2019 [2 favorites]

To continue on Crystalinne's thoughts a bit, facial/body language does affect the voice. Think about how much you can hear on the phone. I had a job that involved radio communications, and my boss would frequently say (mostly to remind himself, I think, but it was a great tip for putting the other party at ease right away) "smile before you dial!" Also, I had a mentor who recommended standing up for important phone calls where you have points to make, which has also proven useful.
posted by inexorably_forward at 3:08 PM on July 25, 2019

Response by poster: Thank you, this is all very helpful!

I am not talking about all body language cues, just the ones that seem to involve eyes. Some more I thought of: Rolling eyes in exasperation. Narrowing eyes in suspicion. Closing eyes to gather yourself.

I could avoid them, it‘s easy enough, but only if you guys think I should. I mean, I want to write this guy as I normally would. So I‘m glad the consensus seems to be that I needn‘t worry about it.

Thank you for the insights and links!
posted by Omnomnom at 2:33 AM on July 26, 2019