Deaf character
Not even half done with book 2 of my Ravenstone story, and already starting on book 3, focused on Chooli Ravenstone, who's deaf.
This isn't even unprecedented. I was still working on book 1 when I began book 2. As to why: I've been meaning to do this anyway because I want to dig deeper into Chooli in book 2 before shifting the focus to zeer in book 3, the way I did for Vedya in book 1, and I had a thing I was doing where I was sitting around bored for many hours earlier today. (Helping man the booth Victor got at the Undersized Renaissance Faire.) So I took a notebook and did it the old fashioned way.
Found it fairly easy once I figured out what to do: remove the audio track from my mind's eye (as zee can't hear much of anything), paraphrase the lip reading and add uncertainty to it because it's difficult to do, sign language in curly brackets (been doing that since book one), add bits where Chooli can't see their mouths and has to guess what's going on by visual data and previous experience. A lot of use of "(person) appeared to be doing (x)." Some characters sign while talking aloud while Chooli is in the room (translating their own speech to ASL for zeer in real time), but sometimes forget, especially if they're talking to someone else.
Have to keep in mind, too, that when someone is speaking a language Chooli doesn't know, Chooli usually can't tell enough from lip reading to even tell which language it is. And Vedya speaks like, seven verbal languages and two manual ones (ASL and Plains Indian Sign Language, Diné dialect). My difficulty hearing people when they're talking sometimes, and attempting to read lips to supplement the gaps, helps get into the right headspace.
Chooli is also rather loud, ironically. Makes sense if you think about it; zee doesn't know how loud zee's being, especially where zeer music is concerned (loud enough to feel the vibrations). I've got zeer room being between Vedya's and Ashkii's because both make a lot of noise as well. (Vedya throws throwing knives and other shiruken at the wall, for instance.) The lot of them being as far from the other bedrooms as possible.
This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1468544.html
You can comment either here or there.
This isn't even unprecedented. I was still working on book 1 when I began book 2. As to why: I've been meaning to do this anyway because I want to dig deeper into Chooli in book 2 before shifting the focus to zeer in book 3, the way I did for Vedya in book 1, and I had a thing I was doing where I was sitting around bored for many hours earlier today. (Helping man the booth Victor got at the Undersized Renaissance Faire.) So I took a notebook and did it the old fashioned way.
Found it fairly easy once I figured out what to do: remove the audio track from my mind's eye (as zee can't hear much of anything), paraphrase the lip reading and add uncertainty to it because it's difficult to do, sign language in curly brackets (been doing that since book one), add bits where Chooli can't see their mouths and has to guess what's going on by visual data and previous experience. A lot of use of "(person) appeared to be doing (x)." Some characters sign while talking aloud while Chooli is in the room (translating their own speech to ASL for zeer in real time), but sometimes forget, especially if they're talking to someone else.
Have to keep in mind, too, that when someone is speaking a language Chooli doesn't know, Chooli usually can't tell enough from lip reading to even tell which language it is. And Vedya speaks like, seven verbal languages and two manual ones (ASL and Plains Indian Sign Language, Diné dialect). My difficulty hearing people when they're talking sometimes, and attempting to read lips to supplement the gaps, helps get into the right headspace.
Chooli is also rather loud, ironically. Makes sense if you think about it; zee doesn't know how loud zee's being, especially where zeer music is concerned (loud enough to feel the vibrations). I've got zeer room being between Vedya's and Ashkii's because both make a lot of noise as well. (Vedya throws throwing knives and other shiruken at the wall, for instance.) The lot of them being as far from the other bedrooms as possible.
This was cross-posted from https://fayanora.dreamwidth.org/1468544.html
You can comment either here or there.