Just So Yall Know

Quotes From My WIP

These are some of my favorite (non-spoilery) quotes from my WIP, Of Souls and Swords! Please be kind, and please do not plagiarize my work :)

Sword fighting looked great and all until you actually had to learn it.

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“I’m sorry I fought her.”

Bian raised her brows knowingly. “No, you’re not. You’re just sorry you got caught.”

I laughed. “You know me too well."

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“Where. Were. You?” The last word was punctuated by a pillow in my face.

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“Remind me why I tolerate you?”

“My entertainment value. Why else?”

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“Not another word from you. I have a deadly weapon and I’m not afraid to use it.”

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“My mother had a lot to say about you.”

“Only good things, I hope?”

"She called you immature, irresponsible, a practitioner of evil magic, and a poor excuse for a soldier.”

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Maybe my true home wasn’t in places, but in people.

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“Revenge is a concept for the living.”

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If we were a storm, I was thunder and she was rain—perfectly matched, perfectly balanced, perfectly opposite.

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I’d never thought about it before, but I saw with sudden clarity just how young I was to be experiencing any of this helplessness and fear.

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If they wanted me to fight, I would show them battle.

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I wasn’t born to respect. I was born to rebel.

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“Trust me as I have trusted you."

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I looked away from him, studying the high iron gates that guarded the camps. From here they looked like living things, like snakes rising up on stakes, ready to strike.

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"But even the hardest stone weathers over time."

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“Every fortress has a weakness.”

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This must have been what it was like to be a phoenix, rising high and higher on wings of flame. This was what it was like to live and die in the same breath.

Writing Deaf Characters

Sources

https://www.sfwa.org/2021/03/23/how-to-write-deaf-or-hard-of-hearing-characters/#:~:text=Write%20Hard%20of%20Hearing%20Characters%20as%20Normal%2C%20Rounded%20People&text=They%20shouldn't%20exist%20in,care%20as%20any%20other%20character.

https://www.tfrohock.com/blog/2016/9/12/writing-deaf-characters

https://www.asha.org/public/hearing/Types-of-Hearing-Loss/

https://writing-ideas-collection.tumblr.com/post/182780796367/how-to-write-deaf-characters-from-a-real-deaf

https://deafaq.tumblr.com/post/190549529559/comprehensive-guide-to-writing-deaf-characters

Introduction

I am hard of hearing, but I am not part of the Deaf community. This is all based on my own research and is not comprehensive. Please don’t hesitate to correct or amend anything in this post!

Terminology

Deaf: a cultural term for people who have hearing loss and are proud of their Deafness and are raised in the Deaf community.

deaf: used in the medical field or used to describe a person with hearing loss that does not associate with the Deaf community.

deafened: a person who lost their hearing in later life, often as an adult.

hard of hearing: a person with hearing loss and who still has some degree of hearing.

hearing impaired: a derogatory and outdated word that was popular back in the 1990s.

Spectrum

Deafness, contrary to what you might believe, is not limited to total loss of hearing. Deafness is a spectrum. Some Deaf people can hear more than others. Some can only hear high-pitched noises and others can only hear low-pitched noises. Some can hear voices but not what they’re saying. What ranges can the person hear? Can your character hear high pitches, or only low tones? Knowing what they can hear will easily direct you to what they cannot hear. Deafness is completely different from person to person.

When you're writing a Deaf character, you need to establish the individual's level of hearing from the beginning of the story. Even if you never tell the reader all of these things, the author must know how the Deaf person will interact with the outside world.

And no, yelling will not make a Deaf person hear any better. If you really want to help them understand you, speak slowly and clearly, but not so much that you patronize them.

Type

What type of hearing loss does your character have? Is it conductive, sensorineural, or mixed? 

Conductive hearing loss happens when sounds cannot get through the outer and middle ear. It may be hard to hear soft sounds. Louder sounds may be muffled. Medicine or surgery can often fix this type of hearing loss.

Sensorineural hearing loss happens after inner ear damage. Problems with the nerve pathways from your inner ear to your brain can also cause SNHL. Soft sounds may be hard to hear. Even louder sounds may be unclear or may sound muffled.This is the most common type of permanent hearing loss. Most of the time, medicine or surgery cannot fix SNHL. Hearing aids may help you hear.

Mixed hearing loss happens when a conductive hearing loss happens at the same time as a sensorineural hearing loss. This means that there may be damage in the outer or middle ear and in the inner ear or nerve pathway to the brain. This is a mixed hearing loss.

Each type of loss will affect hearing differently, and this, in turn, will affect your character's lifestyle and ability to communicate.

Communicating

Lipreading is one way of communicating with other people. Some people think that lip reading is easy, but in reality, not many people can lip read to perfection. Enunciation, focus, and energy is required. Lipreading involves associating a person's lip movement with the sounds that they can hear. It’s all about context. A Deaf person may not know everything that’s being said, but they can fill in the gaps with body language and expression. A lot of mental effort also goes into lip reading, and it can make a person tired.

Sign language is another popular method of communication among Deaf people. Remember, though, that not everyone who is deaf understands sign language, and not everyone who understands sign language can understand sign language by people from other countries. Every country has its own sign language, and people who know two are just as bilingual as those who speak vocal languages. Even within countries, there are regional variations between sign languages.

Another thing to note is that sign language does not equal the spoken language it corresponds to. For example, ASL is its own language with grammar rules and semantics. It also does not directly translate to English: there may be words missing for the sake of speed and understanding. It’s also very literal. For example, the sign for “Bible” is “Jesus book.” But for the sake of clarity, just write ASL dialogue in English.

As for formatting their dialogue, there’s no consensus on whether to surround them with quotations, as you would for hearing characters, or to italicize everything. I would suggest consulting Deaf readers on this point.

If you refer to lipreading or sign language, make sure you research thoroughly first. Talk to people who use ASL and watch videos on YouTube. Don’t forget about the many different forms of sign language in use. For members of the Deaf community, sign language is a cultural distinction. 

Devices

Perhaps your Deaf character uses hearing aids or other devices. However, hearing aids are not hearing miracles and they don’t work like glasses, for example. Hearing aids amplify sound and clarity, but they do not “cure” hearing loss. 

Cochlear implants work in a completely different way, but are still hearing aids. Some people use neither and others use a combination of hearing aid and implant. Again, this varies depending on the type and range of hearing loss. Be aware that if you’re referencing cochlear implants, many Deaf people consider these controversial and unwanted. 

Mistakes and stereotypes

Lip-reading as a superpower, which makes deaf person basically hearing anyway

Wearing hearing aids at night and/or other people touching them and taking them off

Cochlear implants presented as “cure” or “miracle” which makes a deaf person into hearing person

Being able to learn sign language in record time

“Happy” ending being the deaf person losing their deafness via cure/miracle/magic

Deaf people are always bitter and lonely

Using deafness as a “cute” trope to increase angst levels in your story

Deaf person only having hearing friends (it’s often the opposite, aka most friends of Deaf people are also Deaf). Same goes for dating.

Superpowers or magic that basically cancels out deafness

Creating your own name signs for your characters (don’t do this)

Framing the narrative as a “person overcoming their disability”

Including deafness as a punishment for the character

The only deaf character in the story is the villain (bonus points for ‘deafness turned them evil’)

Inspiration porn

Discrimination

Specific term for discrimination against deaf people is “audism” (not to confuse with autism). General term for discrimination against disabled people, “ableism”, is also used sometimes

Deaf people often face discrimination especially when it comes to access to information and unwillingness to offer proper accommodation to them.

Movies/TV shows/videos lack subtitles or closed captioning. Video games have no alternative way of showing audio cues. Lectures, festivals and public events are often without interpreters

There have been numerous cases of arrests and deaths of deaf people after encounters with police due to communication

Hospitals and doctors are often without interpreters and neglect to inform the deaf patients properly. Access to authorities and courts is also problematic

Deaf people have difficult time finding employment due to prejudice. Even if they do find a job, employers often refuse to offer proper accommodation

Many deaf people also struggle in education

Writing culture is people telling you "it's just a first draft, it doesn't have to be perfect!" but you still want it to be as good as it possibly can at this stage and so formulating every sentence feels like pulling teeth.

Submitted by anonymous

it's always so fascinating and heartbreaking when a character in a story is simultaneously idolized and abused. a chosen prophet destined for martyrdom. a child prodigy forced to grow up too fast. a powerful warrior raised as nothing but a weapon. there's just something so uniquely messed up about singing someone's praises whilst destroying them.

its about conviction so strong it turns into power. its about being utterly devoted but not necessarily to each other. its about being somewhere between a weapon and a shield and a bandage but not a person. maybe more of a person with each other maybe less. its about not being able to set down the weight of your duty and being with the only person who gets that. its about begging the other person to stop being a symbol and being told no and not being able to blame them for that. its about service and humility at the cost of your desire for each other. its about being scared but never having any inch of room to be so you're not. its about doubt. its about your home being a concept that would see you dead rather than not chasing it. its about your real home being a person you can't let yourself love too much. its about paladin4paladin. is this thing on. can anyone hear me. hello.

I love the phrase "they get along like a house on fire". It's perfect. You and me have perfect chemistry and it's setting off the carbon monoxide detectors. People are calling emergency services to get us to stop being so chummy. Someone died

“No need to force yourself to do something the “right way” if it’s not your right way. Your job is to honor your process.”

— Andi Cumbo-Floyd

Forget the search history, if you really want to know a writer you should check their notes app...a writer's unhibited mind can be a frightening place.

love when authors get so into the story they’re writing that they end up just being like yeah this is twice what i originally planned, gonna add a whole new story arc, gonna add a whole new book to the series

i love it when characters are package deals, i love duos i love trios i love quartets, i love groups and squads, i love it when you can’t find one without the other(s), i love it when they’re glued at the hip, i love it no matter the context of these dynamics, i lov