Word length and accuracy in portraying a deaf character in writing
I think there's a guide for that on Google... Short stories are the shortest.
BEST short story writer ever, hands down (he is credited with inventing it), Edgar Allan Poe. (I read quite a bit of him in an advanced reading class in 8th grade eons ago. Love him!)
Word count - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fiction Factor - How Long Should Your Story Be?
This one is more advice--good stuff!
» General advice I’ve found on: Word counts, novel length, and getting through the first draft
Word Count of a Full-Length Novel | Ask the Expert
Here's another that puts it in good terms, since writers are paid per word.
Word Count for Novels and Magazines
So we are aspiring writers. 
I have only read Stephen King's book on writing. He is SO funny!
[ame=http://www.amazon.com/Writing-Memoir-Craft-Stephen-King/dp/0684853523]Amazon.com: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft: Stephen King: Books[/ame]
Some excerpts from his book:
Excerpts from Stephen King's "On Writing" - (37signals)
I like SOME of the movies they do for his books, Carrie (creepy weird!), The Fire Starter, The Shining (Jack Nicholson is so scary!), Needful Things, but Cujo kind of was too scary for me when I was younger. He does some really good short stories, like the film Jonny Depp did... forgot the name, about a writer's character coming to life and looking for him. Freaky!
Next part:
Of course I want someone deaf to read my draft! If I screwed up something really badly, I wanna know! I'm not deaf and can't claim to get it right from his perspective a hundred percent.
I'm trying to make it a positive story about a friendship between the two worlds. It is SF, too, but has a mainstream element feel to it. (I already explained what I meant by that, so won't reiterate it.)
I was reading the deaf education thread for experiences like this, and there's 3 or so kids on there talking about how they liked the more challenging classes and stuff. (I did read up on the state school for the deaf in OR, the state where my story is taking place. OSSD= no AP classes.)
Not trying to start a controversy anywhere, because I know people have strong feelings about things in deaf ed. It comes down to choices. I never went to OSSD, but I personally ATTENDED mainstream schools with deaf kids. I can honestly write something, even in fictional format, about that, and what it's like from that perspective.
Being around kids signing made me honestly curious. My stupid school had no ASL classes offered so we could communicate with each other! ARRRGHHH!!! So frustrating! (I took Spanish 8th, 9th, and in college, and ASL 1 and 2 in college.)
I also had a deaf girl (oral) in my math class in HS. Her voice was hard to understand with all the yappy, loud hearing kids making it harder for me to hear her when she did try to talk to me. (We had the football coach for our teacher and there was NO order in that classroom!) We passed notes a lot. She was super nice! I was a nerd and didn't have a wide circle of friends.
My character has access to Deaf Community, and good support network at home with family who've bothered to learn to sign. Yes, there is conflict in the story, there has to be, or where's the plot? BUT my main goal is to have a sympathetic character my readers will care about enough to turn the next page. (My sister keeps bugging me to finish chapt 3! She took some sign classes to teach her baby ASL... seems that movie Meet the Fockers got her interested in it, and my other sister wants to do the same when she has kids.)
I don't have hearing aids, so I can't say what that's like. I haven't ever had to go to an audiologist, unless having my hearing tested once in grade school counts, but I don't know what that person's title was. I was a kid.
My work makes us have a hearing test annually because I work in an industrial plant with lots of machinery that make noise. The guy who does it comes with a truck with these booths we go sit in and put headphones on. He says my hearing is still normal, but I have trouble hearing the darn TV when they mumble or slur the words, and I have to crank the volume on the darn DVD!! I love captions.
Sometimes I get this annoying rings in my ears, I think they call it tinnitus? I have scarring on my right ear drum from ear infections when I was a kid. I thought I was going deaf, so I went to the doctor and he said I had too much wax stuck deep in my ear. They used this thing with hydrogen peroxide to squeeze it in my ears. He told me some people get worse build up and I was one of them. (I felt a little embarrassed!) 
Some of my family members would complain if I had them on, but my hubby never cares. MY TV has a setting to turn them on automatically, or I can on the DVD if it's captioned. (Don't you hate it when they don't caption older movies on DVD? That is so aggravating!) 
I love to watch Shakespeare movies captions on, because 16th century English is tougher to follow... gotta listen close. If Kenneth Branaugh is in it, I'm watching. He's really good! 
So yes, there's some things I feel I can fairly address, and others that I need feedback from a deaf person's perspective--did I get this right? What do you think? How would you feel in my character's shoes if...? SF has a lot of WHAT IFS in it...
OK, I'll shut up now... 
JM
