Ya Readers....

[Tracy Hutcherson]

Hi, I hope you'll forgive my intrusion here, but I'll be utterly and totally honest and transparent.

I'm not deaf, and I do not know anyone who is.

But, and this is the reason I'm here, and I hope it makes it forgivable. I'm currently writing a fiction YA novel, and the main character is a girl named Emma, who is deaf.

I'm hoping some of you wouldn't mind some basic, ignorant questions, as I want to do justice to the deaf community. I'll try my best to be as tactful as possible, but as I am new to this topic, I may suck at this at times. I'll start with a few general questions, please feel free to answer, and as the conversation flows I may have different and more extensive questions.

1. Emma is born deaf. Her mother is a doctor/healer, ASL isn't a thing anymore in this world. Would her hearing mother be able to teach her to speak and lip read? Or is this something that is generally only learned through school, and the deaf community? Can lip reading come naturally?

2. Is there a name for the way a deaf person speaks (I've had some people refer to it as an accent, the way the words sound, is this accurate?) If its not accurate is there another name for it, or is it just regular speech to the deaf community? I don't want to call it something it is not.

3. Emma is literally the only girl who is deaf in the world at this point (that she knows of), do you think it's plausible that with the speech therapy her mother provides in question 1). that she would be able to "hide" her disability and appear "normal" to outsiders who may briefly encounter her? (I know this questions sounds terrible, and even though I cannot give you big spoilers, I do promise that there is a GOOD reason for this, and this is kind of the whole point of the book - so she will no longer have to hide who she is at the very end of her story).

4. What do you think it would be like to grow up as the only deaf person for miles?


5. Anything else you would like to add?

 

[hoichi]

oh spare us!!!!

 

[Reba]

. . .

1. Emma is born deaf. Her mother is a doctor/healer, ASL isn't a thing anymore in this world. Would her hearing mother be able to teach her to speak and lip read? Or is this something that is generally only learned through school, and the deaf community? Can lip reading come naturally?

Is this supposed to be a futuristic science fiction story? In that case, real life experiences might not pertain.

2. Is there a name for the way a deaf person speaks (I've had some people refer to it as an accent, the way the words sound, is this accurate?) If its not accurate is there another name for it, or is it just regular speech to the deaf community? I don't want to call it something it is not.

It's the speech characteristic one gets from not being able to hear one's own voice for feedback.

3. Emma is literally the only girl who is deaf in the world at this point (that she knows of), do you think it's plausible that with the speech therapy her mother provides in question 1). that she would be able to "hide" her disability and appear "normal" to outsiders who may briefly encounter her?

I suppose it depends on how "brief" these encounters are. Presumably she doesn't attend school? No matter how good that you make her speech skills she still won't be able to hear. So, she probably wouldn't respond to people calling out to her when they're out of sight, and she wouldn't hear environmental sounds.

Deaf people don't appear normal--they are normal.

(I know this questions sounds terrible, and even though I cannot give you big spoilers, I do promise that there is a GOOD reason for this, and this is kind of the whole point of the book - so she will no longer have to hide who she is at the very end of her story).

Is there a GOOD reason why she has to hide who she is at the beginning and throughout the story?

4. What do you think it would be like to grow up as the only deaf person for miles?

I'm hearing, not deaf but I know that's not such a rare circumstance.

5. Anything else you would like to add?

This question: What made you pick a deaf character for your book?

 

[Tracy Hutcherson]

Thanks for your reply Reba, you rock.

I apologize if any of my wording was rude or off. That's exactly what I need to know though. My book is about a dystopian elitist society where different isn't welcome. So not really super futuristic or scientific, but Emma lives pretty secluded and rarely has zero human contact, aside from her mother. That will of course change throughout the course of the book.

The "good" reason I stated in my god-awful question is so that the ending of the book can be set up in such a way that the rest of the world realizes how much of a BAMF she is, pretty much. Since it's dystopian style, I'm just trying to set up the awful, terrible way the world is in the beginning, so that the end can be what it's meant to be.

I'm not really sure I chose Emma, so much as she chose me. She will have close friends, who pretty much become like siblings to her throughout the book, with varying levels of different disabilities. I'm not sure why she's deaf, she just is. It's corny, but to me she's my fiction person. I just don't want any preconceived notions society (and myself) has about the deaf community to tarnish her story.

Basically, it's a story of people with disabilities conquering the world and making people realize they ARE normal (exactly as you said), and special, and just in general, awesome. Emma and her brothers and sisters save the world, pretty much.

I'm sorry again for my crappy questions.

Is this supposed to be a futuristic science fiction story? In that case, real life experiences might not pertain.


It's the speech characteristic one gets from not being able to hear one's own voice for feedback.


I suppose it depends on how "brief" these encounters are. Presumably she doesn't attend school? No matter how good that you make her speech skills she still won't be able to hear. So, she probably wouldn't respond to people calling out to her when they're out of sight, and she wouldn't hear environmental sounds.

Deaf people don't appear normal--they are normal.


Is there a GOOD reason why she has to hide who she is at the beginning and throughout the story?


I'm hearing, not deaf but I know that's not such a rare circumstance.


This question: What made you pick a deaf character for your book?

 

[Tracy Hutcherson]

oh spare us!!!!

I'm sorry I offended you. I truly didn't mean to, and that's exactly why I'm here. Because I want to write a good, valuable story with a strong female protagonist, who happens to be hearing impaired.

 

[A Nihilist]

We get a lot of hearies like you so it gets tiresome with the questions. Have you at least done a google on this subject? Just for this site google gives me over 9,000 matches for growing up deaf:https://www.google.com/search?q=sit...8#safe=off&q=site:alldeaf.com+growing+up+deaf

And believe it or not you're not the first author to ask these type of questions. Here's a google linky for this site on deaf characters: https://www.google.com/search?q=sit...fe=off&q=site:alldeaf.com+deaf+character+book Note that it has over 1,400 matches

You're doing fine with the questions, it's just that, again, it gets old when we see yet another person asking questions when it's been done to death multiple times.

 

[Reba]

It's just that you're about the fourth author in as many months who has put forth the same kind of questions to this forum. It gets old.

 

[Reba]

Nihilist--