I am writing a novel in past tense, third person, about a blind girl. But writing using only four senses (sight being crucial) does not sound like it would make a good read (or would I only do that with first person... hm...). Would I write it like a regular novel, and then shift into her view occasionally? How would YOU write this?
Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia. ~E.L. Doctorow
If you're in the third person, you aren't seeing from her "eyes", her point of view rather. Imagine yourself as a camerawoman, taking in all of the information from a different angle and writing it down. So "regular novel" yes. Only if you were in the first person would the problem of lack of vision exist.
How would I write this? It depends. I'd probably want to give my audience some idea of the level of blindness, or the way it makes her feel, but I could do that while within the third person. I feel like the first person would restrict the novel because the majority of people are very used to seeing the world around them, and it would be awkward to have to read a novel from primarily the other senses (though all senses should be included in the imagery of the novel). It would also be difficult for you to write because, I would assume, you are not blind. And if you were blind, you wouldn't know what you were missing, and therefore couldn't relate to the majority of the audience. Unless of course, you became blind over time.
Of course, that has happened to others, and the people start to forget visual things. They don't know the color "orange" in their mind because they haven't seen it in such a long time, their brain has "Forgotten" in.
^^ So, yeah, third person!
“It's necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.” ― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Welcome to YWS! I hope you're enjoying it so far. Anyway, this should probably either be moved to the writing tips section or the writers corner, since those forums are for getting advice and helping to move along your writing, while this board is for introducing yourself and getting familiar with the forum. You can ask a moderator [someone with a light or dark green name] to move it for you.
Anyway, to your story. Blind people have an entirely different perception of sight-it has to lie with what they feel and taste and smell, with how textures feel to them and such. However, this would mean a story without any imagery or description of how characters look. That's setting you at a major disadvantage, and while some could probably pull it off, it would be very hard. If really want to write in first person, maybe the main character can be someone who has gone recently blind-that way, they're coping with it and know what it was like to have eyes that were open to the world. Your best bet, however, would be a third person approach. That way you get to let us in on the main character's struggles while also keeping the reader informed about the outside world.
In the end, I suppose that it all boils down to what story you're trying to create. A lot of people are blind-are the narratives of their lives exciting enough to be made into story? Probably not. If you compel us with a bright plot and are really conciseness about the way you write it, I bet it'll turn out good. Again, welcome to YWS! If you want, you can PM when the chapters are up so that I can critique it.
All our dreams can come true — if we have the courage to pursue them. -- Walt Disney
