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Blind Character Advice



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Sun Jan 31, 2016 6:16 am
Lefty says...



Thanks for your suggestions, guys! I'll be sure to check them out.

There is character development as a direct result of her becoming blind, then getting her vision back. She's a fighter that relied too much on her vision and not her other senses when fighting, so when she went blind, she had to learn how to fight without her vision, and when she gets it back she's improved so much in a way she wouldn't have otherwise that it makes her an incredible fighter, and develops her character quite a bit, too.

Thanks again!
Hear me out, there's so much more to life than what you're feeling now. Someday you'll look back on all these days, and all this pain is gonna be invisible. - Hunter Hayes
  





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Sun Jan 31, 2016 3:27 pm
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Vervain says...



Maybe this is just me, but I'm thinking that if she was a fighter who relied too much on her vision and that was suddenly taken away, she would pour that reliance into her other senses too much as well—meaning, when she gets her vision back, she'll be uncoordinated and uncomfortable with using her vision as a reference for fighting.

She might not trust her eyes, and sometimes that's a good thing, and sometimes that's a bad thing; however, having a seamless transition from "blind" to "sighted" and her suddenly being a wonderful fighter because of that makes little sense.

In addition, a month isn't that long, really—she could just fall right back into using her eyes too much again now that she has them back.
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Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:22 pm
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Rosendorn says...



The fact there's character development doesn't change the fact you still hit reset on her abilities, and in fact it can be an even worse idea because it's using a very real disability as a moral lesson. This treats lack of sight as a good thing that generates superhuman abilities, instead of a complex issue that has both very real emotional impacts and a ton of downsides. Yes, there are upsides to not relying on your other senses, but you can do this without having her lose her sight.

On top of this, a month is not long enough to learn how to fight. She would still very much be adapting to the loss of sight and you are far more likely to end up with what Lareine said: she'll be uncoordinated. In fact, the more she adapts to her lack of sight the more uncoordinated she'll be.

It takes time for other senses to become sharper to compensate, and it will not be instant at all. You can't expect to take years of adaptations, years of work learning how to live without your sight, and condense it down to a month. Even superheroes like Daredevil (who lost his sight and gained superhuman heightened senses immediately because of gamma radiation), spends years learning how to fight thanks to a whole bunch of amazing trainers. His senses also have limits, which is critical for the belief. Blind people also love that Daredevil stays blind, because it proves sight isn't needed to be a superhero.

My previous points still stand. It's cheap to reset character's abilities, especially just to have them learn one piece of character development. The exact same arc can be achieved by having somebody throw sand in her eyes and she gets hurt because of it, then realizes she has a weakness and trains that away while still sighted.

A month still wouldn't be long enough for her to improve her senses all that much, but my point is: you do not need disability to make her realize that piece of character development. You can do it in a multitude of ways that end up more realistic (sand in fights is a very dirty trick, but since when do most villains care about honour?) and don't have the character magically become no longer disabled.
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Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:45 pm
Lefty says...



Well, I'm not saying she becomes a superhero because she learns to fight without her vision. The world she lives in is very simplified (no cars for example) and the fact that she's blind for such a short time would help her realize that using her other senses are helpful and think more about that when she gets her vision back.

She is already a fighter that has been training for four years, and is very determined. Yes, I understand that a month is a really short amount of time (and I might extend that by another month), but because she's already been doing this for years, it's a matter of learning to do it without her eyes, just like anything else. She is very uncoordinated when she starts. But the fact that she's training in the same fields that she's been training in since she was twelve years old and that she has some muscle memory, I think that helps her in the long run.

As for the character development part of it... When she's blind, her friend helps her through it which develops their relationship much further than it had been before. It makes her struggle in general, showing how her character deals with that and how she handles a new disability (character development), while also, in the long rung, learning to be a better fighter.

Because her dream was to be a fighter, when she became blind she thought that was over and was completely hopeless, feeling like her life was over. But eventually she gets that determination back to try and do what she's always done, despite her disability. She learns to see the world in a different way and I think it's kind of inspirational. She's not a great fighter when she's blind, but afterwards it helps her because she's relied on her other senses for several weeks.

Addition: And the problem with her getting sand in her eyes instead is that they would have a better idea of how bad it was, and how long she would be blind. If it's an actual injury that they say will cause permanent blindness, that's a little harder to get around when it becomes not-permanent. And if they said that it wouldn't cause permanent blindness and that she'd get her vision back as she heals, then she would simply take a leave and wait for her vision to come back. With magic, there's more leeway because well, it's magic... and the doctors really wouldn't know how it would effect her, especially because she's the first person to survive that specific spell.
Last edited by Lefty on Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Hear me out, there's so much more to life than what you're feeling now. Someday you'll look back on all these days, and all this pain is gonna be invisible. - Hunter Hayes
  





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Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:52 pm
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Vervain says...



Quick thing: It's not just "a matter of learning to do it without her eyes".

I'm a singer. In high school, I was a choir kid, and my junior year, I came down with some bad sinus inflammation that left me effectively deaf for a week. Couldn't hear pitch—could hardly hear words—for seven days.

When that was all dealt with and I could hear again, it took me another week to get used to hearing pitch again, and a week after that to be able to identify pitch again. Muscle memory only carried me so far as knowing what was approximately where, and how I was supposed to place everything. And that's me as someone who had been a musician for seven years before that and who is exceedingly genius at hearing and locating pitch (which I learned through a test my director administered).

Also, disability should not be "inspiration", and if she's trying to do "what she's always done", then she's going to fail. People determine their habits and routines based off of their abilities and their strengths, and she will not have the same abilities and strengths when she is blind as when she is sighted.
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Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:59 pm
Lefty says...



Well, the inspiration in it is that she didn't let her disability stop her. Being a Fighter was everything to her, so not Fighting would mean giving up on her dreams and completely changing her life. But instead she tried to still follow her dreams despite everything going against her. The inspiration is in her rising up from her struggle, and becoming a different, better person because of it.
Hear me out, there's so much more to life than what you're feeling now. Someday you'll look back on all these days, and all this pain is gonna be invisible. - Hunter Hayes
  





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Sun Jan 31, 2016 6:39 pm
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Rosendorn says...



Your addition doesn't appear to fit very well with your originally stated explanation. Originally, you'd said she was simply caught in a crossfire of a spell meant for other people, which means they wouldn't have even had her as a target. So your logic of "they wouldn't know she'll come back sighted" seems to go against "she wasn't a target". If she wasn't a target, they wouldn't be relying on anything that happened to her. If she was purposely targeted, then why wasn't she killed outright? Villains are usually smart enough to kill people when they get the chance, unless they specifically want something that the MC has— at which point, this would be an excuse to catch her and get it.

"Inspiration is she didn't let disability stop her" is exactly the type of bad inspiration that Lareine was talking about. That might be the popular narrative around disabilities, but it's not a reflection of reality. Whenever a disabled person does something, they usually do it because of an adaptation around their disability (such as Beethoven using a piano on the floor so he could feel the vibrations of notes when he went deaf, and as a result his later music is characterized by a lack of high notes because he couldn't feel them).

It's not so simple as "this disability would normally prevent them from doing it but this person fights through and does it regardless." It's "this person has learned how to adapt to their environment to the point they can do something that at first glance appears impossible, but when you look closer you see that they've been lucky enough to get adaptations that work."

Blindness— along with any other disabilities— don't exist for inspiration purposes. They're very real things, and living with them doesn't make any one person an inspiration. Yes, it can be inspirational within a community to watch somebody with the same disability achieve things, but that doesn't feel like what you're doing here. You're using disability to show "It has good things that promote character development!" instead of "Here is a blind person, here is how she lives, both good and bad."

The former is actually really hurtful for actual blind people, who aren't props. They're people. The latter is accurate representation that shows how disabilities impact life in good and bad ways.

Yes, disability means you overcome certain challenges and you can figure out how to do a lot of stuff while disabled. I'm not saying it's implausible for a blind person to be a fighter, I'm saying that when you impose temporary blindness on a character in order to make them a better fighter, you're using disability as a prop instead of part of the character.

Blind people don't have that choice. Blind people have blindness as part of who they are. Yes, some types of blindness are reversible, but it usually involves treatment and an active choice. It's not a "suddenly I could see, now", which is what you have.

As a result, I would reconsider one of your two plot points. Either make it she never becomes blind and find another way to teach her this lesson, or make it she doesn't magically get better. You can tackle the second in one of two ways, either by making her permanently blind, or by having her make active choices to get her sight back in such a way it parallels seeking treatment for a chronic condition. If you have magic, you can make it that there is some way of reversing it, but it would come at some level of price.

Right now, blindness is nothing more than a prop. Either remove it and use another prop that isn't offensive, or build it into the character properly so it becomes part of who she is, even temporarily. For an example of the "seeks treatment actively" narrative, check out Fullmetal Alchemist. One of the characters goes blind and regains his sight, but it's done with a lot of moral qualms and involves active choices. The character has to learn to adapt and spends a decent chunk of time blind, then recovering after treatment.
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Sun Jan 31, 2016 6:42 pm
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Tecumseh says...



When you hit the reset button on someone's abilities, it does NOT magically invalidate the quality of your work and it also does not mean that the work will not consider the nuances of disability. Although an individual's ability to enjoy any specific work is always personal and subjective, the fact still remains that the movie Forrest Gump, which has a very iconic scene that is literally the Casting Off The Disability trope, is a critically acclaimed film that considers the nuances of disability.

No human experience, no matter how painful or complicated, is exempt from being used as a moral lesson. Disability is no exception, at all, whatsoever, period. No topic is so sacred that it can not be used as a plot device or vehicle for character development. Not rape, not abuse, not murder, not torture, not anything, not anything at all.

"This treats lack of sight as a good thing that generates superhuman abilities, instead of a complex issue that has both very real emotional impacts and a ton of downsides."

I can infer from this that lack of sight is a 'bad thing' and blind characters should not have superpowers and while that would be putting words in your mouth it is still implied and I must address this. Should I be ashamed that I was born legally blind, if an author should not treat lack of sight as a good thing? If an author should not treat lack of sight as a thing that can generate superhuman abilities, should I stop regarding Ben Underwood as a personal hero and role model, and should I stop liking DareDevil and Toph? If an author is supposed to always reject those ideas and constantly write blindness as a "complex issue with very real emotional impacts and a ton of downsides", should the books that I read be exclusively about self-flagellation about how awful it is to be visually impaired?

Why can't I just enjoy a book about someone who is blind, even if temporarily, and at what point did OP say they were going to just edit out all of the emotional impact and downsides to adjusting to being blind?

I know what you mean: you mean don't treat disability as a flat, one dimensional subject. But please consider that regardless of whether you are in fact disabled yourself, you literally just treated disability as a flat, one dimensional subject, except this time around it had a better emotional, victimization appeal.

In Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, Rochester goes blind and regains his vision once his eyes have healed and in Chronicles of Amber by Roger Zelazny, Corwin goes blind and eventually regains his eyesight, as well.

If we can extend this past blindness:

In The Dresden Files, Harry is paralyzed and uses the Winter Mantle to suppress the symptoms of his injuries and cast off his disability (and later this wears off).

Orochi Zilla in Shadow Warrior is given superpowers and he is able to kick his wheelchair away and kick some butt.

Yeah, a month is too short to re-learn how to do things, but go for making her blind, go for making her learn what it is like, go for healing her if you so choose! Depending on how it's executed, an author can come off kind of like 'you should not be disabled and you should wish you were different', and that's unpleasant, but, merely healing a disabled character is not tantamount to telling us 'YOU SHOULD BE FIXED.'

Some disabled people do not like literature that has the disabled person heal up because they'd rather the character continue to be like them. Other disabled people like the escapism because they are in the middle of adjusting to or coping with these acquired disabilities and stories like getting better gives them hope or a nice power fantasy for whatever reason. Everyone is different, including their tastes and how they react to media. You can not write for every single person, so write what you enjoy.
Last edited by Tecumseh on Mon Feb 01, 2016 3:29 pm, edited 3 times in total.
  





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Sun Jan 31, 2016 7:16 pm
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Lefty says...



Originally, you'd said she was simply caught in a crossfire of a spell meant for other people, which means they wouldn't have even had her as a target. So your logic of "they wouldn't know she'll come back sighted" seems to go against "she wasn't a target".


Okay, first of all, when I said that, I wasn't even talking about the person who made her go blind. I was talking about her. SHE doesn't know she'd come back sighted. It had nothing to do with the other person. EDIT: I was also referring to the doctors not knowing how long she would be blind.

When I wrote into my story that she became blind, I wasn't intentionally thinking "this will be inspirational". No, it just kind of happened that way. Her becoming blind moved the story along, adding something unexpected and in the end would allow for some character and relationship development. It became inspirational because she overcame her disability. But I don't get why someone overcoming a disability can't be inspirational. To me, it's extremely inspirational.

This isn't a story about someone who becomes blind. It's a fantasy/adventure trilogy about a war between sorcerers and humans. Her becoming blind is simply something difficult that she has to overcome. I don't understand how it's offensive. Why does she have to stay blind? Why can't it just be a part of the story? If every single book handled magic and blindness and overcoming disabilities the same exact way, then they would all be exactly the same.

Rosendorn, I think, once again, we should simply agree to disagree. Obviously our opinions on stories and writing in general is very different. When I posted this thread, I simply wanted tips of how to write someone becoming blind, and get recommendations of books and movies that have blind characters in them. I never wanted to get into my story, and I wish I hadn't. Our views of my story continue to be polar opposites. I'm going to write it how I chose to, and I don't see anything wrong with bringing inspiration into a story by having a character overcome a disability. So, agree to disagree. I don't want to argue anymore.
Hear me out, there's so much more to life than what you're feeling now. Someday you'll look back on all these days, and all this pain is gonna be invisible. - Hunter Hayes
  





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Sun Jan 31, 2016 9:35 pm
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Tecumseh says...



It's "offensive" because lately in school you're taught that marginalized groups have a victim status that places exemptions on them when it comes to being portrayed certain ways in the media.

It's a logical fallacy.

Usually, it's an appeal to emotion. You should feel terrible about writing X because of all of the systematic marginalization and historic oppression against these groups. This is a fallacy because all of the tragedy going on historically and/or currently does not actually invalidate or determine the content of a story.. but that doesn't matter if they can distract you by telling you how AWFUL AND GUILTY YOU SHOULD FEEL!

It's also an appeal to consequences. You should not write about a blind character because it could be offensive to certain people and it could suggest these certain implications that are problematic. This, too, is a fallacy because the undesirability of a premise's consequence does not make the premise invalid, and the arguments that make a premise 'problematic' inherently contain subjective points of view, not objective ones. .. but that doesn't matter if they can distract you by telling HOW AWFUL AND OFFENSIVE THE CONSEQUENCES ARE!

This mindset is contagious among people who understand that if they just wrap themselves in the Blanket Of Victimhood, they can no-platform you and make sure that their view point is NEVER challenged by making you look like a jerk because "How dare you, don't you understand that we are a marginalized group, and YOU'RE JUST PERPETUATING IT!?!"

Anyway, keep writing. Here are real-world examples of how blindness is a horrible disability that you shud never, ever once insinuate motivates and empowers you to do amazing things, at all, ever:

- John Miekka is a blind sharpshooter.
- Ben Underwood, rest in peace, basically was real life DareDevil.
- Miles Hilton Barber, a blind superhero who has done stuff like climb mountains, pilot a plane and break aviation records, and cage diving.
- John Milton, who gave us Paradise Lost. He would stay up and recite things and memorize them, then dictate them to his wife or kids to have it writte.

Anyway, here are some characters from other works that I haven't mentioned yet re: blindness that may be directly relevant to your story:

- Johnny Depp's character Sheldon, in Once Upon A Time In Mexico, gets traumatically mutilated and must adjust to his blindness enough to fight not within a month, but the SAME DAY of going blind. Watch that movie.

- Montolio Debrouchee from Forgotten Realms and Hawkeye Gough from Dark Souls are fantasy characters who are blind and proficient fighters.
Last edited by Kale on Sun Jan 31, 2016 10:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: Deleted profanities; keep your language PG please
  





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Mon Feb 01, 2016 8:34 pm
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Kale says...



You've probably gotten waaay more feedback on this idea than you ever wanted, but I'm still dropping in my two cents.

The thing I think is the biggest issue with your approach to this is how you equate character actions and abilities to character development. The former are often reflections and indications of character development but are not character development in itself.

For example, character development would involve her realizing that she relied too heavily on her vision over her other senses. A consequence of this realization would be her actively working to improve the use of her other senses. A consequence of this effort would be her improvement as a fighter overall.

Her improving as a fighter is not, however, an example of character development.

It might not seem like a big distinction, but when actions and abilities are consistently seen as character development, you run into issues of the character's physical state and abilities dictating how they're perceived as a person, with physical improvements corresponding to character improvements.

To use another example, with how you've set things up, your character improves as a fighter without her vision, and so her getting her vision back makes her an even better fighter, which in turn makes her a better character. In essence, you've linked going blind with being a better person, with regaining sight making a person even better.

I'm not saying that you did that intentionally, but that is how your posts read, and that is a pretty big issue regardless of how disabilities tie into the picture. Character actions and abilities =/= character development.

So basically, the biggest issue I see with your idea is how you focus a whole lot more on the character's abilities and physical state rather than how the blindness affects her as a person. Focusing more on her emotions and motivations would help address this, particularly by carrying the emotional effects of having been blind throughout the rest of the story and having it motivate and impact her choices even after she regains her sight.

I'm not seeing indications that you will be doing so based on what you've shared so far, especially since her blindness essentially exists only as a plot device to improve her fighting and relationship with her friend.
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Mon Feb 01, 2016 9:09 pm
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Lefty says...



When did I ever say it didn't effect her emotionally? Yes, a large part of it is her learning to fight without her vision but, it is just that. A part. And one of the reasons I made this thread was because, when I go back to edit that part, I plan to add in more emotion and what it's like for her to adjust to being blind. How it effects her emotionally, mentally and physically. How it changes her everyday life and how she reacts to that.

I also think we have a slightly different definition of what character development is. To me, character development happens every time the character reacts to something, every time they speak or feel or make a choice. Story development to me is when something moves the story along. So, her becoming blind and learning to fight without her vision, then getting her vision back, to me, is story development while everything she thinks, feels and reacts to, every conversation she has with her friend, to me is character development.

Really, though. This thread has been blown way out of proportion, especially based on what my original question was. I think I've gotten plenty of tips and book/movie suggestions to adequately have answered my original question. So, I'd really like to close the thread if I can.

Thank you to everyone who has given me blindness tips and book/movie suggestions. They will all be very helpful when revising.
Hear me out, there's so much more to life than what you're feeling now. Someday you'll look back on all these days, and all this pain is gonna be invisible. - Hunter Hayes
  





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Mon Feb 01, 2016 10:17 pm
Kale says...



My main point was you don't mention how having been blind affects her emotionally after she gets her vision back, and not having her be affected by it afterwards aside from improving her fighting skills and relationship with her friend renders the blindness as just a plot device. That's a pretty major structural issue on-par with the all-too-typical tragic backstory having no lasting impacts on the character with said tragic backstory: it is a contrived motive to push the character through the plot, and contrived motives don't make for convincing characterization.

There are a lot of works that treat blindness as a plot device but not as many that treat it as part of the character's development as a character. The Daredevil comics are a notable exception and are worth checking out for that reason.
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Lazarus89 says...



Lefty, I have been reading the chapters of your story that you've posted and I have read the various threads that have related to your story and I can say that you clearly have a true talent that should not be discouraged by anyone especially those that immediately jump to conclusions about what you are or are not doing with your characters or your story based on a simple question and a couple of random comments you have made to attempt to clarify that question.

From what I have read, your story has all of the requisite qualities to be on par or better than any of the other published young adult fiction available today. It amazes me, as well as deeply saddens me, to see how some people on this forum have missed its purpose entirely and have instead chosen to use it strictly as a way to make themselves feel better about their own obvious shortcomings as evidenced by their need to recite tired, unimaginative, so-called "rules" of writing that show only that their indoctrination into the proscribed writing methods is complete. Remember that no one ever became famous or did anything that had a long lasting impact on society by following the rules or the crowd. Writing is no exception. The vast majority of writing these days for books and movies is so formula driven that it is agonizing to endure.

It is the job of the schools to make all of the kids conform to a singular way of thinking and doing. Original thought is often rejected out of hand and sometimes punished so it is no wonder that so many of this generation of writers find it scary or threatening to see original thought.

This is a forum that was designed for writers to share their creations and gain the support of others who should be the most suited to understand the joy, terror, pain, exhaustion and genius that goes into to creating a fantasy, adventure, comedy, etc. out of thin air. Yet there are some of these people, with over a thousand reviews, that choose to belittle and discourage, while reciting stale and unimaginative perspectives that demonstrate the extent of their indoctrination. Unfortunately they would rather do that than attempt to answer your simple question about places where you can look to further your understanding of the complexities of writing a character who has gone blind. An innocent question that shows your level of commitment to the craft. But, once again, your thread has become a battlefield with a charge led by an immature group of friends that apparently feel threatened by your talent and have a need to bully.

The fact that they have inflicted their arrogant and indoctrinated viewpoints to over a thousand original creations makes me question the value and usefulness of forums such as this. The damage that is caused by this kind of behavior can be devastating to those less secure in their writing abilities. Fortunately, I can see that you don't succumb to their nonsense and although it is clear that you go out of your way to politely put them in their place, I think they need someone to flat out tell them to grow up. This forum is to provide support to each other and to encourage the budding talents of tomorrows poets, novelists, journalists, etc.. Those that cannot respect this should find other ways to vent their own frustrations and insecurities.

Keep up the good work, Lefty. And my advice would be to just completely ignore those that can't answer a simple question with a simple and useful answer. People like Featherpen, Eternalrain, Lightsong, Birkhoff, Stori and Tecumseh seem to understand what this forum is about, ignore the others.
  





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Lightsong says...



Here's the thing: some people are born blind, others got it at a later point of their lives. Some can overcome it; some can't. However, you need to clarify the word 'overcome' because there are many ways to overcome blindness. Getting active treatment is one way, adapting to it is another. Either way, be aware that those ways are used so that the disability doesn't hinder your progress as much as it did before.

Which means, one can totally be blind and successful in his live. That is called adaptation. On the surface, you can say being blind is a challenge because you can't get a sense of your surrounding, or pictures of everything, and it stops you from progressing. It doesn't mean you can't live with it - it just means you have to adapt to it. Ir means you understand that this is a part of yourself, and the first step to adapting to it is to embrace it.

And that's one of the many ways to overcome. Another would be getting active treatment (which I don't see is going to happen in your novel?) to achieve, again, the same sensation, the same advantages, of having sight. It's a progress of medication to have your sight healed via medical treatment. It's not an easy process, however. Not everyone can afford it, and not everyone wants it. To have the patience, the commitment to get your sight back is a struggle worth exploring.

At the end, a blind person is just a person like the rest of us. He isn't any less or more than us. Build it into them and treat their inner lives the same, but their physical reality is different and you have to acknowledge that. So just treat your blind character as equal as you do to others, and she'd emerge just as wonderful.
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