Bookwormy Wednesdays: Deaf Characters

I admit that I haven’t created any deaf characters for my novels and stories even though I am actually deaf myself. There are a couple reasons why I haven’t done so though.

 

The first reason is that I just wasn’t ready to. I didn’t think I could write a believable deaf character because I’m not a very good deaf person myself. I’m hard-of-hearing and was homeschooled/mainstreamed for a lot of my life. It would have been hard for me to get that unique perspective.

 

The second reason is that I didn’t have a reason to. Many people plop deaf characters into their stories just because they’re deaf. There’s not really a specific reason why the character has to be deaf. A good example of plopping is the TV show, “Switched at Birth”. Why does Daphne have to be deaf? She could have just as easily been hearing. I’ve only seen one or two shows so I might have missed an important reason. Maybe the family didn’t want a deaf child so they secretly switched the babies or something like that. What I understood is that the hospital made a mistake and that’s it. I kind of scratch my head at those kinds of decisions.

 

My math teacher wrote about a hard-of-hearing character in a deaf school once so that she could show people the positive and negative sides of being able to hear in a Deaf world. That’s a good reason to put a deaf character in the story. I’ve seen stories where a person becomes deaf, but they use their strengths to overcome that obstacle. That’s a relatively good reason. Just make sure you’re not putting a deaf character into your story just because you think it would be cool or interesting. They have to be important for the plot.

 

In July, I’ll be writing my first ever story with a deaf character in it, so I’m excited, but a little nervous at the same time. Here’s a short synopsis of what I’ve come up with so far:

 

One day, six teenagers committed suicide by jumping off a bridge spanning over a canyon. They're gone forever and no one knows why they did it, but the event has shattered the lives of the people who live in the small town of Summerland. What the people of Summerland don't know though, is that the kids took a secret with them.

 

Two years later, fourteen-year-old Jonah Harrison still feels responsible for his sister Jenna's death. Jenna would take Jonah to the meetings with her and he knew these meetings were wrong, but he didn't have a clue as to what they were saying. Jonah is profoundly deaf, and Jenna's friends threatened to kill him if he said anything to someone. His sister even interpreted the message for him to make sure he understood.

 

Jonah never told anyone what he saw at the meetings because only six of the seven people that went to them died, and the missing person is the boy who threatened to kill Jonah if he told anyone.

 

Just when Jonah is starting to put the past behind him though, weird things start to happen to him. Weird, creepy things, and he's worried that the seventh person wants him dead. So Jonah sets out to find why his sister committed suicide, and what he finds just might change his life forever.

 

I love books with secret societies in them…My only problem is that I’m having a bit of writers block on what the secret that changes Jonah’s life is exactly. I have ideas, but they’re not BIG enough ideas.

 

The point of including a deaf character is because that the fact Jonah is deaf means that he does not know a lot of vital information because he can’t hear. He still has enough information to know more than most people do though. I am not sure if Jonah will go to a deaf school or a mainstream school yet. I’m even considering making him homeschooled like Rain (the MC in my MG novel) was.

 

Another tip when including deaf characters is to not try too hard. They don’t need posters of Marlee Matlin and Matt Hamill hanging in their rooms. You don’t need to tell the story of Laurent Clerc and Thomas Gallaudet in your book. Just relax and remember that deaf teenagers are a lot like hearing teenagers. If you’re not familiar with deaf people, then stop by a deaf school. Don’t write what you don’t know.

Can you think of a few books with deaf characters in them? Were they believable? Were they important to the plot or were they "plopped"? Did the author seem to know their stuff? Were they trying too hard? Ask these questions the next time you read a book with a deaf character in them.

 

Good luck, and I hope this helped!