Your gateway to endless inspiration
Right. I feel incredibly awkward doing this, but Tumblr - I need writing advice.
Basically, I’m writing a story, and one of my characters is blind in one eye. I recognise that life with partial blindness is different to fully sighted life. However, I’m fully sighted, and I don’t want to accidentally make mistakes or offend anybody. So... I have some questions. If anybody with knowledge about any of this can answer anything, or throw in extra info, that would be great!
First off, a little background about my character. He was born fully sighted, but got into a fight at 16, and got stabbed in his left eye. He survived the attack, but even with heavy surgery, he wound up blind in his left eye, whilst his right eye can see perfectly well. He’s now 19 years old, and has a job as a hacker/computer specialist/hacktivist. Now, for the questions!
1: Is there any way that being partially blind heavily affects day-to-day life? I know that depth perception would be heavily impaired or completely gone, because of biology, but I have a feeling that there’s more to it, and it’s different from full blindness/impaired eyesight in both eyes. So, I’m just checking on this.
2: Would any adjustments have to be made to living spaces to accommodate him? (He currently lives on the road/out of his car, if that affects anything. On the same note, could he actually drive? Because of the depth perception.)
3: Are there any other effects that partial blindness has on one’s life that I might be overlooking? Like, emotional effects, mental wellbeing, etc etc.
4: Would it be an effective idea for me to buy an eyepatch and cover my left eye with it for one or two weeks, or is that incredibly offensive and not a good idea? I might edit or follow up on this post with more questions in the future if more arise. Please tell me if I’ve been offensive here, or made mistakes with phrasing, tags, anything! I don’t want to accidentally be rude! Thanks in advance for any advice people might be able to give. :)