What Are YOU Looking At?

 

Image © Salvatore Vuono

Here’s a shocker – a post on my personal writing blog that’s actually about my personal writing, actually. No rants about our broken society or meandering diatribes on spoon-licking aliens this week. Instead, I have an interesting question for you, the answer to which has a direct bearing on my unusual manuscript. The question is this;

Can accurate visual descriptions ever undermine, rather than reinforce, the strength of a written narrative?

My protagonist, Gwillum Hobnail (who is also the story’s narrator), is blind. Not only is he blind, but he is slightly dim-witted, very susceptible to suggestion, and has only the most basic understanding of the world around him. Gwillum makes up for this with an overactive imagination. He fills the gaps in his knowledge and understanding with invented explanations, locations, words, and even people.

Despite all this, Gwillum is ultimately unable to give visual descriptions of his world, real or imagined, due to the fact that he doesn’t know what seeing is. When a visual description cannot be avoided, both Gwillum and I turn to his companion, Crawly Steve, a mute worm who communicates by tapping on Gwillum’s toes in code.

What I wonder is, am I doing Gwillum a disservice by regularly resorting to the one sense that he can’t make use of himself? Should I have the courage to rely on Gwillum’s limited senses and wild imagination more often? Will the narrative be stronger if the reader is truly forced to experience the world from Gwillum’s perspective? Or will the reader feel alienated without the touchstone of the visual?

I’m finally approaching the end of my first draft, and as time has gone on I’ve resorted more and more often to visual descriptions, and I’m concerned that the story’s unique selling point has been diminished as a result.

My current plan is to use draft two to re-establish the more eclectic and eccentric tone present in the first half of the manuscript. After that I’ll be sending it out to others for feedback – if they feel it needs more conventional visual descriptions, so be it.

So, what do you think? Can accurate visual descriptions ever undermine, rather than reinforce, the strength of a written narrative? Comment below, or e-mail pithytitle@live.co.uk.