Why are all the books and movies about completely blind people or those who can just see light? The rest of us feel like chopped liver and get almost no representation. This is just an availability heuristic, furthered by the media!

People who are completely blind don't see anything, so no light at all. People who can just distinguish between light and dark are said to have light perception.

You'd need to be much more specific about what you want to know for your second question. What are "movement issues" and "daily struggles"? How I navigate in large crowds depends on a variety of factors. It's usually nice to have someone with me in an unfamiliar area. In more familiar areas, I try to stick to the landmarks I use. If I'm moving as part of a crowd, I can sometimes listen to the rest of the crowd and follow people who might be talking fairly loudly. But it really depends on the circumstance, and would also depend on how confident a traveller your character is.

Some of the creators of books and movies with blind characters get blind people to review drafts of their work to ensure that their depiction of blindness is fairly accurate.


I suggest that, before you start writing, you do some research about blindness. You might want to start with webpages that have FAQs about blindness and then find answers to more specific questions.


I'd be happy to look at what you're writing to ensure that your blind character is realistic.

What you're talking about is not really "totally blind" but there are plenty of people in a situation like that who can see patches of light. I'm pretty unusual in that I really can't, but even then I sometimes think I can see a tiny purple glow when there's a bright light. It's so minor I can't even tell if it's real, but I think it may be.

The tips and tricks thing is basically a lifetime's learning. My perspective on this is that I lost my sight when I was 19 which is about twenty years ago and I feel like I have it down pretty well by now, but the reality is you're always learning. Dealing with it is a major life skill and the ability to have a good time is dependent on getting good at it. I mentor people who have been in a similar situation to the one I was in. We spend hours and hours together over months and months, and even then I just feel like we're doing the basics.

One of the reasons that new people feel so terribly down is that they can't do anything. The reason they can't do anything is because they don't know what they're doing. It's as simple as that. That's why I do the mentoring. It's like joining the military and going through training (which is where I get this name.) It's a learning experience and it's a big deal and it's not something anyone can really go through in a reddit post, but I hope that helps give you some idea.

$1 has a number of resources that will help you.

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