I present to you three key points to keep in mind when writing mute characters. Not all of these points need to be explicitly laid out in the writing, but are still important to keep in mind for the sake of continuity/realism/ease/etc.
Determine a reason for your character’s muteness. This is one of those points that does not necessarily need to be explained in the writing, but defining a cause will add a layer of realism to your story. There is a difference between become mute because of malformed vocal cords and having one’s tongue cut out. Both instances prohibit speech, but one is more traumatic than the other and may have a larger impact on the character’s development. Additionally, remember that being mute by physical means does not mean the character will be stricken with complete silence. They may still be able to make sounds, just unable to speak.
Think about how they will communicate. Please refer to this post if you plan on having your characters communicate through sign language. This area is the most broad and where one can take the most liberties. Telepathy seems to be the most common solution in fiction, altough not necessarily the best solution. And, whatever you choose, be respectful and do your research.
Remember that your character is still a living being. I work/have worked with a lot of d/Deaf people in my life, and I myself am hard of hearing. There are too many writers who treat people who are d/Deaf/HoH/mute as exotic or romanticize their struggles. Please, do not make your character an object of pity, or romanticize their difference. Treat them like you would treat any other character. For more information, see the above link to “How to Write x Characters When You Aren’t x.”
keyenuta asked: Any advice on writing a mute character? I have a format for when they speak with their hands. Which is using italicize. But do you have any ideas like with expressions, body language etc.
Researching how mute people navigate their lives in society is a good idea. It’ll give you some first hand knowledge and accuracy within your representation. Without it, you can only guess. However, some good questions to ask yourself are:
Does your character live in a world with sign language? If it’s a fantasy world, there’s no reason you can’t base it off existing signs. Or create your own signs that are affected by your world..
Can they write what they want to say on paper? Maybe they carry a notepad with them for more complex thoughts.
How could they communicate using visual cues? I imagine this means a lot of pointing and exaggerated facial expressions. Even waving hands to catch people’s attention.
What is the difference in how they communicate with accepting vs non-accepting people, as well as those that know sign and those that don’t? Are they mute or mute and deaf?
Otherwise, it sounds like you have a good format set up. Using italics to translate and maybe punctuating with hand signs like you would dialogue tags sounds perfect. It’s definitely important to keep up the visual aspect of things.
Interesting question, anon! I had to do a bit of research for this one, as it’s not something I’m an expert on. Based on the research, I would say it depends on a couple of factors.
First of all, why are they mute? Is it by choice? Is it something they were born with? Or is it a result of outside factors, such as someone making them physically unable to talk?
Second of all, are they the main POV or a supporting character that the reader doesn’t get to see the thoughts of? If it’s the former, then it’s going to be a lot easier to communicate their thoughts and feelings to the reader, as the character can just state them in the inner monologue. But if it’s the latter, then you’re going to want to look for other means of communication.
Other ways of communicating might include:
Body language - how does their body express their thoughts/feelings?
Sign language - do they use a formal or informal sign language? Do they live in a society where sign language is common?
Expressions/gestures - a pretty major way of communicating if you can’t speak, and if you can. Emotions and gestures can help get across any character’s feelings/desires (to a certain extent) whether or not they can speak.
Writing/Drawing - can your character read/write? Can your society read/write widely? If not, maybe they can draw what they mean. How logical would it be for your character to carry around writing/drawing utensils (for instance, if your character lives in Victorian England, this is going to be a bit easier than if they live in Prehistoric Britain).
ithinkihopr asked: So in movies I've seen sword clashes where they will just try and use brute force to take out the other person until one succeeds or backs out. Is there a reliable other way to get out of that clash or is that actually how it happens?
So, Matt Easton over on his Scholagladitoria channel talked about how this was stupid in one of his videos, and we linked it in one of our asks, but I can’t find it now. The answer is when you’re looking at sword duels, those movie sword clashes are dumb. They’re an excuse for these protracted monologues which should end before they begin with someone being socked in the jaw.
See, that’s the thing. You can use other parts of your body. You disengage, they come forward, and you hit them with your fist.
Swords aren’t brute force weapons, and it’s actually fairly difficult to lock them together. This situation wouldn’t be occurring if both actors weren’t choosing to participate in this specific way. It doesn’t work like this because one of the key factors in basic hand to hand combat also applies to swords. This is that if you have two people shoving at each other, both applying equal force in an attempt to push the other back, one can simply let go. With no force to push against, the other person becomes unbalanced and they fall.
Strength isn’t the only way to win. In fact, it’s a fairly bad one to bet all your chips on. With movies, these scenes are supposed to be a symbolic expression of strength and combat ability. The winner shows his dominance over the loser. It’s the sort of stupid Alpha dog shit that will get you killed in real life because strength, at least the way most people think of it, means a lot less than it seems to. Combat and defense aren’t built on physical resistance all the time, they’re mutable, and shifting. Sometimes, you just let go and end up in a better position than the one you started in.
Say someone has you by the arm and their pulling you, but you don’t want to go with them. You can resist by planting your feet and drawing back in the opposite direction which is what they expect or you can go with them. By go with them, I mean physically throw yourself at them. They give you a nice hard yank and you use that as a launch pad, use it against them, and hit them so you both topple to the ground.
The logic of combat is conservation of energy. You only have so much to work with and are constantly expending it, so you want to win as fast as possible. Endurance training will expand your pool, martial training gives you more resources to work with, but the pool itself is always finite.
Pushing against another human who is applying equal force to you takes more energy than letting go. You use up that finite pool faster, wear out your muscles with constant tensing. It’s a bad position, one you don’t want to be in. With a sword, when you lose out you get stabbed. Unless you’re specifically of the mindset where you’re chasing death, you want to win.
The Hollywood version of the sword clash is there to give the actors a breather and spout their dialogue, which is the kind of talking you usually can’t get off in a tense fight anyway. You need that air to breathe so the oxygen goes back into your blood, and your attention on keeping the other person from killing you. Witticism is for when things aren’t serious.
Punch their lights. Smack ‘em with a camera. Action. Action scenes are great. Even the kindest sweetest reader revels in a bit of action. We are disposed to violence due to our basic nature. This does not make violence OK. But you must understand that sugarcoating it, is not perhaps the best idea. Now let’s get to it.
First Rule of Fight Club…
…we must talk about fighting. So some things to remember in a fight.
Fighting involves all senses: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell. You must feel the pain, see the opponent, hear the shouting and blows on skin, taste blood if you are injured and smell the sweat off yourself and your enemy. Make it realistic. All five senses should be used.
Punching someone hurts by the way. You bruised your hand and might even break a bone.
Adrenaline is a great friend in a fight. It makes you alert and gets your heart pounding. It’s only after the fight that your pain begins to appear. You might think you’re fine but in reality you are probably more bruised that a month old apple.
Fighting is tiring. Even professional boxers will yell you that doling out blows and avoiding them, takes it’s toll. Many times a fight is won on the back of an exhausted opponent.
Fighting with fists and feet can save a life but sometimes weapons are used. We will discuss gun fights in a later post. Swords and knives are popular weapons in fantasy fighting. Yet swords are heavily and swinging them makes you tired. Knives are all fun and dandy, yet you will almost always slice yourself whilst fighting an opponent. Yet using weapons is a plus for your characters even if it is a rock. See my swords post for sword terminology.
Dual Wielding Fighting with Two Swords or an Offhand Dagger
Fighting with a dagger in the offhand instead of a shield was a common practice. A long dagger made an excellent tool for catching the opponent’s weapon while attacking with your own. While attacks were made with the dagger, it’s greatest benefit was as a defensive tool.
Here the dagger is being used to restrain the attacker’s weapon (note: The big guy’s sword is pointed away from the dagger guy. Again, the problem with flat images and flat swords is swords tend to disappear in perspective. My apologies for the unclear drawing.) The dagger user is now free to attack with their sword in their next action.
I have more experience with double swords so we’ll be talking mostly about that now. We both know that’s why you’re reading this chapter anyways.
Two Swords are used like off-sync partners, with one movement slightly behind the other while they’re in motion. One might temporarily stay still to cover a line while the other attacks, but you’re not going to be fighting two battles at once except for in exaggerated cartoon circumstances. We’ll talk about fighting multiple opponents in “I’ll Take You All On” (chapter coming soon)
As an example, if two downward cutting attacks are being used, what this off sync movement achieves is that as the first sword finishes it’s blow, it deals with the opponent’s weapon. The second sword is a split second behind the first, and now has a clear path to finish it’s blow. The first sword continues to restrain the opponent’s weapon.
In one pattern of attack, the lower sword begins with a thrust, forcing a defence from the opponent then the upper sword begins it’s preparation. The lower sword then follows and does it’s own cut ending as the new top sword. Beginning with the thrust provokes a reaction from the defender and buys time for the first sword to swing back in preparation while the attacker remains covered.
When defending with two swords you can use any of your usual defences as outlined in “A Crossing of Blades” but you need to be careful that you’re not criss crossing your arms and getting tangled up. That’s another reason for the off sync movements. If they follow their patterns and both do the same action, the arms will stay untangled.
Crossing the blades to collect the attacker’s sword is one of the coolest looking defences you can do with two weapons. This one also works well with a dagger in the offhand.
Things get more complicated when both opponents are dual wielding. Now each opponent can restrain with one sword and attack with the other. Even so, they’ll still be following those same slightly out of sync patterns.
It might feel like we can do two things at once, but really we’re just switching quickly between two tasks. It’s better to have two swords working towards one goal then trying to have them both achieve two different things.
Often in one action you’ll still be catching both of your opponent’s swords in the defence.
I’m not feeling ambitious enough to try breaking down two dual wielding fighters anymore than that though, so we’ll leave off here. In the next chapter we’ll look into things you can do with a free hand that’s not holding anything.
Anonymous asked: I don't know if you watch GOT, but how hard would it be to fight someone like the mountain hand-to-hand? (well, armed, like in the show). Does being big like him really makes for a better fighter?
Hand to hand is a bit different from armed, especially armored, but okay.
The answer is pretty simple.
Start low.
Tall fighters, especially male fighters, have a rather serious issue that’s often
overlooked: their center of gravity. It’s higher up off the ground than the
average person, and a great many men (like the Mountain) do not drop low enough
into their stances to compensate. The taller they are, the lower they need to
go to counterbalance their size. Attack their feet, or their legs. Attack their
center. Whatever you need to destabilize them. A lot of tall fighters have
issues with their base. There are other flaws, but that’s often a big one.
Cutting the legs out from under of your enemy is a real tactic, or I should
say: cutting them down to size.
Stab him in the foot. (Yeah, no, real combat tactic.)
Here’s a question: you ever hear the story about David versus Goliath?
Probably, most people know the story of the shepherd boy who defeated the
greatest, largest warrior in single combat with a sling.
The story is a parable, and a life lesson. It’s also a little more
complicated than just brains over brawn. If you take anything from the story,
the big one is going to be: never fight your enemy on their terms.
Understand where their strengths are, where you’re strengths are, and change
the rules.
What a big fighter has going for them is the intimidation factor, and mind
games in combat are a huge deal. It’s not so much about physical prowess as
much as what your enemy believes about your physical prowess. Or you
believe about your opponent’s. What you believe will affect how you fight, how
hard you fight, and how well you fight. Go into a fight believing you’re at a
disadvantage or will lose and you’ll lose.
Assessing your enemy’s strengths for their weaknesses is the winning
strategy. If never addressed, big fighters will have a lot of flaws because
their opponents often cede them the field in their minds. This is especially
true when in training, and training is the foundation of skill. When people
treat you like you’re invincible, you’ll start to believe you are. And that’s
how you get an over reliance on a natural advantage with no compensation for
the flaws it brings.
The problem is that many people treat size and body types like they’re all
or nothing. For every advantage one has, there’s a disadvantage to go with it.
A fighter with a heavy reliance on what nature has given them (size, strength,
what have you) often neglects more crucial skills if never addressed. You can
have big fighters with exceptional levels of skill, but those are the ones
who’ve realized they can’t brute force their way through every problem. When
they don’t, their technique is sloppy.
Now, really, really, really big people often have to work doubly hard to
develop their coordination because fighting with a big, lanky body is
difficult.
The trick when you have (or feel like you have) the disadvantage is not to
meet the enemy on their terms. The best fighters figure out how to exploit
their opponent’s strengths in order to expose their weaknesses and fight with
an advantage. The bad fighters are the ones who choose to fight at a
disadvantage, who don’t prepare to face their enemy, and try to use the same
tactics over and over. The smart ones change up, they are proactive, and
understand the battlefield flows.
Ultimately, that’s what makes for the “best” fighter.
Fear is the biggest strength for someone who is massive in size, not
their strength and not their bulk. When you are frightened, you become
reactive, you cease to actively think, and fail to problem solve. The moment
you are defeated in your mind, that is the moment you lose. It doesn’t matter
how many steps it takes in the real world after the fact, cede the field in
your mind and it’s over. Intimidation can win that fight before the battle ever
begins, and the biggest kid on the playground is as natural as intimidation
gets.
The Mountain isn’t great because of his skill, but the fact that he makes
everyone around him afraid. His personal ruthlessness and cruelty back up that
size, and strengthens his ability to intimidate. When facing the Mountain,
you’re faced with fear over the (very real) consequences of what he’ll do to
you.
He’s valuable because he’s frightening, not because he’s good at fighting.
The good at fighting is the bonus that makes him more frightening.
Understanding the affect the mind has on combat is like 70% to victory.
Understanding the assumptions made and why we make them is important to writing
scenes with characters like this. If you put stock in the Mountain’s size,
rather than the Mountain’s reputation then you miss where his strengths
actually lie and why people are afraid of him.
The Mountain’s reputation is as a ruthless killing machine who delights in
rape, murder, and pillage. Torture is his specialty. He does not abide by the
code of chivalry or rules of knightly honor. He’s a sadist. For him, there’s no
such thing as just warfare. He thirsts for blood and battle. He’s protected by
one of the most powerful houses in the GOT universe, and he earns his pay as
their enforcer.
His size is just a plus. He could be just as terrifying at 5″4, and then
you’d have the joy of underestimating him before he put a knife through your
eye. If he was small, he’d be even more terrifying because there’d be more
bodies. His size doesn’t change who he is under the hood, it’s just one more
attribute he’s utilizing to its fullest potential.
Stereotypes about tall and short people are just that. Stereotypes.
Every body type has its drawbacks, and their natural advantages can be made
to work against them. Tall fighters are more gangly, their center of gravity is
further away from the earth, their weight puts additional stress on their joints
(especially their knees), and if they never work at addressing their issues
they can be slower to start. You can also have overweight/heavy weight martial
artists like Sammo Hung,
where there’s virtually no difference between them and a martial artist half
their size. Skill can close the gap. Understanding of your own strengths and
weaknesses also helps. Knowledge is power. Training yourself out of society’s
instilled biases is hard, but necessary. This is especially true if you perceive
yourself to be the underdog.
Not automatically assuming bigger equals better is the first step. The
second is realizing that the best warriors are not decided by outside metrics,
but rather through an inward understanding of how to utilize their strengths and
address their weaknesses.
On that note, I’ll leave you with a compilation of Cynthia Rothrock’s fight scenes. Cythnia Rothrock is a Hong Kong action star, a winner of world championships in the 80s, she has a wide variety of black belt level training in multiple martial arts, and is one of the most famous westerners to make it in the Hong Kong action scene.
Why end with this? Well, exposure to female movie martial artists runs the gamut between low to non-existent and that lack of exposure to different body types is where most misunderstandings about size come from.
where’s that video of the naked crackhead literally running the speed of a moving car and I use the term literally literally he was deadass keeping up with the car
Hi! Humans don’t have an eye shine, so that’s not a person!
