#if you can i strongly recommend you research further afield and find actual deaf opinions on this topic and similar.

[ailuronymy]

One of my OCs is a deaf white cat (Whiteflower), and I've been told I'm writing her wrong. In my setting, the cats have a simple but effective sign language. It lacks things like complex adjectives and words with more common synonyms (for example, there's no way to say furious but 'very angry' is possible) and there’s not always specific words for rare situations, such as an eclipse. The sign language was developed only in the clans, and even though everyone knows the basics (==>)

(because that’s mostly just the same body language they all use already), not everyone is fluent. One of Whiteflower’s quirks is that she’s unwilling to go on any type of diplomacy meeting because she worries she’ll be misinterpreted or unable to explain what she means as well as she wants to. In addition, she prefers to stay closer to camp rather than the far reaches of the territory when hunting, again due to a general fear of being misinterpreted or encountering a cat she’s not able to communicate well with. I was told this was a very ableist way of approaching this, and now I’m unsure if I’ve accidentally handled this very poorly. Sorry for the length, and thank you for any input!

Hello, Ruddles! Before I give you my thoughts, I’m going to have a little rant, because this person who commented on your character reminded me of it.

Preface: I’m not saying that you should disregard any and all criticism or feedback on your work! That would be very wrong. But the fact is, not everyone is qualified to give the criticism or feedback they’ll offer you. You as the writer should be critical of your critics, because not everyone with an opinion is someone who ought to be taken very seriously. It was very sensible of you to seek out other voices after getting feedback like this, because sometimes people are going to just say whatever or make bizarre claims, and especially since this feedback was vague. 

That brings me to: something that’s really important–for writers, and for reviewers–to think of whenever giving or receiving feedback is the concept of constructive criticism. If a reviewer says, “This is work is bad,” but offers no thoughts on how to make it less so/resolve the problem, they are failing to give constructive criticism and therefore failing to actually make any difference in the world. 

The writer is no better off for being told, “This work is bad,” because, if the writer had known how to make the work better in the first place, that’s probably what they would have done. You can usually assume that ignorance/not recognising problems/not knowing how not to write the problem is at the heart of a lot of issues in writing (especially in amateur/fan writing!), and therefore the actually helpful thing to do as a reviewer or critic is to identify the problem (”this text does X and Y”), explain the problem (”X and Y both have a history of being real ick things”), and then propose solutions (”if you don’t write X, this work will be better” or “if you write Y this way instead of that way, you’re not falling into the stereotype”). If you do only the first and/or second step on the process, you’re sort of being a bit… useless, in my opinion. 

So, this person who gave you this information is not a really useful engine at all! I just wanted to get that out of the way, because there’s something so exasperating to me personally about people who think they’re doing something by making a statement and then walking away. It’s very Tuxedo Mask “my work here is done,” and it grinds my gears. (End my little rant). 

All that said, I think I can pinpoint what it is that got this person’s back up and what needs to be reworked in your story. It is an ableist narrative set-up, because this character is restricted unfairly by the fact she’s deaf: where she goes and when she talks is limited in a way it isn’t for hearing characters, which is particularly surprising given a setting where all characters can basically sign. As a native deaf signer, she is going to be highly fluent and surely can work around characters who are less competent. Language teachers do that constantly. Additionally, she doesn’t have to be involved in negotiations or diplomacy, because plenty of cats (deaf and otherwise) might not want to do that, but that doesn’t mean she’d have to be a homebody and live in fear that someone from another clan might misunderstand her. 

In reality, deaf people want to be heard. It’s a big deal to be listened to, because hearing people almost never do that! Therefore, there’s a strong possibility that writing a character who is scared to communicate in sign to other signers is going to get a very poor reception by deaf people. You might have constructed this setting, but we all write into a broader context, and in that broader context, deaf people almost never get a voice. A deaf character who is timid and shy is perhaps not the most tasteful characterisation available to you. With that in mind, I don’t think this character idea you’re working on is finished yet.

I’ve had a conversation with my little sister, who uses Auslan, and we recommend that you: 

1. drop the idea of no synonyms/complex adjectives, because it’s not a realistic way of translating from sign. In Auslan, for example, “furious” is a much larger version of the sign “angry.” Sign language is expressive and has a lot of its own nuances! It’s better to focus on how your character expresses her personality and pick the words/impressions/syntax that fit her, rather than trying from the start to impose a limited vocabulary on how she expresses herself. You are, after all, telling a story, all of which you get to invent: it’s more important to accurately develop her as a character in the minds of the reader than it is to explore the exact details and mechanisms of your sign conlang. 

2. you can still have a character who is deaf and not necessarily socially comfortable! However, how you approach this needs some thought. If she’s not comfortable meeting with strangers, it’s because she’s anxious the same way a hearing character would be, not because she’s deaf and worried she can’t communicate “well enough.” Hearing people aren’t really qualified to be writing about deaf experiences like that: you can absolutely write a deaf character, but it’s better not to attempt what it is to be deaf, if you know what I mean. So, I think this character should definitely still voyage out of the clan and to gatherings, but perhaps she insists on only travelling with a good, reliable friend or isn’t the first to jump into spoken conversations (preferring to converse only when everyone is signing). Both of those things are very familiar experiences for many deaf people. 

3. if your sign language is simple and effective, there’s no reason for this premise of “not being able to sign well enough.” If, as you say, everyone knows the basics, there’s no excuse for a deaf character not to be able to participate in everyday and inter-clan events and conversations with everyone else. It just doesn’t make sense and does come across as looking for any reason to exclude a deaf character from the action. I don’t think this is intentional, but you can’t have your cake (have a sign language-enabled clan system) and eat it too (have a deaf character who doesn’t participate): if the setting is accommodating to disability, disabled characters can–and should–play a meaningful role in it.

4. how many other significant deaf characters are there in this world you’re creating? If the only one is Whiteflower in this form, that itself is a problem, because without other deaf characters who are outgoing and charismatic etc. as comparison, you can wind up portraying Whiteflower’s behaviour and demeanour as conflated with deafness itself. “Mainstream” characters (straight, able-bodied, white, etc.) are rarely put under this same pressure of representation and can have their identities viewed as separate from everything else about them, but if you don’t want to write only mainstream characters (which I can strongly recommend! It’s very good), you do have to think about how you’re portraying them and where it fits in the broader context of media and the real world. 

I don’t think you should give up on this character! But I do think these are things that need to be thought through, so that when you write her, you can write her as a complex and realistic deaf character. I hope this is helpful to you.