I am currently working on a story that involves the main character being a mute. However, there are a few factors about her mutism that I'm trying to find answers for. To which I could possibly be searching the wrong things on Google, and therefore, not finding the answers I want. Here's the thing: My character was not born with any defects that cause her mutism. Until she was roughly 6-8 years old, she was a normal happy girl. Until she experienced a traumatic event at sea that costs the lives of her parents. I plan on going with the idea that she screamed for hours until she couldn't anymore. And given that she was at sea when this happened, she ends up becoming extremely ill, which only complicates matters. Fast forward several years (think late teenager) and she is still a mute, unable to speak or make any sounds. Here is where I'm struggling, in one of the scenes I'm considering, the only way she can be saved is by managing to scream. Something that she shouldn't be able to do as a mute. Is it possible for her to regain enough of her voice to scream? Realistically I know that it won't mean she can suddenly speak all over again. I mostly need her to make some kind of vocal sound so she can be saved that has to be heard through the house (she's locked away and her savior is trying to find her while time is running out). I know people can be rendered mute through trauma, and that's the angle I'm going with. I'm just curious if its possible for her to be able to scream after being mute for a good 10 to 12 years? A little context for the story to help answer any questions: 1. This is set back in the early Victorian age. Lanterns are still the main source of light, and water has to be carted from a stream or water source. And most of the cooking is done over an open fire. 2. Although the house she's in is of Noble blood, they're low ranking Nobles with limited funds. 3. Medicine is not very advanced in this culture, as given the time frame. As trauma isn't even addressed at these times, she's mostly referred to being "broken", "stupid", and "useless". And given the amount of treatment she may need, the Nobles have decided not to invest their money in her. 4. She is unfortunately, a victim of abuse in the Noble household, which only complicates her trauma. She does suffer from a form of PTSD or C-PTSD.
If severe trauma rendered her mute, then most likely severe trauma will help her find her voice, too. But then this must represent a turning point in her life. An awakening of sorts. Especially if it's her voice that saves her.
It would be realistically possible for her to scream. It would not be very loud, and her throat would hurt a lot, but she could do it if pressed far enough. I don't think she could produce a sound as loud as would be needed for the story, however. From my own experience, your throat becomes raw from not speaking after only a few days and it hurts a lot once you try/start talking again. Also, at least for me, I'll still make soft sounds if surprised or upset (crying, for example) I'm not complete silent, I just can't form words. Not that it's that simple, I just don't know how to explain in a way that might make sense. I've written four characters who deal with some type of mutism, all for different lengths of time and reasons. The best advice I can give you is to do as much research as you, and if possible find a few people who have some time of personal experience. It's different for everyone, and what works for one won't work for another. Also, please, make it meaning something when your MC is able to find her voice again. It will mean a lot for her, and wasting it will be easer than you might think.
I do plan on the event being a turning point in her life. I'm just trying to figure out exactly what I would need to do to make it believable that she would regain her voice at this moment when she's been unable to speak thus far. This is where I'm struggling, I need her scream to be loud enough to be heard, but I want it to a realistic moment. I know as an author I can take some creative liberty, but I don't want to risk upsetting any readers who will call me out for my bullshit. My initial idea was her screaming would take everything, in her ability to scream, it further complicates her ability to communicate. That the scream could have possibly done damage to her unused vocal cords. Seeing as I am not a doctor, I'm trying to do some research on the subject, but a lot of the results I'm getting center around mental abuse or some sort of birth defect that would cause her mutism. And I know a mute gentleman, that with the help of a coworker, I've been able to ask a few questions without being too... offensive? But unfortunately, he's been deaf and mute since birth and cannot offer me the viewpoint I'm trying to achieve. I am still grateful to him though, as he was able to give me cues to use with the character that a lot of mutes struggle with. As I stated to Louanne Learning, I do plan on making this whole scene something climatic. A turning point in her life that signifies several things. And the emotional turmoil that comes with it. I don't want to waste the scene, as I plan on it being one of the most important scenes in the book. But I'm afraid in my ignorance I may do something that'll destroy the scene and the connection the readers have to this character. In my mind, I want readers to react. To have some type of emotion when she finds her voice. Even if so briefly.
It reminds me somewhat of two things. There's an episode of Buffy called Hush, where strange monster-men have stolen the voices of everyone in the town, and there's a prophecy where the princess needs to find her voice in order to restore everyone else's voice. Buffy becomes the princess and she 'finds her voice' in one huge scream that brings sound back into what was until that moment "The silent Buffy episode". I think it's in season 4. Interesting theme—Whedon was exploring the idea that when they talk people say a lot of nothing (in full Buffyspeak), mostly to avoid their real feelings, but when silent they reveal their true feelings and motivations. It's subtext brought right to the surface. A very interesting idea from a writing standpoint. He also said (in the commentary track on the DVD) that he does this a lot throughout the show. People talk about the Buffyspeak and how good the dialogue is, but he said it's usually a smoke screen, and a lot of the important things are happening visually or subliminally. That was very eye-opening and made me take the show and him a lot more seriously. You can buy the episode for $1.99 here. If you have Amazon Prime you can watch it free here. The other one is the movie Body Double where Jake Scully is an actor with a couple of phobias. One is claustrophobia, the other something like PTSD with a freeze mode. When fear throws him into a flashback he's essentially paralyzed, unable to move, and often what's needed in such a situation is to be able to move. I personally have (had?) CPTSD with a freeze mode, and have experienced emotional flashbacks that made me freeze up, and at times specifically made me unable to speak, in situations where I very much needed to. But I haven't had a problem with it for many years now. I learned how to deal with my insecurities and I deliberately faced many of my fears. Look into something called exposure therapy—exposing a person in small controlled doses to the things that frighten them so they gradually get over the fears. I toughened up emotionally and developed techniques to deal with the incidents. I can't say for sure if I'm completely over it. It's possible it could still happen if I'm in a powerful enough situation, but if so it hasn't happened in a long time. If you want I could PM you and give you some details.
I just watched Hush, and I had never realized that Tara, the character who's introduced in this episode, is essentially silent all the time, because she's so shy and downcast. In a way she's the central character, because silence characterizes her life until she meets Willow and they discover they share a love of wiccan magic and are both lesbians, and apparently the wiccan magic stands in as a sort of proxy for the lesbianism. It's amazing how Whedan can make things stand in for other things. He's a master of symbolism and subtext both. Oh, and by the end she's found her voice, has begun to express her attraction to Willow, and no longer feels the need to look down and remain silent all the time anymore. In a sense she's the real princess of the prophecy, not Buffy. I never noticed that aspect of it before. He also did a musical episode (he's a huge fan of both silent movies and musicals), and on that commentary track he said you need to make sure each song actually moves the story forward or adds to the characterization or expresses something about relationships. All of these are things included in showing. And what he says about songs in the musical applies as well to the pure action scenes (scene) in Hush as well. The silent scenes advanced those things beautifully, whereas at the beginning and end when people were dialoguing like crazy they were all talking past each other or saying a lot of nothing. Hopefully there's something in all of that that might help you find ideas for your story.
Just wondering, because of her selective mutism, has she been in therapy to deal with the underlying anxiety at the heart of it?
I barely remember this episode of Buffy, so I may honestly end up going back and rewatching it to see if I can get any sort of inspiration/useful information from it. And I wouldn't mind hearing more about your experience with CPTSD but don't want to force anything upon you. I leave the decision up to you entirely. She has not. This is mostly because of the time period the story is set in, and because of her current living situation. I set my story somewhere in the 1700-1800s timeline (so far). So given this, therapy is not something that would easily be available to the character. Not to mention she is a servant in a rather low ranking Noble household. To them, she is broken and stupid, which is why she can't speak. The head of the household doesn't see any reason to seek out a cure for her, instead deeming it a waste of "valuable resources". Bit of a spoiler, but it's not until she meets another character that she starts to realize how severe her abusive situation is, and that with work, she can overcome these things.
There was an episode of the old American television series Hotel that had this as one of the three story arcs in that episode. The mute was a girl of about 20 years of age. She wasn't mute due to any physical impairment, and that was crucial to the story. She was mute as a result of a psychological trauma that had occurred when she was a young child. The breakthrough that allowed -- in fact, compelled -- her to regain her voice was another psychological trauma in the making. I don't know how it works with your story, but my suggestion would be to plant seeds throughout to reinforce the fact that she is not physically mute, she is psychologically blocked from speaking. That may make it more understandable when it becomes urgent for her to find her voice again.
I've already been laying seeds to help readers understand this fact. Although subtle in most of the scenes, there is the underlying fact that she's haunted by trauma. It's mentioned how she relives the horrors of her parents death nightly. Waking up with the scream in her throat but no sounds coming out. Since I have the other characters seeing her as being "stupid" and "broken", I wanted to find a way to express her side without there being an overload of someone saying "She's a mute."
Have you ever seen the Ingmar Bergman film The Silence? I almost mentioned this one earlier, and in some ways it shares things in common with the episode of Buffy I mentioned, though of course Bergman is a powerful dramatic artist, and Whedon was possibly riffing on his work in Hush. It's hard to say exactly what it's about—Bergman was a Christian whose faith had lapsed, and he felt an intense loss where once he had heard God's voice. This is what the term silence supposedly refers to, but this trailer explains a few other ways of looking at it that I think are equally valid: The scene @ about 00:13, where she's looking out the train window and you hear the whistle, that's a very powerful moment in the film. She has bouts of mutism, and at times falls into what appear to be epileptic siezures where she screams but no sound comes out. This thin broken whistle from outside seems to be her lost voice echoing back at her from the external world. But you'd have to see the movie to understand. If Hush explored the idea that we use language to baffle communication, and that real connection happens in silence (in subtext, or in scene?), this movie brings in the realm of cheap sexual exploits as a substitute for actual human connectedness. It's extremely powerful, but you know, it's Bergman, so it's artsy, foreign, and pretty esoteric. Not sure if you're into that kind of stuff. All my recommendations have been movies or TV shows, which of course are audio-visual media and so use a different range than we have available as writers, but personally I think that's a good way to approach things. You have to translate the ideas, or similar ones, into the written word in effective ways, and I think that keeps it fresh. EDIT—Oh, I just rememberd, and this will help in understanding the movie (and a few others of his as well)—one woman is an intellectual (a movie critic I think, or something close?) and the other lives entirely through the body. In his films intellectuals are sickly and dying, because they're out of touch with the real physical world. I think they represent two warring aspects of himself, or of artists in general.
Here we go—took me a while to find this, but it's one of the powerful scenes: Ingmar Bergman - Silence (1963)
I don't see any issues with this. I'm assuming her scream is near the end, and it is a pivotal moment not only in her current situation but also her healing process from the trauma? If so, I would consider have a scene earlier on where she desperately needs to scream but can't, that way there's some juxtaposition between the beginning and end state of her character.
