Writing a Disabled Character but Avoiding Tokenism

So I've been thinking of making a minor character (possibly just making an appearance in one scene but he influences the plot and is mentioned at other points) blind. Part of this also gives me opportunity to elaborate on certain aspects of the setting, but I'm worried it could seem a little token-y or even a little like the character is Inspirationally Disadvantaged.

• He's a pretty skilled person (he happens to have a pretty powerful position in government) but I worry that writing something like "You would have had no idea he was blind except for the lack of eye contact, etc." could end up sounding a little offensive.
• Any tips for this?

I say never worry about tokenism, ever. The other problem can be tackled thusly:

-The person is not incomplete due to a disability. -The person, if being able to see suddenly, would not be suddenly happy forever. It would be DIFFERENT. Not better. -No matter what the disability is (even up to thinks like merely being 6' 6") the world was not made for them. There will be some things that are just tougher to do. Make sure to always keep that in mind and incorporate it. -People adapt. No one is going to be emo about their issues for ten years, unless they have other issues for other reasons (I could have been the best football player ever lets watch tapes of 16 year old me).

The story doesn't really deal with his personal life very much, so I don't have to worry about over Angsting it up in that respect. Something I've heard said about adding more racial diversity to media is to think of characters as (they used this example in the case of race) character + black or character + white. So I should you that in this case as well? The whole him being blind IS used to add a bit of diversity, but what he's intended to be is just a character who 'happens to be blind'

Well what you want to avoid is reminding the audience that he is blind. When writing him/her don't think: "I'm writing a character that's blind", think: "I'm writing a character that's funny/serious/happy" -or whatever personality defines him. Then,go back over your work and look for what this character can/can't accomplish with this disability and fix any things that he wouldn't otherwise be able to accomplish, and without outright stating, "Because he is blind" If he is unable to react to something because he is unable to see, have him say -if anything at all- "What happened?" Rather than, "His blindness kept him from seeing X". In otherwords, say it once (three times in a row technically but you know what I mean,) then unless the story calls upon it, try to keep it subtle from there on, out.

So at some point I should explicitly mention that he is blind, but Show, Don't Tell for the rest of it?

edited 29th Oct '13 9:10:53 AM by TheMuse

Sure. When you're introducing him you might want to mention for example, that he's wearing blue jeans, a blue t-shirt, a raincoat and a cane, scanning the ground in front of him for obstacles. You could also write about how he gets around and performs daily tasks, my bff is blind and he has a way of pouring himself a cup of something. He'll put his palm over the top of the glass to judge how full it is. He also has a braille-lite, a portable computer device that has receptacles that read out in braille. It's really neat. Again, make his blindness secondary.

edited 30th Oct '13 8:25:15 AM by wabbawabbajack