I have a colourblind character and I'm kinda messed up on keeping it clear in my text whether it's the actual colour or the colour my character is seeing without it making it complicated in my wording or explain in parenthesis.
There are a few factors that are going to affect how this will work in the story.
POV:
Is this story in the First Person Perspective? (Told from the focalising character’s direct point of view, using ‘I’ statements, eg. “I looked at the apple, and wondered whether it was red or green”)
If the story is written in FPP, then the information we get about colours will be directly related to the character’s perception. If your character is (for example) red-green colourblind, and sees everything in the red-green spectrum as a murky brown colour, then that will effect the way that they are able to describe the colours of things they see.
I grabbed a shirt from the closet, one of my favourites, as I held it up to my torso it looked nice to me, just about the same shade of brown as my chinos.
“Oh god, you’re not wearing that!” My sister exclaimed.
“Sure I am, it’s my favourite!”
“It’s green!” She shook her head in distaste.
“So?” I said.
“Your chinos are red! You look like one of Santa’s elves!”
If the story is in Third Person Perspective, (He did this, she went there, they did that) then it will be a little different, the character’s perception of colour is one part of the information available to the narration in describing a scene.
Character picked out their favourite shirt, which seemed a nice, neutral brown to them, but was actually a vibrant green.
The thing that changes Third Person Perspective is:
Narrative Depth/ Distance
As well as knowing who your focalising character is in a story told in the Third Person Perspective, the ‘distance’ that the narration has from that character’s particular POV is going to inform the amount of information available to the narration.
A ‘closely’ focalised narrative means that while it is told in the third person, it is restricted to the knowledge that the character themselves has, so if your character cannot differentiate between two colours, then the narrative at that point will not be able to inform the reader of which colour is what until the character discovers that information.
A ‘distant’ narrative focalisation means that the narration has access to more information than the character, and can comment on the character’s mistakes, and misunderstandings in ‘real time’, commentating alongside the action.
Narrative depth occurs in degrees, from being so tight to the character that we know nothing beyond their perceptions and understandings, to being broad enough that the whole ‘universe’ of the story is able to be referenced at any point.
Note: In First Person Perspective, the assumed narrative depth is the character’s knowledge, and so the ‘effect’ of narrative depth can be achieved with the use of ‘hindsight’, so rather than the story being told ‘as it happens’ the character narrating their story is telling it from a place removed from the events of the story, ie, sitting down later to explain what happened, with the benefit of hindsight to say ‘I couldn’t tell what colour the wires were, so I had to take a guess and I snipped the green instead of the red, big mistake!’
So. This information, the colours of things as they ‘really’ are in the story, versus what the character perceives the colours to be are like many detail of worldbuilding. The importance is not in the colour itself, not in the precise detail, but in what that detail tells us about the world of the story, and about the way that the character fits into, navigates, and affects the world around them.
What is more important? The colour, or the perception of colour? The facts, or the character’s understanding? This will change, story to story, author to author. But if you know what your priorities are in telling the story, then you can better craft your prose to do what you need it to.
I hope this helps (and sorry it took forever to get to your question!)
