# Writing a nonverbal autistic character



## Dawson (Sep 12, 2014)

I'm writing a fantasy war novel (about people with some superpowers.) 

The rogue/spy in my group of rebels that fights against the corrupt king is a nonverbal autistic girl. 

Her name is Aika. She's around 19 years old. She can write in the language of her nation, but the only person who can read her language gets killed off almost immediately after they meet Aika, so writing to communicate with her is kinda shot down immediately. 

I'm not autistic, but I do live with intermittent psychogenic aphonia, which means I sometimes lose my voice because of really bad subconscious PTSD. So I know how to communicate with basic gestures, facial expressions, and drawing. 

But I want to figure out how to portray this all in a book. 

This character also has sound control/synesthesia transfer powers as her inborn power. She can make you hear music that matches her mood, and associate the colors and physical sensations that she sees and feels with that music. It's like being a musical empath. So to some degree, she communicates via music. (When I go mute, I kinda communicate my mood via whistling, or when I'm home, by playing the piano to the best of my poor ability.) 

But why I'm here is so I can learn learn how to integrate this all into an autistic character. 

I know how to kinda write a non-speaking character, since I have experience with being nonverbal at times. I have sensory issues, so I want to put that into Aika's character, since I know that's common with people on the autism spectrum. And I can have her send out blasts of piano keysmashes whenever she gets sensory overload, to show people how overwhelmed she is, I was thinking. (She can be super sensitive to noise, I was thinking, since she's kinda the noise control girl, it would make sense... Plus, that's one of my sensitivities, despite being allistic.) 

But what else would be good to integrate into her character? One of my autistic friends said I can mention her stimming during downtime between battles or during plotting the battles. 

Socially, she's going to be a bit shy, simply because she's self-conscious of her lack of speech, and that itself is going to lead to a lot of problems with her opening up to the rest of the rebels, I was thinking. Especially when one of them (the bard, of course) kind of goes a bit too far joking about her disability, and she slaps him and flips him off (sign language doesn't exist in this world, but "the finger" definitely does lol.) But then, one of the rebels gets to learn to communicate with her via drawing and mimed conversations. 

Do you think she'd be able to do mimed conversations? Do you think she'd be able to pick up on the nuances of facial expressions? Some autistic people can do this. Some can't. At least going by my circle of friends who are on the spectrum. 

But that's all I have. 

Would this character seem ok to you? Does she seem respectfully-written, is the important thing? I want a character that people can relate to and find empowering (aka not just another Hodor). How can I improve her and make her more realistic? How can I make her neurotype obvious without making her an offensive stereotype? 

Please let me know, especially if you're autistic yourself! <3


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## egpenny (Sep 12, 2014)

She could be a visual or literal thinker, seeing pictures in her mind of her thoughts might allow her to act out broad ideas in a charades or mime manner. 
You could introduce a character that is deaf or who knows sign language, and have them work out a simple method of communications.
Stimming is good, and it doesn't have to be flapping her hands, or something that obvious. Anything a normal person would do, but in excess, is stimming.
Sounds like you have an interesting project. Good luck with it.


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## JimJanuary (Sep 14, 2014)

Hey, I actually work in disability (mostly autism) and some of my clients are nonverbal. 
In terms of communication a lot of nonverbal clients are taught basic sign language from a young age (if they are taught at a specialist school). So a lot of my communication with these clients tends to be hand signals accompanied by a verbal direction. So for example if I were to direct someone to the bathroom I would say 'John, go to the toilet' and hold my hands together to form a T shape. Or if in the case of the client asking permission to go the toilet they would approach me and do the same hand gesture and possibly use their own word word for it, something like 'Toi-toi'.... or they might ignore me completely and just go to the toilet, haha. Anyway, I tend to find that nonverbal clients either communicate with their own language (often words sound similar to English) or in grunts and pointing.
In terms of facial expressions, I find that a lot of clients don't really pickup differences.... maybe if I exaggerated a frown or something, but I doubt it. The way I express variation in emotion to clients comes in the way I speak to them. So the tone and pitch of my voice tend to be the best way : ie: deeper voice when I'm being strict

So yeah, what I wrote probably sounds super clinical or something, but if you have any questions let me know


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## K.S. Crooks (Nov 8, 2014)

I first thought that sign language would be the natural next step, but this is difficult to show in print. Emoticons or pictograms are a fast way to convey ideas and you can show these in print. Having taught teens with different levels of aspergers, as a generality I find they have something that they are highly keen about and will do it as much as they are allowed, be it fixing computers, analyzing sport statistics or drawing. When they are in their element they can talk to anyone forever but out of it they are withdrawn. Trust is a huge factor in their behaviour, meaning whether they trust the person they are with Not to make fun of or belittle them. I think another character needs to go out of their way to show Aika support. This will open the door. Hope this sparks some ideas. Good luck.


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## Morkonan (Nov 9, 2014)

Dawson said:


> ...How can I make her neurotype obvious without making her an offensive stereotype? ..



Nobody is going to care about her "neurotype." Unless you are trying to write this character as a guide for people to use when identifying autism spectrum disorders, don't even bother broaching the subject in your story. The only thing the Reader will care about is whether or not the character is well-written. If you happen to give a Reader enough clues for them to diagnose the character, consider that a bonus. But, if you try to force the issue and try very hard to overtly depict autism, you're character is going to suffer. One of the things that people dislike the most when viewing or reading a story about someone with a neurological problem is too much emphasis on the person's disabilities or different-abilities.  What endears such a character/person to most readers and viewers is how much like a normal person they are, despite those differences.

If you want the character to appeal to the Reader you must demonstrate that, though they have a disability or even different abilities, they are still human beings with thoughts, emotions, desires and needs that are just like any other human being's. Let these empathetic qualities shine through, despite the character's problem. Those traits might be expressed differently or the character might even have unusual traits, but the basic qualities that make them human have to be visible, despite these differences. It is a very difficult thing to do, I admit. However, you have an advantage that you can use to, perhaps, reach past what a writer without your issues could write. Use your own knowledge of yourself to help display your character's true self to the Reader, despite their problems.



> ...How can I improve her and make her more realistic?..



I've been working on a story that includes a mute character. I even posted a request for some ideas on how to accomplish that in this Research forum. There were some decent responses, but I think the best format I found for presenting this character in a convincing way is very simple - She can not communicate anything more than very basic concepts.

What that means is that there is no omniscient narrator where she is concerned and the Reader never sees anything from her perspective. It is vital that this character remain mute for the purposes of the story and I've had to be very careful about how I communicate with this character. She... nods a lot.  She shakes her head a lot. She waves or claps her hands for attention. She points a lot. She grinds her teeth a bit in frustration. She smiles, sighs, clicks her tongue, whistles, makes popping noises with her mouth, slaps the side of her head, rubs her belly, hugs herself, pantomimes... But, in no instance is anything _ever_ directly communicated to the Reader. Instead, an observing character might note her gestures or ask her leading questions in order to derive better meaning from her response. There is _never_ any internal dialogue or introspection with this character - Absolutely _none_. If I resorted to that, it would "break" the character and she would become like Giordi on Star Trek: The Next Generation - A blind man who is not blind, thanks to an air-filter he wears across his face... :/ If at any time I broke the wall with this character, everything else I wrote about her would be _completely_ ruined. 

It's darn hard to write this character appropriately. 

So, what's the best way to "improve" or otherwise make your character "realistic?" Realism only exists in the mind of the Reader. Because of that, if you want a "mute" character, they can _never_ communicate to the Reader in any way. That means no introspection, no internal-dialogue, no cheesy mechanics to bypass their disabilities, no magic voices, no interpreters, nothing but what another character in the story observes. It is no so much that she must just remain mute to the other characters in the story as much as she must remain mute to the Reader. That is what matters!

With your "music projection" ability, you have a mechanic there that you're going to have to be careful with. I think it could be a wonderful one, though, and it's well worth exploring in interesting ways. I'm sure my character would love to have such an ability, but, alas, she's no super-human or mage.  However, with your character's ability, take care to only allow other characters to make very general interpretations of her musical projections. After all, they do not "speak" in music, so they're not going to be able to understand her very well. It may be possible that long-time cohorts could act as interpreters, but do not rely on this overly much. If you do, you'll be creating a character that is just the "puppet" of the interpreter and that would be a real shame.

There is an advantage that I've found with "mute" characters - The Reader can imagine such a character's emotions and desires with a much broader range of effects. If I successfully communicate something like love, hatred, friendship, desire, hunger, whatever... with that character, I can continue to gently sculpt that in certain directions, but the Reader is the one who will be able to take it to the level that they desire. If, for instance, I describe the character as smacking their lips and rubbing their belly, the Reader can decide whether or not she is peckish, hungry, starving or ravenous. If, however, I place a slight limit on just how hungry she is by including a few other descriptions or bits of questioning dialogue from another character, all I have done is placed a small limit on the Reader's interpretation. This is much like any writing, but the mechanic for this character is very different than just writing out "I'm hungry," she said.


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## Tayler12 (Jan 4, 2015)

Hey I have heard that very soon there will be a film based on the life of famous autistic people who have struggled a lot in their life. Well I know about most of famous autistic people but it’ll be nice to watch their story on big screen.


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