# Writers with Aspergers Syndrome



## Robdemanc (Jun 18, 2011)

Hi.  I have apsergers syndrome and am worried that I am having trouble writing about my characters emotional reactions to events.    I can deal with the typical emotions like happiness and sadness and anger.   But I have trouble understanding more subtle emotions like scepticism, or distrust, and even fear.

I know I cannot tell the reader the emotions of my main characters and fret that I will fall short.

Any advice?


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## Eluixa (Jun 18, 2011)

Do you feel distrust, fear or skepticism yourself? Does it change your actions in any way? You would have a hard time reading it in others, right? But I think you can work with how it affects you, and when, and apply it thusly. I might suggest, if you are not doing it already, to write in third person. What is the opposite of omnicient? More like opaque. Use actions to suggest emotion, and don't allow your reader to be in the characters head if you can't.


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## alanmt (Jun 18, 2011)

I know a very good writer with Asperger's.


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## The Backward OX (Jun 18, 2011)

As a fellow Aspie, I think it unfair to ask others, who are perhaps NTs, for advice on this issue.

It’s fairly-well known that AS covers such a wide range of behaviours or symptoms that it’s well-nigh impossible to describe a typical “sufferer”.

My own take on happy and sad is that they don’t exist, which puts me at odds with you, and yet we are both supposedly Aspies.

On the other hand, I go along with your trouble understanding scepticism and distrust, as I am an extremely naïve person. 

Some people say that AS doesn’t exist. My own doctor believes autism generally to be vastly over-diagnosed.

It’s generally accepted that Aspies experience many of the same emotions as do neurotypicals; our difficulty lies only in expressing those emotions to others. If this is so for all Aspies, and I see no reason why it wouldn’t be, then I can’t accept your remark that you can’t tell the reader how your main characters feel. *You* have the feelings, so you can put yourself in a character’s shoes and act for them. 

*Perhaps* you need to stop talking what is *possibly* nonsense to yourself, swallowing what others have told you, and just get on with your writing without questioning whether or not something is holding you back. Note the qualifiers.


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## spider8 (Jun 19, 2011)

Rob and Oxy; 

Have either of you guys read _The_ _Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time _by Mark Hadden? It was told in first person by the MC who's an aspie.


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## Rustgold (Jun 19, 2011)

Maybe you should consider what type of book you'd be best at writing.  For instance, I'd never write a romance, simply because I don't get it.  I'm sure that I'd hate even trying it _(although I might see it as a challenge, at least for a short story)_.



> Quote Ox : "*Perhaps* you need to stop talking what is *possibly* nonsense to yourself, and just get on with your writing without questioning whether or not something is holding you back."


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## Olly Buckle (Jun 19, 2011)

Good point spider8, I guess that's an example of "write what you know", though I always think that's a rather mis-used phrase, maybe "Write what you understand" is more like, plumbers can write successful international, action adventure, spy thrillers, that doesn't mean they are spies and have been there. Everybody is different and has, to some extent, a different point of view. Writing about the differences and making them understandable to others is maybe what makes something literature and writing about the things known and held in common what makes "easy reading"?


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## The Backward OX (Jun 19, 2011)

spidey -

Yes.

Olly -

How does one measure success?


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## Robert_S (Jun 19, 2011)

The Backward OX said:


> My own take on happy and sad is that they don’t exist, which puts me at odds with you, and yet we are both supposedly Aspies.



This is an interesting statement. I've always considered happy and sad to be foundational emotions, the base from which we build up. If they don't exist, there is a whole gamut of emotions that won't exist as a result: ecstasy, despair, remorse, glee, etc.


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## Olly Buckle (Jun 19, 2011)

> How does one measure success?



In terms of writing, read, published, appreciated.


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## spider8 (Jun 19, 2011)

The Backward OX said:


> spidey -
> 
> Yes.


What did you think of it?


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## Robdemanc (Jun 19, 2011)

spider8 said:


> Rob and Oxy;
> 
> Have either of you guys read _The_ _Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time _by Mark Hadden? It was told in first person by the MC who's an aspie.



I didn't know the author was an aspie.   I have read that book but was not convinced the character has Aspergers syndrome.   He seemed to be much lower functioning.


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## Robdemanc (Jun 19, 2011)

Robert_S said:


> This is an interesting statement. I've always considered happy and sad to be foundational emotions, the base from which we build up. If they don't exist, there is a whole gamut of emotions that won't exist as a result: ecstasy, despair, remorse, glee, etc.



Why don't you think those emotions exist?


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## Robdemanc (Jun 19, 2011)

Eluixa said:


> Do you feel distrust, fear or skepticism yourself? Does it change your actions in any way? You would have a hard time reading it in others, right? But I think you can work with how it affects you, and when, and apply it thusly. I might suggest, if you are not doing it already, to write in third person. What is the opposite of omnicient? More like opaque. Use actions to suggest emotion, and don't allow your reader to be in the characters head if you can't.



Thanks.  I am already using third person.  I would hate to use first person.    I suppose I worry about saying things to myself like:  "How would I react in that situation."  Because my head usually goes blank.    I am using actions to express emotion but wonder if I am limiting to a few obvious emotional states.    I think sometimes I need my character to show more sophisticated emotions.


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## Robert_S (Jun 19, 2011)

Robdemanc said:


> Why don't you think those emotions exist?



I do think they exist. Ox put forth the idea that happy and sad don't exist, but in my mind, happy and sad are base level emotions. From there, we can feel ecstacy and despair as simply heightened emotional states of happy and sad, respectively. 

Case in point, despair is a complete loss of hope, paraphrasing the dictionary definition. Sad, a state of grief or unhappiness (I hate when the dictionary defines a word by the opposite of its antonymn) is usually a state brought about by loss or deprival. It seems resonable to think that despair stems from a feeling of sadness taken to a greater extent.


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## Ms. Poe (Jul 8, 2011)

I have AS, and here's a tip-read. Find the most emotional books you can and read them. Even if you haven't had those emotions personally, you at least have a description that might help you a little. Hope that made sense-sometimes I'm not good at advice giving...


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## Aspie Writer (Aug 6, 2012)

I think there may be a big misconception that Aspie's don't feel emotions as other's do. I think it is that we actually feel them much more strongly (for it anyway) than others. But we have difficulty in expressing them to other people. When learning to write fiction, my misunderstanding of other people was highlighted when I was learning to write character sketches. I realized that I really didn't know what motivated other people to do the things they did. My attempt at writing "consistently inconsistent" characters let me in a ball of tears realizing that I understood others much less than I thought I did. That was painful. However, I felt that pain, and using how that feels to me I can try to describe the emotional pain my characters feel. I have to admit that it is a challenge and it always requires my pulling an experience similar to the surface to feel things again before describing them. This is truly why writing is like cutting open a vein.

On a positive note, although many times I do not think others will find my characters believable, it was usually only my perception and insecurity. I wish you much luck, just keep plowing forward, keeping working on it and never ever give up.

~Aspie Writer

Link removed by admin


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## The Backward OX (Aug 6, 2012)

There seems to be a misconception that good writing must contain emotional scenes, or if not entire scenes, at least lines of dialogue that show the characters’ feelings. 

I don’t know that I agree. For those readers who equate emotion with good writing, perhaps that is the case; but I am certain there are many readers who will read page after page of unemotional prose and be content. Before age and health conspired against me, I had been messing about with a novel containing little or no emotional stuff; bits and pieces of it have been posted on this site over time, and while there had been criticism of other aspects of my writing, I don’t recall anyone ever saying it left them flat.


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## JosephB (Aug 6, 2012)

If you want people to relate to your characters on some level and understand them -- and ultimately care about what happens to them -- then readers need to know how they feel about things. Maybe the bits and pieces you posted weren't enough to give people a good sense of whether or not that was missing.


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## The Backward OX (Aug 6, 2012)

When I read a book, I don’t really give a toss about the characters. And I certainly never try to understand them. Books are for reading, not analysing.


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## Kevin (Aug 6, 2012)

Perhaps your stories evoked things without you realizing it. We ( the readers) put ourselves in the position of the Mc.


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## Cran (Aug 7, 2012)

Hi *Aspie Writer*, and welcome to WF. 

I've read a lot of novels which include all sorts of Forewords and introductory pages, and common among them is an Acknowledgments page (or sometimes two). I've also read quite a few novels which were co-authored. 

For writers who have difficulty with some aspect of the craft, a difficulty not easily overcome through the normal paths of empirical learning or practice, then _consultation_ and _collaboration_ are quite suitable options. 

This is true even for writers who don't have any difficulty. 

*OX*, you're a rare breed.


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## JosephB (Aug 7, 2012)

The Backward OX said:


> When I read a book, I don’t really give a toss about the characters. And I certainly never try to understand them. Books are for reading, not analysing.



With good writing, the understanding comes without analysis.


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## TimK (Aug 7, 2012)

Aspie Writer said:


> I realized that I really didn't know what motivated other people to do the things they did. My attempt at writing "consistently inconsistent" characters let me in a ball of tears realizing that I understood others much less than I thought I did.



I've found that writing and reading fiction has taught me an incredible amount about other people and about human nature generally. That feeling of "OMG! I'm completely incapable of reading other people's minds!"... Many people (especially NTs) go happily through life never realizing that other people are usually way different than they are, usually think different thoughts than they do, because of different lives and different personalities and different experiences. So I'm not sure this is really an Aspie/NT thing; it's a human thing. And that humility is the first step to mastery. It's the ignoramus who thinks he knows everything; the expert knows that he doesn't know all that much.

That said, I believe it is possible to write compelling, realistic characters, even characters who are different than you are. It's a topic area too complex to go into here—and teaming up with another writer who has a knack for writing characters can certainly help here—but I do believe there are organizing principles and ways of thinking about character psychology (which mirrors human psychology) that enable a writer to create interesting characters, even if he can't "feel" those characters in his gut.

Keep writing!
-TimK


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