Thread: Writers with Aspergers Syndrome

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?

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.

I know a very good writer with Asperger's.

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.

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.

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."

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"?

spidey -

Yes.

Olly -

How does one measure success?

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

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.

How does one measure success?

In terms of writing, read, published, appreciated.

Originally Posted by The Backward OX

spidey -

Yes.

What did you think of it?

Originally Posted by spider8

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.

Originally Posted by Robert_S

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?

Originally Posted by Eluixa

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.

Originally Posted by Robdemanc

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.