I am currently writing out an interactive Star Wars story and one of my characters is an Commander for a military outpost. I want him to be autistic, but I want to handle it appropriately. He is a great strategist and wins many battles, and he's very wise. I'm just not exactly sure how to go about it. I don't have much experience around autism, so I'm not exactly sure how to go about it.
Honestly, I would ditch this idea. I know most newbie writers are all "Write what you want! Don't let anybody stop you!" but autism is a real disorder that causes a lot of pain and problems for a lot of real people, and it's often handled very poorly in books/movies. There are real high-functioning autistic people out there writing novels with autistic characters, and I don't think we need neurotypical people without experience of autism adding their voices to the mix. One problem is how autism can be romanticised. Because of films like Rain Man, lots of neurotypicals think all autistic people have some special gift. They don't, and it can be a really damaging notion. Any autist who functions well enough to be the commander of a spaceship will probably fall into that romanticised view of the disorder.
Hi, and welcome to the forum! I agree with @Tenderiser's post entirely. However, there might be a practical way around your dilemma that allows you to write this character the way you want him to be. Why not just write his character as you have envisioned him, but don't give him a 'label.' Just let him be himself. Don't mention diagnosis of any kind regarding his personality. Just let him do what he does. You can certainly include markers for autism in his personal makeup, but just don't let on that's what you're doing. If people want to think he's autistic, that's fine. If people miss that connection, that's fine as well. You won't have to defend anything you've written. People talk about the autism 'spectrum' which means not every autistic person is the same. There are degrees of autism, same as anything else really. So just write him as a human being with certain strengths, weaknesses, failures and talents. Let the readers make up their own minds about him.
I would agree with this. Unless there's a specific reason why he needs to be 'labelled' then just don't do it. I don't agree with the sentiment that you need experience of autism to write a character with autism, but it does fall into the kind of thing where if you want to write a story about autism then you need to make it a story about autism, not just an autistic character throw in there. If you give someone a fairly substantial label like this and then it's just not a big deal in the plot then it begs the question why it's worth including it. I don't think that's unique to autism, I think that's just a good rule of thumb to have. Essentially; you shouldn't treat these labels as being labels, as things you can stick to a character and then leave alone. If you want to get into the nitty gritty of a subject then by all means delve deep into it. But if you don't then it's better just to not include it.
Yeah, not a mental illness. You need a baseline understanding of autism if you're going to do this. I am autistic and I had to cultivate that before I felt I could write an autistic character, because as has been mentioned, it's a 'spectrum' of things and no one person's experience of it is going to be the same as another's. There's actually a pretty great article written by forumite @mashers here that would be great place to start. Beyond that I always recommend research, research, research, when writing anything outside of your own experiences - and I'd start by asking autistic people, not writers, how to write an autistic character. Look for other articles and blog posts written by autists. Autistic writers? Even better. (There are a few of us on this forum, I know, but your vague/misleading thread title isn't likely to attract others' attention.)
Seconded or thirded or wherever we are on the "no diagnosis, write the character" thing. If you do a quick search, you'll find a large number of brilliant and famous people who exhibited characteristics of autism prior to it's being something that was classified and diagnosed. There are also fictional characters, such as Sherlock Holmes and Capt. Queeg (from The Caine Mutiny) who some have identified as having traits that might indicate being on the autism spectrum. Like any other spectrum, there's not only a lot of room for variety, but also for people (whether real or imaginary) who fall just outside of it while sharing several characteristics with those on the inside.
I don't think if you want to write a story with a character with autism the story has to be about autism. in fact, I would advise the exact opposite. People aren't defined by something like autism. It is not what they or their story are all about. And the same should be true for characters.
I totally second the recommendation to read @masher's article. Excellent source of information and stereotype-breaking. In fact, we have quite a number of people on this forum who identify as being 'on the spectrum.' I think that's fantastic.
I agree with all the 'not a mental illness' responses. I would add to this, however, that 'disorder' is falling out of favour too. People don't want to be labelled as 'disordered'. You wouldn't use the word 'disorder' to describe somebody who is non-heterosexual, or who is transgender. Autistic people don't want to be described as disordered either.
Yeah, that's why I, in a waffleish way, cited Google. Then I belatedly found it described as "neurodevelopmental difference". Workable?
Yeah, "neurodevelopmental difference" or "cognitive difference" are generally seen as ok. Anything that refers to it as a difference in brain wiring is more palatable than things like "disorder" or "illness".
Personally I'd consider this to be the worst kind of tokenism. It's putting a label on someone for the sake of having that label. Yes, I agree that people aren't defined by these things. But you need to ask why you're including things that don't impact the story. That's why I'd call it tokenism. Because if him being autistic doesn't impact the story then it's not pulling it's weight as an element of his character. And if it does impact the story then it's a story about that part of him, isn't it? To be blunt; why would you tell the reader about something that doesn't make a difference?
I agree with a lot of what's been said, and disagree with quite a few as well. I'm adding my voice to those who say that it's not a mental illness. It most definitely is not. I agree that it's more important to write a character than it is to give them labels. I don't know if I'm considered a 'newbie' writer, but I'm still going to advocate that you can write whatever you want. You'll give yourself better odds if you don't do certain things, but it's still your story so the choice of what you're writing becomes more about your end goal as to what you should and shouldn't do. I do not agree that naming a character's traits means the whole story has to be about that or it's not pulling its weight. People are people and they have traits and characteristics that are a big part of how they react to situations, but that doesn't mean the story is (or should be) about that. I have characters with depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma from abuse, etc. - those things are important to see the world as the character does, to understand their reactions to things that happen to them, but the stories are most definitely not about those things, and they don't need to be. I agree that if you're going to name it you have a duty to research and portray it to the best of your ability, but that's an integrity thing, and your level of integrity may be different than mine. I do not have autism. My son does, and I can tell you that it annoys the hell out of him when a book makes the whole story about it. It bothers him that the character becomes less 'a person' and more a 'person with autism'. He's a person, that's all. So, for him, portraying a character with those traits, even naming them autism, is not offensive. It becomes offensive to him when it's portrayed as the struggle and plot of the story rather than an insight into why the character does what they do. He does not consider his differences to be a struggle. They certainly can be at times, but those things are just pieces of who he is, and for him at least, it's no different than writing a neuro-typical person who reacts to stimuli differently than the neuro-typical person next to them because of different life experiences. And, of course, these are my opinions, and the opinions of my son (with whom I've had many conversations on this topic) and I'm not in any way attempting to speak for anyone but us.
But if it effects how that character sees the world and reacts to it then it's something we need to know. That was my point. If it effects how the character thinks and acts then that's information that matters and we should be told. What I can't stand seeing is a character being written as "they have autism but they act exactly the same as everyone else" . If he's actually characterised as being autistic then no problem. If we are just informed he's autistic then that's tokenism. If he's written the same as everyone else that's tokenism. If you want to include it you have a duty to actually include it, not just say the name. Edit to add - I just think it's really disingenuous to say "This is a story about someone who's autistic, by the way him being autistic is not relevant to the story". That doesn't mean I think that every autistic character must be in a story exclusively about autism; just that they need to actually be a character who is autistic. It's part of their character so it's part of their story, just by definition. It's part of who they are. It colours their experiences. It's part of them. How can autism not be part of the story of an autistic character? No, I don't think that's their whole story. But it's part of their story. Just as the having PTSD and anxiety is part of your character's stories. Not the whole story. They aren't stories about those things. But those things are still a part of the story they are in; they are in part about how PTSD and anxiety effect them. They must be because, well, they effect how your characters see the world; we see the effects of them in their lives, even in a story that's not wholly about them. Deadrats' implication, that you should just write a story about something else is what annoyed me because whatever else the story is about it's still a story with an autistic character; a story that will in part be about how autism effects them. If an autistic character's story doesn't include them being autistic then that is tokenism. If an autistic character's story does include them being autistic then that's fine, except that it's also in part about autism. It's not about autism; it's not only about autism. But of the many things that this story is about, autism is one of them.
Uh-huh. That's what I said. What are you arguing with? Who said this part that you put in quotes? I re-read the whole thread and I don't see where anyone said this, so I'm unclear where your point is. You said: @deadrats said Then you said I don't know if you were reading between his lines, making assumptions, or just didn't understand what he meant. He didn't say it wasn't important, and neither did I for that matter. He said that it doesn't have to be the story. And I agree. Who said it wasn't relevant to the story? Where did anyone at all say that it wasn't relevant? In fact what I said was - (new emphasis added for clarity) Where does that say it's not relevant? And where is it being disingenuous? It doesn't? Then where is the disagreement? Isn't that what I said and what @deadrats said? Or does it sound better when you say it? You seem to be basing your entire argument off of a quote that I can't even find in the thread?
There isn't actually a disagreement; I was just trying to clarify that when I said "a story about autism" I didn't mean "a story just about autism" which seemed to be what both of you took it to mean.
So you quoted me, started your sentence with "But...", repeated what I said in your own words and then edited to add that it was disingenuous to do something that no one suggested should be done --- to clarify your own statement?
It was deadrats saying to write a story about anything other than autism that I read to meant "have an autistic character but don't include autism in the story". The way you said you write characters with PTSD in stories not about PTSD that seemed to be saying the same thing, when you then went on to say how PTSD matters to those characters. My point was that if PTSD matters to the character and to their story it's a book about that, just not exclusively about that, maybe only tangentially about that. But seriously, I don't want to argue with you if we agree.
I wasn't saying the same thing, or actually.... I was saying the same thing he said just not with your spin. Neither of us said not to include it anywhere. The point was that they have something, but they are more than that thing they have. They are not defined by it. Which is what he said, and what I said, and apparently what you're saying now? Glad that's cleared up.
