Aspie authors writing social interaction

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I was published last month, in an anthology made by the local municipality. Several in the area has worked together on making one each, and the over all project involved 600 contributing writers. It doesn't feel as good as it should.

Just to weigh in...I'm in college and have won awards for my poetry and prose. I've got a book of poems out, too. My fiction has been published in literary magazines, and in my fiction workshops, I consistently am praised by teachers and students alike for my natural, realistic dialogue.

I think, as aspies, we are able to know what natural dialogue sounds like - it's just hard to replicate in actual life, when social anxiety gets in the way.

Effie

I enjoyed going through this thread. I've written some erotic fiction that's been on the web for a while, it's a specific fetish so I won't go into it here. Yesterday I started writing a story I've had kicking around in my head for a while, it does feature an Aspie as the protagonist, he's like me though, just touched by the spectrum enough to not fit in anywhere. Here's the first chapter if anyone cares to read it.

One thing I loved about some of Stephen King's early work was that the stories just moved. His more recent stuff can go for chapters with basically nothing happening, I like for stuff to actually happen. That's what I'm going for here, action, movement. Descriptions and character development are filled in as the story moves, but they'll still be light, I want the reader to fill in details in his head. The first chapter takes place about a third of the way through the chronological story.

Wrong Cog in the Machine

Cog sat in the staging area going over his mental checklist. He liked the dim lighting, it made his thinking easier. His hydraulic seals were good and his engine was running at peak efficiency as far as he could tell. His fuel wouldn’t last long at full exertion, he planned to end this quickly and efficiently using surprise to his advantage. He looked up to scan his fellow “lambs.” All seven of them stopped talking to return his gaze. They didn’t know what to make of Cog, his armor was in good repair and actually seemed to work, most of them were wearing armor that was made to look powered though anyone who knew even a little about the subject could see that it wasn’t. The few sets of actual powered armor among them were cheap and in horrible shape. They all expected to die within minutes in the arena. Cog had the look of somebody who was actually preparing to fight.
“You think you have a shot of winning or something?” one of them said as he adjusted his helmet. This guy was constantly adjusting his helmet, it was too big for his head and had only two eye slits to see through.
“My armor is in perfect working condition, it’s strength is rated higher than Flash’s and it’s powered by old tech with no EMP vulnerability. Yes I plan on winning.” Cog took off his helmet so they could hear him better. “I’ll make your deaths quick as soon as we exit into the arena to piss off Flash and put him off his game. I expect him to rush me and I’m going to take advantage.”
“Hey, you’re Cog from the Historical Games!” exclaimed an old-timer among them. “Sure, I’d rather die to you than Flash, my family gets paid the same either way.” Several of the others nodded in agreement.
“I’m not going to lay down for anybody, I may not have a shot but I want to at least get a good lick in before I die.” mumbled a short one with a sledge hammer.
“I want you all to attack me as soon as we enter the arena, it will make me look like the primary threat instead of Flash. He’ll get very upset. I’ll need your sledgehammer to take him down, I would have brought one myself but I’m barely under weight as it is and could only bring Heather.” Cog showed them his machete, It was a big one with the corners of the tip of it machined down to give it a point. It looked like a poor man’s version of a gladius, the short sword that ancient Roman soldiers used.
Shifting helmet guy piped in “I bet my prize money that I’d last two minutes, I got really good odds. It should take good care of my family for a long time.”
This set off a chorus of insults from the others. “Idiot!” “Sucker bet!” “How’s your family going to do with nothing moron!” Shifting helmet guy asked “You named your sword Heather?”
Cog spoke over them “Did anybody else make a bet like that?” Everybody but shifting helmet guy shook their heads “no” along with a smattering of indignant looks that said “Do I look stupid or something?”
Cog looked at shifting helmet guy and said “Fine, I’ll kill you last. You’ll get your two minutes.”
The blaring siren that signalled it was almost time caused the combatants to get off the benches and head to the entry gate. Any fighting before going through that gate would void the prize money of anyone involved and no one wanted to risk that. They were all here out of desperation, all but one of them figured they were worth more dead than alive.
The gates opened and Flash burst into the arena, the crowd went wild. About 100 meters away on the opposite side of the circular arena Cog and the lambs entered. Flash was an up and coming combatant, a rising star. His sponsor had him outfitted in the latest power armor. He was jacked in neurally to the control system so he could access his myriad weapon systems at the speed of thought. This match, or in his mind this slaughter, was limited to melee weapons and close man to man combat. This was an old arena with no force-field protection for the spectators. No projectile or energy weapons were allowed. He’d much prefer to play with all his armor’s toys, but he grinned, knowing he’d still have fun. He egged the crowd on as he trotted out towards the center of the arena. Flash slowed down, why weren’t the lambs running out to him he wondered. Then he heard it as he saw it, fighting! They were fighting each other instead of him! This was disconcerting, the lambs always rushed the pro in the beginning. Flash figured it was their best chance, none of them had any chance one one on but there was at least the glimmer of a chance that one of them could land a lucky shot if they all rushed him at once. Flash didn’t like this at all, he was supposed to raise his notoriety, to increase his value to his sponsor. This spoiled things!
Cog was quick and efficient, somehow methodical at lighting speed dispatching the lambs. He skewered the first one’s heart with his pointed machete, Heather, as soon as he was out of the gate, almost simultaneously he smashed another one’s head in with his gauntlet. He tried to make their deaths instant, he didn’t want them to suffer. He wasn’t playing to the crowd, he wasn’t working for a sponsor, Cog just wanted the winning purse. They couldn’t damage him, he was glad that they tried though. The last lamb standing was the short guy with the sledgehammer, he swung it but Cog caught it with his left hand as he cleaved the lamb’s head in two with Heather. He looked down and spotted shifting helmet guy playing dead. “Get up and come at me when I’m done with Flash.” Cog said to him.
Flash was fuming. The crowd was cheering but it wasn’t for him. He stood and watched incredulously as Cog cut down the lambs in seconds. “They’re supposed to come to me!” muttered Flash. Flash’s trainer chimed in to Flash’s helmet radio, “Flash, hold off a minute, I’m trying to get some info on this guy.”
Cog jogged about 15 meters towards Flash away from the lambs lying still. He stopped and raised Heather to the crowd, still holding the sledgehammer in his left hand. The crowd cheered even more which ticked off Flash to no end. “They think a stupid lamb slaughter turned into a main event, idiots. They are idiots Herk!” Flash grumbled, “I’m going in, it doesn’t matter who this guy is, his armor looks 50 years old.”
“Flash, just wait a minute! We’re getting info in now, he’s Cog, a regular in the local Historical Games.” Herk went on, “He’s also won several mixed martial arts prize fights. He’s no typical lamb, Flash, watch yourself!”
“Prize fights? He’s a doper Herk?” Flash asked.
“No, he won them clean, no doping or implants. I’m telling you Flash, don’t take this guy lightly. That armor is old but it’s military grade, I’m trying to get specs now.” said the trainer.
Cog turned towards Flash, put Heather in her scabbard and beckoned Flash with a “come here” motion with his right hand.
Flash responded immediately sprinting towards Cog, the servos in his armor whined in complaint to the speed he was going. Flash closed the distance between he and Cog in seconds, his buzz-saw attachment spinning. Flash wanted to cut his opponent in two in the worst way. Cog moved at the last possible moment to sidestep Flash and trip him. Flash’s armor automatically tried to jump Cog’s trip but it was too late, Flash was going too fast and was sent flying head over heels to land with a thud. Cog noticed there was no metal on metal collision, Flash’s armor must have been upgraded with a force field skin since his last match. Cog swore under his breath, he wasn’t prepared for that. Cog pounded on Flash with the sledgehammer before he could get up but was doing almost no damage, the hammer was just bouncing off of the force field skin surrounding Flash’s armor a couple centimeters thick on all sides.
“Flash I’ve got his armor specs!” Herk exclaimed, “This is funny, it’s a Willmalg model like yours. Well, not really like yours, almost 50 years older. A flaw that led to a limited production run was the exposed external fuel tank, the thing runs on jet fuel, jeez! Just stay away from him Flash, he doesn’t have an external tank, he must be storing fuel internally somewhere. He’ll have to run out soon! Oh look, that’s why, he’d be over the weight limit with an external tank!”
“I’m not staying away Herk!” Flash yelled, “I’ve got to try and salvage something out of this match. Yeah that would be real exciting, running away from the guy until he runs out of fuel!”
Flash forced his way up and attacked swinging his buzz-saw. The teeth were sharpened down to one molecule thick at the very tips held together with a magnetic lock, they could cut just about anything. Cog was anticipating Flash’s every move yet was still just barely dodging that saw, he still managed to land the occasional sledgehammer shot but they were doing no damage. Then Cog realized that the forcefield couldn’t be protecting the saw or it would just bounce off him, what good would that do? He waited for his chance and swung hard and swiftly where the saw was going to be and knocked several teeth off while knocking the saw out of kilter. The saw stopped spinning straight, it now had a definite wobble, it would be far less effective.
Cog took advantage and moved in hammering while the saw was now only able to do superficial damage to his armor. Flash screamed in frustration “Damn it Herk! How do I turn this force field off so I can pound this guy?”
Herk said “Don’t even think about it, those sledgehammer shots would be doing a number on you without the field, his armor has a greater strength rating than yours, though a much lower speed rating, I have no idea how he got it to move so fast. Let him run out of fuel Flash!”
Fash responded “I’ll never get a big match if I just let opponents run out of juice Herk! You have remote access, can’t you turn the field off on my gauntlets so I can start pounding him?”
Herk angrily replied “It’s my job to help you stay in one piece, this guy is something else, if I turned off a one centimeter hole I think he’d find a way to kill you through it. I’m still looking at his armor specs, though I don’t know what good it will do, he’s obviously got a heavily modified suit. Oh s**t, Flash whatever you do don’t use your..” Herk was cut off by Flash setting off his close proximity EMP defense.
Cog’s armor locked up, he was standing with the sledgehammer raised above his head as motionless as a statue. “What the Hell!” Cog thought to himself, “This armor is supposed to be EMP proof! I’m gonna kill Koch, he said these components were all up to original spec!”
Flash laughed, “Hah, that’s one way to turn off my force field. Most of my power’s gone but I still got enough to tear you apart. I better work quick, I know EMP’s don’t take military models out for long.” Flash was interrupted by the whine of a power drill behind him.
“Hah! Take that Flash you prick!” screamed shifting helmet guy. He’d made his way across the arena to attack Flash with the only weapon he brought with him, a home power drill. He was busy trying to work it into Flash’s armor’s neck joint.
Flash whirled around and backhanded shifting helmet guy snapping his neck and sending him flying several meters to land in a crumpled heap. “Stop messing up my paint job lamb!”
“2 minutes 30 seconds....I win...” Shifting helmet guy smiled as life swiftly left him.
Flash felt his armor lock up as his power pack was smashed by a sledgehammer from behind. “That was a stupid move Flash, draining your power down to where your force field wouldn’t work anymore.” Said Cog.
Cog swung the sledgehammer like a machine landing one strike after another one to Flash’s helmet. “Damn, Flash your armor is pretty tough even without the field, you’re making me work.”
Herk watched helplessly from the trainer’s box, “Son of a b***h..” he muttered.
The victory horn sounded indicating that only one combatant was left alive. Then Cog’s fuel ran out. One of the modifications installed was a backup electric motor, it kicked in and Cog was able to slowly remove his armor. Once he got it off he looked at the crowd, they were strangely silent, dumbstruck at what they’d just seen. Then they rose almost as one and cheered. “Hey that’s Cog! Yay Cog! Cog! Cog! Cog!” The chant went on for several minutes as Cog made his way out of the arena. He yelled to maintenance crew cleaning up “Hey can I borrow a dolly to move my armor guys?”

I find that when I remove the humans from a story the story starts becoming successful.

NaNoWriMo is coming up soon, and I already have a concept for my entry. It'll involve ancient Egyptians discovering the Americas before Columbus and confronting the Olmec civilization. Can't wait to write it!

I just found this forum, and wasn't expecting to find a writers' thread, let alone more than one. Wow.

Okay. I've written five novels. I'm working on four more simultaneously. I've worked professionally as a freelance writer. Business isn't as good as it used to be, but I'm still working at it.

I've just been reading through the thread here, mostly the discussion on writing dialogue and social interaction. Folks, the majority of writers are reclusive, anti-social types. A good percentage of them were probably Aspergic. Being Aspergic doesn't make it harder to be a writer; it makes it much, much easier.

The actual writing side, I mean; getting published is a whole different problem.

But the writing? Look, as Aspergics, we have much higher levels of concentration and a far greater ability to absorb knowledge on our specialist subjects than neurotypicals. A "good" level of writing output for even a professional neurotypical writer is about 2000 words a day. I can write 10,000 words a day easily, so long as I'm left alone to do my savant thing. Any Aspie whose interests include writing can do the same; just switch off the part of you that struggles to cope with the "normal" world and switch on the part that glories in the abstract beauty of words.

I know Aspies who can do the same thing with maths and mechanics; I do it with writing, you can too.

Regarding dialogue, as someone else said here, you don't need to be a great conversationalist to write great dialogue. Dialogue and conversation are not the same thing. Conversation rambles, people repeat themselves, stutter, lose their train of thought, get distracted. Dialogue doesn't do that; every word of dialogue must somehow advance the plot or enhance character development, preferably both.

To write dialogue that sounds like conversation, you just have to pay attention to the way people actually speak, and be consistent in the way you represent each character's spoken mannerisms.

In conversation, you can't pause the scene like a DVD and consider the exact words, mannerisms, etc, etc. You can't bring your full intellect to bear on conversation because it happens in real-time, while you're struggling with all the problems of social interaction that we know so well. In dialogue, you have all the time you need to sit and ponder, to go and research, to get feedback and amend what you've written to make it better.

The same applies to characters and social scenes in stories; you can study these things, observe people, revise what you've written, change things retroactively based on later ideas. That's the craft of writing, it's a learned skill, and as Aspergics we have an enhanced ability to learn that which captures our interest.

Welcome to the board and thanks for the encouraging words, but I for one doubt I could churn out 10,000 words in one day. In fact I don't think I've ever written a story that even reached so high a word count. Part of my problem may be that I don't want to bury my readers in purple prose and info-dumping, so I tend to go light on description.

I'm still thinking about NaNoWriMo, but I'm less enthusiastic about my original "Egyptians meet Olmecs" idea. The wrench that was thrown into it was the question of how the not-particularly-seaworthy Egyptian ships would make it across the Atlantic.

I mostly write poetry, although SF would be interesting to write. I feel self-concious when writing narrative, since not only would my characters be unfairly all author surrogates who lack realistic dialogue skill, but I have a habit of going off on tangents about little things. You know, scenery porno.

I've had seven books published since 2008, and they're currently being sold on about 80 book sites worldwide. I'm not where I want to be yet with the writing career (the long-term goal is to adapt the books into other media) but it's only been three years and things are moving along pretty nicely, all things considered.

One thing I've learned is that I can't write if it's not "flowing." If I try to force it, I end up with some
horrible, unreadable garbage that no one should ever have to endure. I have to wait till the mindset is right, and the words flow onto the paper like water, only not as wet.

But when it's working, I can go for hours. My record is 26 pages at one sitting. A "normal" day is 12 to 15 pages.

I think it is BECAUSE you have problems with social interaction that you will not only write good dialogue, but great dialogue. Especially if the characters are in a science fiction universe.

Writing fiction is not anything like writing an essay or a news journal or anything like that. People don't read fiction to be informed or made aware; they read fiction to escape. If you base the main character off of your own personality, and give him all the same quirks and flaws you have (or vice versa; make everyone have the same trouble getting along with your character for stupid reasons), it can be a great way to make a genuine protagonist AND give an excuse to the explanation of technologies and customs that are new to the reader but everyday to the people involved.

Example: "How come she looked at me like that?"
"Look at you like what?"
"That weird long gaze. Its like I surprised her in some way."
"Most humans are threatened by a female Deri; they use to court men before devouring them."
"No wonder she drooled so much."

You see? its not what the first character is conscious of but what he is UNCONSCIOUS of that becomes not only interesting, but reveals vital information to the backdrop of the story. Now when people are mysteriously mauled in their apartment, the reader and the characters in the story have a prime suspect!

Tricks like this make a weakness like Aspergers a strength.

2,884 words and three scenes into my latest fantasy novel. It'll be a story about a Queen who must save the prince she loves from her own brother, and it'll feature dinosaurs.

This is interesting question. I've never had a problem writing social interaction, especially dialogue. My dialogue is fantastic. Ok, I don't want to get into an ego-rant: it might not be perfect and I might not be a perfect writer, but I manage to formulate things smoothly and I manage to say many thing through dialogue. I only wish I could do this in real life.

I think it's because I observe other people and watch them interact a lot. Maybe that's it. I'm also good with characterization.

In fact, I found out that writing an Aspie character is more difficult to me than writing about NTs. Not sure why.

Egyptians meet Olmecs! Brilliant!

It might seem like a strange analogy, but I know of a few people who speak English as their second language but when they write in a blog or on a forum their spelling, grammar and punctuation is really very good. The only explanation I can think of is that they make a conscious effort to get the details right BECAUSE it's their second language, and they probably learn certain aspects of the language in a more structured way than just picking it up through everyday life.

I find a similar problem with characterisation in writing - it really is like learning a second language! I'm keenly aware of the fact that I miss nuances of dialogue and interaction between people in real life experiences, so I go over my written fiction with a fine tooth comb to make it as lifelike and convincing as I can. Maybe if I didn't have doubts in the back of my mind about whether I'm able to write that aspect well I wouldn't pay as much attention to it. I don't think anyone's reading the project I'm currently working on, but it's a lot of fun to write. Portraying the chemistry between the two lead characters is the most fun part about it.

English is my second language and this is true. I obsess over spelling and grammar because I don't want people to laugh at me (ok, I know nobody would laugh at me, but I just feel really bad about making all sorts of grammar mistakes (my spelling is fine, though). I know I can't help it, but I do obsess over it). While some native speakers don't obsess that much over this.

I find writing dialogue very easy, too, especially with fictional characters. i just added my lulu.com stuff as my webpage and finished a nanowrimo for the first time. And it was really fun.

But, the movement, the shrugs,a nd nods...that I can't know wht should go where. I don't know if a character who shrugs a lot makes more sense than one who doesn't for isntance. I'll put a few nods ina nd the like, but for me, it's all agbout verbs other than "said," pauses, and trying to keep thigns interesting.

My NaNoWriMo focused on the hijinks after one blooper occurs - "Vikings Sacked Dan Marino" - the quarterback - became "Vikigns sacked San Marino" in this fellow's blog.

So, it's fill with crazy atuff like some stubborn boss not paying attention to his subordinate and - since a person named Alexis has an alibi - he orders her to arrest a Lexus. I got a few thousand words just out of the wisecracks people made as a result and the crazy stuff that happens. Bloopers, practical jokes ona telmarketer, I think with comedy I can take advantage pretty well of the misunderstandings which can occur.

But, it's so hard for me to figure out how to write it so that people do more than just "make a gesture with their hand" or "walk in a small circle." I do manage, however,e ventually.