Considering making an autistic/AS character

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Firstly, I apologise in advance if anything that I write here offends anybody. I'm not very familiar with autism or Asperger's Syndrome, but my intention here really isn't to offend. I'm just looking for some help researching a story I've been developing, which might include an autistic character. If anyone could take a moment to offer any advice or helpful hints for this, I would really, really appreciate it.

I recently noticed that the main character of this story has a lot of characteristics generally associated with people on the autistic spectrum: difficulties with non verbal communication, social awkwardness, intense obsession with a very specific subject and so on - and I began to wonder whether I should go all the way and make him autistic or have Asperger's.

I think it would make the story a very interesting writing exercise, and really help to pull the relationships and motivations of the characters together, but I don't really know anybody in the autism spectrum well enough to ask for help with understanding how the character would think and act if he was autistic. I'm also very keen to get his character right if I do run with this idea, and try to stay away from inappropriate stereotypes associated with autism.

The character, in the story (which is based in the UK, by the way), is a man in his early twenties. He's obsessed with this idea of an alternate world similar to earth, that he stumbled upon a few years before the story begins. He spends almost all of his time collating information on and evidence for the existence of this world, and is financially dependent on his sister, who he lives with. I don't think he has many friends, if any, and I think he might have been bullied at school for being "odd" (or if he was autistic, he might have gone to a special school - how common is this? I assume that it depends on the level of autism that the child has?), and struggled in classes in spite of his intelligence. He's also gay, although I don't think he's ever been in a romantic relationship.

It's obvious just by looking at this forum that people with autism and AS are incredibly diverse, so if this character did have autism, how would it affect him as a character, in terms of his speech, mannerisms, motives and relationships with the other characters, if at all? How would he be different if he had Asperger's rather than autism, or mild vs severe autism? How much freedom do I have with quirks/eccentricities such as wearing particular clothes or eating particular types of food? Do you think it would be appropriate to make him autistic, or as an NT should I stay away from trying to write non-NT characters?

Any help or advice you could give me would be really, really useful for this! Thank you for reading, and thanks in advance if anyone could take the time to reply.

Hi,

I think it's really cool that you try to widen your horizon by writing from an autistic point of view.
I've been only recently diagnosed but, I have real issues with black and white thinking. It's really annoying, i'm constantly thinking everything I say or do is wrong and how I should've said /done exactly the opposite. So I ended up being this "quiet" person that only speaks when he needs to get stuff done or has something hilarious to say.

I apoligise for my rambling and over-formal typing but my point is that:
My psych said that this black and white thinking wasn't uncommon(eufimism) in quote: "aspie land" so I hope this helps you with you're writing.

Good luck with your book

Treehuggerxxl
Ps: when I read this over i noticed this is probable not going to be helpful at all, but not posting this would probable make me feel worse. Still hope you're book will turn out awesome

I always figure, if I had to point to one person that said "Aspergers" it'd be James May. You know, from BBC's Top Gear, aside from age, he'd probably be dead on for your character.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6AjvnhH8qc

Good episode of Top Gear where all the characters make police cars. Should be enough to see James May in a group of people and how he interacts.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DtTnfFH2Hjc

Anyway, to me James May seems like the ultimate Aspie, and I think he'd be dead on to model your character off of. Oh, and as far as the Aspergers diagnosis, if I were writing the story, I'd only mention it in passing. Like write a scene where he's looking through his paperwork, and comes across the diagnosis from a while back, and thinks about it for a minute and moves on. That's what I'd do.

@TreehuggerXXL
Thanks for the support and advice! I'll take a note of the black and white thinking thing. I think that the character has a lot of difficulty with social interaction, so that'll help to explain why. Do you think it would be best to make him have Asperger's rather than straight autism, then? I'm not quite clear on the differences, since there seems to be some debate on whether AS is a different condition, or just somewhere on the autism spectrum.

@1000Knives
Now that you mention it, I can see similarities between him and the things I've read about Asperger's. I'll definitely consider it when I'm thinking about how my character talks and acts! Thank you!
As for the diagnosis, I'm thinking about maybe having a scene where he comes into the kitchen when his sister's friends are around. They say hello to him but he doesn't reply, and they think he's being rude, but she just shrugs it off by mentioning that he's autistic. I think that she has a tendency to put all of his eccentricities down to the diagnosis, which frustrates him a lot, because to him it's just how he is.

I think it's great when people make a story with characters on the spectrum when they're NT's. For me to not do so every now and then would be like making a story only have one race. And I thank you for doing research on it, most people don't and end up contributing to the negative sterotypes of autism.

Also most people on the spectrum don't go to a special school, most are just in normal schools. However at the normal schools their is usually a form of an 'SEU (Special education unit)' which can cause allot of bullying.

For me (Aspergers) I usually wear the same kind of clothes all the time, and from what I know that's very common. I usually tend to eat the same things each day. (I mean say mondays dinner = pies, tuesdays dinner = ravioli all year (and I don't mean purely eat pies for monday, that was just one meal))

I sometimes struggle to tell the differences in people tones (So I might mistake someone being sarcastic as literal) and people often don't realise when I'm being serious or sarcastic either as I don't do multiple tones very well.
Also when talking to people I often don't know the right time to talk, so sometimes I can talk when I'm not supposed to or I might even be silent for a long time.
Also I rarely look someone in the eyes and only really do when I think I have to (IE when a teachers telling me something) and even then personally can only hold it for a little bit, I often have to look away before looking back.


(From just skimming through http://theconversation.edu.au/telling-t ... ergers-508 it looks like it might explain the difference from aspergers and autism (Sorry if not I didn't read much)

Edit: Ok that link ended up being fairly useless, sorry. I will update this with a new one if I find a good one.

It sounds like you've got the basic concept down.

My recommendation would be to just read and understand as much about autism as you can. Read or listen to people telling their own stories and go from there. Everyone's lives are different, but there are some questions that you should probably work out.

Some obvious ones to explore would be:
- Do they have sensory issues? Do they have meltdowns/panic attacks/shut downs?
- How do they speak? Do they take things literally? Are they overly blunt?
- How obvious are their symptoms? Did it take them a long time to get diagnosed? Would a stranger be able to tell they are autistic or would they just be seen as rude/weird/whatever?
- How self-aware are they? Are they susceptible to social anxiety? Are they shy or just quiet?
- How does your character deal with change? Can they handle it? Do they like to plan events out well in advance?
- Were they bullied at a young age? How did they cope with it?
- Why does your character like his/her special interest? How intense is the interest? Does your character often forget to eat, drink, or sleep? How is their hygiene?

Essentially, though, take your answers and then use them to shape what your character is like.

Good luck with your story! Sounds like it'll be interesting.

@TheChamelion
It was something I was very worried about when I first started considering making this character autistic, that because I don't know much about autism I'd end up making him an unrealistic (or worst case offensive) stereotype.

Alright, I'll probably stick to keeping him in a normal school, then. I don't think that's going to really come up much in the story, but for background knowledge it's a useful thing to think about.

Are autistic conditions commonly associated with those kinds of things? I think he's quite rigid with routines, which sounds fairly common, but I've also been thinking about making him struggle with physical interaction, not liking people touching him if he doesn't know them (so he really doesn't like crowds because people might brush against him), or possibly not liking anybody touching his hands at all. Does that sound reasonable?

Thanks for everything, though! Taking those things into account will really help me when I'm writing his dialogue. Thanks for the link as well; it's helped clear things up a bit for me.

@syrella
Wow, thank you. I'll definitely go through all of those, so I can get a good grip on his character. Looking through the site and from the replies I've got so far, it looks like I have a huge variation of personality traits and such to work with, so as long as I develop him properly and make him as complex a character as the others in the story, I won't have a problem with making him autistic/AS. I'm glad that I've had such positive feedback, since I was worried that it would seem like a bad idea to have an autistic character when I don't have much experience with people on the spectrum. I'm really looking forward to developing his character and writing the story now. Thanks for the support!

You might consider giving him traits and an overall demeanour consistent with someone who has autism or AS without the condition ever being mentioned. If the story is written first-person or close third-person POV and you're sticking with the main character all the way through, as opposed to alternating or omniscient, you may be able to get away with this even if he really cannot function without supervision. A good example of this is Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, written in first-person, where the condition was never explicitly mentioned. Or his symptoms could be mild enough for him to have lived a comparatively normal life, in which case maybe he was just considered "odd" and never diagnosed.


It will be easier to avoid stereotypes if you've thought of your character thoroughly beforehand apart from autism/AS, and his role in your story. It will also be easier if he is merely a quirky, awkward guy with some obsessions who could otherwise conceivably get and hold a job and make friends - and harder if his symptoms are more pronounced and his behaviour alienates everyone he meets. It would then be advisable to read some case studies of people living with autism - both the autistic people themselves, and the families that take care of them.

You haven't mentioned this, but I should mention a pet peeve of mine: when people run against derogatory stereotypes too far and make an "ideal" character with no significant flaws who is unfairly discriminated against because he is different.


There is a perhaps understandable assumption that one would have to have been very "low-functioning" to begin with in order to have grown up in a special school. This, I think, overestimates the competence of the psychiatric community. I have little doubt that some people were brought up through special schools when they could have been integrated into mainstream education without all that much special attention. This almost happened to me, given my impaired speech at an early age and my tendency to ignore other people, though after starting school I did not require or avail of much special assistance. If the story is set in present-day earth then if he's at least 23 or so, he could well have been diagnosed with autism before Asperger Syndrome was a standard diagnosis, and put through special schools. I imagine he would be a much more difficult character to write than if he were put through mainstream education.


He might appear incapable or unwilling to engage in conversation. He might frequently utter favourite phrases at inopportune moments. He might lash out violently if he doesn't get his own way or if someone taps him in the back. He might have physical tics that bother other people. He might "shut down" in public. He might have none of these things.

I can't draw any hard and fast rules on how to make your AS characters believable, but one thing worth noting is that people who frequently do something they know is abnormal or wrong often might try to rationalise their aberrant behaviour. On the flip side, they may also have to persuade themselves of exceptional circumstances in order to do something they don't want to do. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is full of rationalising, and I think a lot of people connected with that regardless of how "representative" the character was or wasn't of autistic people.

The easiest thing for you to do would be to write someone with some difficulty understanding sarcasm and maintaining small talk (say) who is otherwise "almost NT". You might even already know some people with similar quirks (maybe with a tendency to lecture) who could perhaps be diagnosed with AS. In this case the more maladjusted the character is, the more difficult it will be to motivate and convey the character's mannerisms in a believable and effective manner, and the more research you will have to do.