Fiction

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Hey do all aspies' dislike fiction? (sorry stupid question)

No. It's one of my passions. The art of storytelling fascinates me very much, both from an audience perspective and from a creative perspective.
I don't have an official diagnosis yet though (the queue is very long for evaluation here), but it's pretty clear where the evidence is pointing.

I've read that there's a strong preference for non-fiction in AS. I very rarely read fiction but on the occasion that everyone is raving about a fiction book (e.g. Dan Brown) and I force myself to read, I usually enjoy it.

Non-fiction just seems like a better use of time -- why read about a made up world / events when you can read about real things?

science fiction is a nice compromise, especially the heavier stuff.

I like to escape reality in fiction, but also read factual books - love to learn things.

Fiction often has an underlying social message or two, and explores (even though imaginary, and sometimes "over the top") dialogue, interaction, relations, and other social concepts within the framework/setting of the story.

I don't doubt that a lifetime of reading fiction/science fiction/fantasy has improved my grammar, diction, word knowledge, and to an extent my social functioning. Much of it has also justified or complimented my personal beliefs and sense of morality, etc.

Plus, it can be entertaining in its own right. And teaches the mind to think creatively (fiction tends to have subplots and loopy ideas that by the end converge to a single solution, or conflict, or event that is the sum of everything leading up to it. Teaches how even the little things matter).

Data is excellent, learning is powerful, but fiction can be educational too, in a much more subtle (and often engageing) way. You just have to find intelligent authors. There's a lot of crap out there.

Edit: Reading books which explore the characters' thoughts and actions probably help devellop Theory of Mind, as well.

I like fiction but not in printed form - I love audio books, radio plays, and films.

I enjoy reading printed non-fiction.

Mills and Boon

yeow

I've heard a lot of people saying that people with AS dislike fiction and prefer to read non-fiction, but I know that's not always the case. There are lots who still like to read fiction.

As an aspie girl I used to read a lot, in fact I spent most of the time I had reading fiction. I guess it was a kind of goal for me to read a lot and I actually read a lot more fiction than others my age. I would try to completely escape into it. I lived in a really small town when I was 6-9 and my village librarian was probably quite fond of me as I'd always take out so many books! She'd always let me spin around in her swivel chair

If someone takes the trouble to recommend and discuss a work of fiction with me, I can read and appreciate it. Heck, I have a degree in English literature. But I seldom pick up a work of fiction on my own, and most of the books I keep on my bookshelves are nonfiction. My prejudice is that they are solid and worth the effort of maintenance, while fiction, if needed, can be picked up cheaply anywhere, anytime.

Fiction is an act of creativity, and the world would be very boring without it. We wouldn't have most of our books, and our movies would have been depleted. Not to mention the video games. *shudders*

I love fiction.

I have no preference one way or another. I barely even differentiate between the two, to be honest. Fiction is often just as real to me as non.

I also heard, that autistic people prefer science books and so on and don't read fiction. But I think its not in this way, but that most autistics read books in a different way than others. And that certain reading style prefers non-fiction. Nonetheless, they can read fiction too.

However, i think, autistics read fiction differently than NT. I guess, that autistics try to "decode" the "inteded meaning" of the story, try to find out what the author meant when he wrote this. Whereas, NT might rather read it and imagine what this could mean for their life, they take it as destiny that they wrote this and that sentence and interpret it for their life. Autistics rather then will tend to think, no there is no personal message in it, no destiny, the author wrote something which was meaningful for his life.

... Its just a theory of myself. Please feel free to comment on it

thanks,
anton

I started a topic on this awhile back that got some really interesting responses. I'm a big reader, too. The biggest thing that bothered me about this supposed "fact" that Aspies don't like reading fiction was simply that it didn't make any sense. The main social problems that Aspies have are due to trouble with non-verbal communication and trouble with empathy/theory of mind/putting yourself in others shoes. When reading, neither of these should be an issue because you don't have to read a book's face or posture and much of today's fiction puts a strong focus on the character's inner life, meaning that you don't have to intuitively understand a character's actions because they're typically explained in black and white. Also, books aren't noisy and baring some specific sensory issues, one would think that books would be a great substitute for human interaction.

Besides, the question you see in things like the AQ test isn't "do you like works of fiction?" but "Do you like reading fiction books?" which implies that there's theoretically something about written fiction alone that Aspies are said not to like. There's not the same supposed dislike when it comes to things like video games, movies, television, etc. which are all also highly fictional mediums. (Baring, of course, personal sensory issues.) Which really doesn't make sense at all, when you think about it. If it were an issue with being able to "figure out" the characters and their intentions and such, one would think that television shows would be much more confusing than books. In television, the troubles with nonverbal communication come back into play. On paper, it would make more sense for an Aspie to dislike television shows and movies more than books, because like I said, today's fiction generally places a strong emphasis on the internal thoughts of the character.

Anyway, people gave some really interesting responses that might be worth checking out if you're interested in this topic: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt162492.html

Overall, I think this is just another one of those bad stereotypes like "all Aspies are good at math" or "all Aspies have bad hygiene." For a lot of Aspies, this description probably fits very well. But it's not an indisputable fact. It's a generalization, and not one with any diagnostic weight.