forum How to write characters on the autistic spectrum?

Started March 25, 2021 by @SingSongKV group

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I have two characters who are autistic (they are sisters), and I want to know if there's any advice on writing them in a proper and non-offensive manner, I don't want to portray them in a largely inaccurate way.

Well, I honestly can’t help you much as I’m not officially diagnosed with autism myself and even if I do have it it’s probably along the lines of Aspberger’s or something. How “severe” or prominent are these character’s symptoms, and ultimately, what is your book about?

Well, I honestly can’t help you much as I’m not officially diagnosed with autism myself and even if I do have it it’s probably along the lines of Aspberger’s or something. How “severe” or prominent are these character’s symptoms, and ultimately, what is your book about?

Their symptoms aren't very "severe" they, don't need loads of support with school or social life, and as far as my story, I was thinking about putting in it a webcomic format, it's about a all girl band trying to gain money and success. (That's the basic premise, anyways.)

Good to know. So, I’d recommend letting their symptoms affect them in small ways, mostly just behavior and how they relate to people. Try not to make a caricature out of autism, but do make it show up, see: a more literal approach to metaphors, not always getting the joke right away and having to have it be explained, either needing a lot of sensory stimulation (like listening to loud music) to function or no stimulation at all (quiet, dark rooms with little to no noise), stuff like that. Make it clear that yes, this disability affects their lives quite a bit, but they shouldn’t be treated badly or differently for it.

Oh hey, I'm actually autistic and a little while ago I made a really long winded post on tumblr about writing autistic characters in response to Sia's movie. Here it is:

What would I like to see less of

• Literally incapable of detecting sarcasm: “Wait,” you say, “But Starfast, there are autistic people out there who are like this!” Sure, there might be, but for me personally detecting sarcasm is a lot less difficult than literally every autistic character has made it out to be. Yes, there are times where it goes right over my head but those times are usually when there’s not enough context for me to figure out whether the person is being sarcastic or not. Some of us actually are able to tell when you’re being sarcastic, it usually depends on context.
• The “Sheldon Cooper”: Autism is really diverse and yet I feel like 99% of autistic characters are basically all just carbon copies of Sheldon Cooper from BBT. They’re maybe overly formal, blunt, or have a hard time picking up social cues. And while these are all things that are commonly associated with autism (although this type of character rarely shows any major downsides to having autism, more on that later), like I said earlier, autism is different for everyone. Not all of us are going to feel represented by this type of character. Honestly I don’t even relate to a lot of autistic characters because they just keep reusing the same autistic stock characters and that’s really disheartening to me. It’s almost like they’re not making autistic characters for autistic people.
• The Burden: This probably doesn’t need to be explained that much but it was the one thing that really pissed me off about S**’s movie. In the trailer, I really got the very distinct impression that the older sister saw Music as a burden. Her life was just oh so difficult because she had this autistic sister. No one wants to be thought of that way. And idk if you neurotypicals know this but autistic people have feelings and we hear it loud and clear when you say these kinds of things and it hurts.
• Using autism as a punchline: I think it’s fine to have an autistic character to provide comic relief, BUT! if your comic relief involves laughing at an autistic character’s very autistic behaviour then you’re doing it wrong. This kind of goes back to my first point- the reason why I hate seeing the “incapable of detecting sarcasm” character is because it’s almost exclusively played for laughs. Please stop making fun of us.

What I'd like more of

• Diversity: I feel like this doesn’t really need much explaining. Autism can affect anyone regardless of age, race, gender, sexuality, etc. And yet most autistic characters I’ve encountered are straight white guys. Let’s see more girls, more POCs, more LGBT+ who are autistic.
• Obvious drawbacks/struggles: When I talked about the Sheldon Cooper-type character I mentioned that this type of character doesn’t really seem to face many challenges that are directly related to autism. What I mean by this is that sometimes they’ll maybe just miss the odd social cue and it’s kinda embarrassing but it rarely gets worse than that. An autistic character is going to face challenges that a neurotypical won’t ever have to deal with and if you don’t acknowledge that then you’re not really properly portraying an autistic character. Show more autistic characters struggling to make friends, having meltdowns or experiencing sensory overload, having a hard time articulating themselves. The list goes on, honestly.
• Actually saying it: Have you ever seen it where there’s a certain character and a bunch of people go “hey, that character seems like they could be [insert literally any minority] and then the creator goes “Oh, yeah that’s totally what I intended!” I personally don’t really like this, because it feels kind of disingenuous. If you’re going to write an autistic character, it would be nice to have that brought up within the story. Autism isn’t a dirty word, you’re allowed to say it. The only exception I can think of would be if you’re writing a historical fiction or some other setting where autism hasn’t been recognized but most examples I can think of don’t fall into that category whoop there it is.
• Literally just anything that isn’t a stereotype. This seems to be setting the bar pretty low, but it still needs to be said. Autism looks different for everyone and just because someone doesn’t fit the mold for a stereotypical autistic person doesn’t mean they’re not autistic. No one wants to be represented by a stereotype.

“I’m not autistic but I want to write an autistic character. Can I do that?”
I can’t speak for the entire autistic community when I answer this but my opinion is yes, it’s ok provided that you’re being respectful and doing research beyond reading symptoms off of WebMD. That being said, here’s my final advice:

• Listen and talk to autistic people: If you’re not listening to the group you’re trying to represent then you’re not doing a good job. There are lots of people here out there who would be willing to answer your questions or be a sensitivity reader. There’s a lot of people here on tumblr who are willing to answer your questions (you can even ask me, but I’m just one person and I don’t have all the answers. I’d recommend talking to multiple people).
• Autism Speaks is not your friend: There’s been a lot of talk about why this organization sucks, but it mostly boils down to trying to end autism and not actually helping us. So make sure you’re steering clear of them while you’re doing your research.
• Reddit and Quora are actually great resources: Reason being is that these kinds of sites will give you lots of first hand information about being autistic, and that’s the best kind of information to have, usually. Most sites will just list symptoms, but the right reddit/quora thread will provide more insight about how these symptoms affect their daily life. Additionally, you’ll have multiple people offering their own views and since autism is so different for everyone it’s good to have more than one person’s opinion (psst… this tip works for writing other minority characters too!)

(og post is here if anyone wants).

Hope that helped somewhat. I'm open for other questions if you have any :)

• Reddit and Quora are actually great resources: Reason being is that these kinds of sites will give you lots of first hand information about being autistic, and that’s the best kind of information to have, usually. Most sites will just list symptoms, but the right reddit/quora thread will provide more insight about how these symptoms affect their daily life. Additionally, you’ll have multiple people offering their own views and since autism is so different for everyone it’s good to have more than one person’s opinion (psst… this tip works for writing other minority characters too!)

(og post is here if anyone wants).

Hope that helped somewhat. I'm open for other questions if you have any :)

Thanks! Going to Reddit really helped, and going to your Tumblr post introduced me to a blog called "ScriptAutistic", it was very helpful for understanding more about autistic characters.

Glad I was able to help! I've heard of the Script blogs, and they're really great.

Yooo I'm an Aspie I'm here let's go!

Okay, so this is a basic rundown of the two sisters, Kanade and Setsuko. (Both japanese)

Kanade: Kanade is a kind, laid-back person with a love for cats, (stray cats in particular) and she is autistic. She is hyposensitive to sounds, and hypersensitive to touch. she is empathetic and loves making friends, But she still has a hard time understanding people. She stims by playing with her hair, and she sees her mother as a role model for her, and she is also autistic and non-verbal.

Setsuko: Setsuko is a very hard-working person, she is all about practicality, and she is used to making plans and sticking with them, she gets highly stressed when things don't go to plan, and she gets anxious when her routine drastically changes. She is introverted and isn't very good at talking to other people. She is hypersensitive to touch and hyposensitive to sound, like Kanade. She stims by playing a particular song over and over when stressed or irritated. She also does hand flapping when excited, but she tries to suppress it because she feels ashamed about it.

So is there anything you guys feel like I could change to make the characters more accurate or…?

I'm not really seeing any big glaring issues. They both look good to me!

She is introverted and isn't very good at talking to other people.

I just want to say thank you for making a character like this though! This sounds exactly like me and it's something that doesn't really seem to be represented in the very few autistic characters in the media. Introverted autistic characters is something that I'd like to see a lot more of, so it's really great that you're doing it :D

She gets anxious when her routine drastically changes.

Personally, it's when my routine changes in the slightest that I get anxious, but I know that it's different for different characters/people. The rest looks good!

Heya! This thread is super cool and I love seeing this discussed so openly…
Personally I am not Autistic, but I do have an Autistic sibling. And can I just say that it's shocking for me how similar my sibling is to your character Kanade?
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Anyway, I'm kinda just stalking because I like learning about this stuff…. so hi!
Also can I just say that you may also want to think about how people around your characters act/interact with/around them, I know me personally I need to watch how I speak and what words I use when I'm around my sibling and it's really hard to make that conscious effort, and that there are often other people who don't make that effort and then there are problems… usually minor miscommunication, but that's all it takes to make my sibling anxious and upset.