Advice And A Pep-Talk From One Autistic Writer To Another

Advice and a Pep-Talk from one Autistic Writer to Another

I’ve seen enough “how to write autistic characters” directed at allistics but I’m not sure I’ve really seen any posts directed at autistics written by other autistics that’s just general writing advice. So here’s some tips and tricks and a pep talk.

1. Write as many autistic characters as you want. It’s totally ok for every single one of your characters to be autistic. If other people can write stories without any autistic characters, you can write ones without any allistic characters. (After all, how can you write an autistic allistic character if you’re not autistic allistic. /s)

2. Let your characters stim! It’s a great way to include body language in a way that feels natural for us.

On the topic of stimming, try and vary the stims your characters use. This is something I generally take care of in editing. Everyone would run their hands through their hair, but when they did that, it just became a filler description, so I cut the action from most of the characters and left it for a few. At that point, the stim became theirs. (I also then got to have lines like “Den ran his hand through his hair to calm his thoughts, a motion more like his brother than him.” which is like Look, characterization!)

3. Body language and facial expressions are hard. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve described the body language or facial expression without actually saying what the character was feeling while writing, and then in editing have no idea what they were feeling.

It’s totally OK to write something like “their eyebrows jumped up in surprise as their jaw dropped towards the floor.” It’s descriptive enough to follow the “show, don’t tell” rule, but still names the emotion the character is feeling. It also lets you use non-standard body language (aka autistic body language and stimming) in a way that allistic readers can pick up on.

Reference sheets are a great way to have some standard allistic ways of expressing emotions via body language. This is a great way to make sure that if a character is expressing an emotion but it’s not something you can state in the story (or that your character is unaware of), that it’ll still be something your audience can pick up on.

4. It can take a while to really get a feel for your characters. I tend to only really have their characterization solid enough to keep them consistent after I’ve written the initial rough draft. This is one of the reasons my first step after completing my initial draft is to rewrite everything. It’s just the easiest way I’ve found to make sure all the characters are in character - because if I tried to go through every single line and figure out what wasn’t in character, I’d be lost.

If you’re confused about why a character is doing something because you forgot what you were thinking and are having trouble figuring it out from context, it’s ok to take that bit out and rewrite it. Sometimes it might be because a character is acting out of character, and in that case it’s a good thing you’re fixing it.

5. The details you include in your writing because you’re so detail oriented really makes the story come alive. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gotten told it feels like my world exists beyond the story and that my characters have lives beyond what’s mentioned on the page because I think about every little detail and make mentions of them.

Our attention to detail also tends to let us do unintentional symbolism and foreshadowing really well. We try and make every little thing relevant and tied into everything else, which is something that comes naturally to us and I’ve seen so many writers struggle with.

6. Infodump in the rough draft as much as you want. If it keeps you writing, go for it.

You can remove (or better integrate) infodumps (because they tend to not be all that interesting to readers since they stop the story in their tracks) and any inconsistent details when you edit.

If you want to avoid just infodumping in the story itself, write down EVERYTHING about your characters, your world, your plot, everything you want to explain and anything that is relevant to know for the story in a separate document(s). For me, it gets the urge to explain EVERYTHING out of my system and helps me include only what’s needed when I’m writing. (Plus it makes a GREAT reference material for when you’re writing.)

7. If you don’t explain something well enough, that can also be fixed in editing. This is where beta readers are useful since they can let you know where they’re confused and where more information is useful. This is also where taking a break between writing and editing can help, since if you’re confused it’s likely a spot where you need to include more information

(Again, this is advice for autistic writers from an autistic writer. Allistics and Writing blogs are encouraged to reblog this since this is writing advice, but unless you are autistic, please do not comment.)

Writing blessing

May your creativity never get lost and the words flow easy May your health be stable and give you no troubles May your troubles be small and the joy big May the fire of creativity burn in you strongly the waters of speech make you eloquent the earth of the now keep you grounded so you can have your heads up in the air of dreams. May happiness and joy be with you and pain only be small when it finds you May you be a beacon of hopeful and inspiring light in these dark times May you find peace and freedom in what you do and people who support you the way you are. May you be loved and feel how valuable you are

Tags

Inspiration

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yourwriters

5 years ago

Planning & Outlining a Novel

My personal planning process

I’ve discussed my planning process before, but after getting some questions, I decided to consolidate everything into a single post. This post summarizes how I plan my novels, including how I use spreadsheets to keep myself organized.

A forever disclaimer: Everyone’s writing process is different. I’m sharing what I do in case it helps others, not because I think this is the “right” way.

A smaller disclaimer: I went through a long trial and error process. This post focuses on the things that worked, not on what catastrophically failed. But please know: I catastrophically failed. And then I tried again and again until I figured out what to do. I didn’t learn my process in one sitting, so don’t stress if you don’t either.

Planning the first draft

Before I start writing, I don’t list every single thing that needs to happen in the story. Instead, I focus on story beats.

A beat is a moment in the story. If you want to get specific, I plan my beats around Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat, which is an awesome plotting resource. I also use Gwen Hayes’s Romancing the Beat as a resource for romantic plots or subplots.

The bottom line: I plan big story moments to hit, which I organize in a spreadsheet. I’ll share the spreadsheet for Under No Illusions, broken up so it’s easier to read.

Lees verder

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yourwriters

5 years ago

Are You Using Too Much Stage Direction?

Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, we don’t need to know that someone crossed the room, reached for the coffee cup, turned sideways, took a step forward, or glanced to the left.

Visual writers have an especially hard time with this (fiction writers who “see” their story in their head, and write down the images blow-for-blow, as though narrating a movie).

There’s nothing wrong with this writing process, of course. Just know that you’ll be more prone to adding excessive, pointless movements to your novel or short story.

Then, when revising, ask yourself if they are important to the story (sometimes, it is important that someone took a step forward!) and take out the ones that aren’t. Or, better yet, delete them all, then put back only the ones that have left holes in their absence.

Remember, stage direction is different from meaningful gesture or action.

Meaningful gestures and actions can orient the reader or give information about character or plot.

Stage direction, by my definition, is pointless movement.

Here is an original excerpt from Haruki Murakami’s Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World to illustrate my point.

“See anyone milling around in the hall?” I asked. “Not a soul,” she said. I undid the chain, let her in, and quickly relocked the door. “Something sure smells good,” she said. “Mind if I peek in the kitchen?” “Go right ahead. But are you sure there aren’t any strange characters hanging around the entrance? No one doing street repairs, or just sitting in a parked car?” “Nothing of the kind,” she said, plunking the books down on the kitchen table. Then she lifted the lid of each pot on the range. “You make all this yourself?”

Here, we get just enough to orient us–we know the woman was outside the apartment, she walked into the house, went into the kitchen, and the narrator followed her there. But Murakami doesn’t actually say that. He allows us to infer those movements from the dialogue and the light peppering of action and description.

Now, here is the same excerpt re-written with way too much stage direction:

Lees verder

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yourwriters

5 years ago

writing characters with dyslexia

by me !! a dyslexic

hopefully this might be a useful little guide so you can avoid the misconceptions and any stereotypes - I saw someone do this with adhd and I thought a dyslexia one might be interesting

reading

this differs from person to person but for me I have to read over things four or five times before they actually go into my head, sometimes this gives people headaches or makes them nauseous. letters often “jump” or sentences merge into one long word; people often have trouble with light sensitivity and pages can seem too bright

writing

some people have vary varied handwriting and can go from neat to messy to big to small within minutes, spelling is often phonetic but PLEase doNt Talk AbOUt thIS For AgEs it’s only a very small part of being dyslexic

speaking

dyslexic people often speak faster than their brains create sentences so can trip over words or stutter or mix up words (par kark instead of car park), this can be embarrassing so could make for a good scene ?! people also get a lot of tip of the tongue experiences where they can’t find the right word (I once couldnt remember the word ‘embarrassed’ and I called it ‘when you go red and nervous’) so that makes for more interesting speech patterns in your characters

memory

oh my lord this is so overlooked but lots of dyslexic people have really bad short term memories - things like listening to instructions and forgetting them immediately, or forgetting that they were saying mid sentence

sense of direction

not so common but people often lose their sense of direction and can struggle telling left from right - I don’t know too much about this one though so I’m not going to go into it too deeply !!

hearing

filtering out background noise can be super difficult so people can seem like they have poor hearing but really everything can just seem very loud - this can be distracting and frustrating too and it bugs my friends so much because I make them repeat everything whoops

I’m sure there’s more things but this is just a short list, I’ll add anything if I think of it - feel free to add anything yourselves !!

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yourwriters

5 years ago

Writing Masterpost

Character Help

MBTI Personality Test

MBTI Personality Descriptions

123 Character Flaws

Character Trait Cheat Sheet

List of Personality Traits

Character Virtues And Vices

Underused Personalities

7 Rules For Picking Names

Character Names

Character Name Resources

Surnames Masterpost

Write Real People Generator

Types of Voice

55 Words to Describe Someone’s Voice

Showing Character Emotion

Character Motivation

Writing Characters Of Colour

Here are some resources for fleshing out character personalities:

Antagonist OC Interview

How to Write Diverse Characters

OC Interview: Through Another Character’s Eyes

5 Minute OC Interview

Foolproof Ways to Flesh Out Your Characters

8 Other Ways of Fleshing Out Characters

Character Profile Sheet

Character Traits

Archetypes to Avoid in Character Creation

Strong Female Characters: How to

Characterization Ask Game

Five Traps When Creating Characters (and tips on how to improve!)

Traumatized Character Profile

So you want to make an OC? (Masterpost)

30 Uncommon Character Development Questions

The Importance of Weaknesses in Your Characters

Qualities of Realistic Characters

Ultimate Guide to Creating Authentic Villians

If anyone has any more resources feel free to add to this list! I hope this helps you out!

Tags

characters

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yourwriters

5 years ago

So, I Heard That Some Of You Were Having Issues With The Download. Here’s My Outlining Guide Just As

So, I heard that some of you were having issues with the download. Here’s my outlining guide just as is in photos. Same quality. Enjoy!

Tags

plot charcters point of view outlining

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yourwriters

5 years ago

blooming blossom: lockdown

@flashfictionfridayofficial

the world is silenced by a virus it is scarily quiet in my town even the station is calm because of the lockdown on the road I see only an empty bus my whole world is turned upside down captured between these walls I feel lifeless how do you stay all right in such a crisis? so alone and so scared of this new crown but through my window I see the blossoms of my cherry tree even now not everything is wrong I take a picture to remember nature is still growing normally I send it to my sister, who works in a hospital all day long I send it to my grandma, who I now cannot visit safely I send it to you, I hope you stay safe and fine and strong

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yourwriters

5 years ago