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Hey, I am totally Neuro typical but I have an autistic oc. I was wondering if you would give me advice on what you would like to see in media if I ever get published. He ISs is nonverbal and hates loud sounds and eye contact. When he gets scared he runs off to see plants. He likes plants and keeps some flowers with him. He has trouble with clothes and touch and has a cloak and one shirt that he can where. I still have questions about stimming. What it is and how do i (if I should) write it?

Alright! First of all, I think that you might want to take a look at @scriptautistic; they are a blog specifically designed to help writers write autistic characters. Their FAQ is a very good place to start, and you can search keywords like ‘nonverbal’ or ‘stimming’ on their blog.

First of all, I think you picked a very risky character to write. No offense. Since you’re using ‘he’ pronouns, I’m assuming he’s a guy. Your autistic character is a nonverbal guy. I’m going to state this right now, for the record: I have literally never seen a nonverbal character written well by a neurotypical. If I saw this on the back of a book, I’d put it back like I’d been burned.

Aside from the fact that I’ve never seen a nonverbal character written well by a neurotypical, he also sounds stereotypical. This post by scriptautistic describes the stereotypical autistic character. As you can see, you’re already ticking off at least four of the twelve points just with your short description. This is a big risk to take, especially for a neurotypical. You might want to work to make sure that you don’t fall into the other categories as well.

What I do like about your character is his special interest in plants. The fact that he carries around a couple of flowers with him is very realistic, at least in my experience; I had the habit of carrying books around for the longest time because they were my special interest and comforted me.

Aside from that, this particular type of special interest has potential to become unique if you make sure to not make him focus on the science of plants, but rather on nurturing them. I’ll get deeper into what I mean by that later.

This post is becoming way too long, so I’ll put the rest under the cut..

First of all, I’ll give you a couple of general tips for writing autistic characters:

Be careful what sites you use for research. Remember that actually autistic people should always be your primary source material. Autism Speaks is awful, if the sites mention ABA or therapy aimed to make people ‘indistinguishable from peers’, run. ASAN, however, is a good place to start. As is the Autism Women’s Network.

Be aware of stereotypes. I’ve already mentioned that your character has fairly stereotypical traits, but you can still avoid making him stereotypical if you know what you’re doing. Research the fuck out of stereotypes and try to avoid and/or deconstruct them if possible.

Give your character a personality. A problem with many neurotypical writers attempting to write an autistic character is that they forget to give their character a personality beyond their autistic traits. Yes, autism affects every part of us, but we are still unique individuals. Don’t write your character like an autism traits checklist.

It’s ‘autistic’, not ‘person with autism’. People will try to tell you different, but the vast majority of autistic people prefer ‘autistic’. You did this good already, but I thought I’d mention it anyway.

Get autistic beta/sensitivity readers. Sometimes neurotypicals manage to create an autistic despite not having sensitivity readers, but it’s not recommended.

Give your character an integral part in the plot, that is not to be a motivation for another character. If your character solely exists as a motivation for another character (ex: the autistic younger brother that the big brother must protect), honestly, stop. It’s insulting to be treated as a plot device. At the very least, give us agency and have us affect the plot through our own actions.

If a character is acting ableist, call them out in the narrative. Not to say that you need to have a character going ‘uh, that’s ableist’, just condemn the actions. For example, if a mother tells someone about their child’s autistic diagnosis without their permission, have the other characters side-eye her, or have the autistic character protest, or just put a sentence in that makes it clear that the narrator disapproves of the behaviour.

Write an autistic character, but don’t write about autism. This is general advice for any minority you don’t belong too. Our experiences are unique and an outsider can’t fully tell them. Write an autistic character, but don’t make your story about autism.

Don’t make him ‘grow out’ of his autistic traits. Don’t show character development by making him stop stimming or something.

And lastly, don’t other your character. It’s okay to make it clear that he’s different from your other characters, but make sure that they respect him and consider him one of their own anyway. Don’t make him seem like an alien.

Secondly, I’m going to adress writing the ‘nonverbal’ part of your character, as you have to be really careful with that, especially since you’re neurotypical. I’m not nonverbal, but I can give you a couple of general tips and things to keep in mind when writing a nonverbal autistic character:

PLEASE do extensive research, and base your character primarily on the experience of actual nonverbal autistic people. If you don’t you will reinforce negative stereotypes, whether you know it or not.

Remember that alternate forms of communication exist. Since you mentioned a cloak, I’m assuming your story isn’t set in modern day times (we don’t really have cloaks anymore after all), and in that case, AAC technology doesn’t exist. Even so, research ways your character could communicate with people around them without talking (I’d advise against making him rely solely on charades; it can work, but you’ll run a high risk of falling into the stereotype that nonverbal people can’t communicate at all).

Remember not to infantilize your character. Autistic people can come across as childish, but if your character is an adult, they are still an adult, even if they’re nonverbal and autistic. Write him like his age. Give your character agency, opinions, etc. (you’d think this goes without saying but you’d be wrong)

Now, let’s move onto stimming. Since you don’t know what it is, I’m assuming you haven’t researched autism a lot. That’s okay, there’s a place to start for everyone. However, assume that you don’t know a lot. This resource post by scriptautistic has a lot of good resources listed. And the FAQ of this blog, autism-asks, is very extensive and contains good explenations for basic things. ‘What is stimming?’ is answered in detail there too.

I made a seperate post about writing stimming here, because I thought this would be useful to many more people.

For your character specifically, I’d recommend making him stim with soft textures, his cloak (by rubbing/fidgeting with it), the plants he carries with him (by rubbing the petals, for example), to start with.

Now, we get to your character specifically. You have given me very little information to work with, but I can give you a couple of tips nonetheless:

Decide your character’s empathy level. Autistics often experience empathy differently from neurotypicals. Simplified, we tend to either have a lot of it (hyperempathy) or low/no empathy. Researching both would be good, however for your character specifically, I strongly recommend giving him hyperempathy. This is underrepresented and since you already have given your character a lot of stereotypical autistic traits, giving him the stereotypical low empathy on top of all that would be a bad idea.

Also, people with hyperempathy tend to also have empathy for things like plants/animals, which could be interesting in combination with his special interest.

I mentioned earlier that having your character focus on the nurturing side of his special interest (aka taking care of plants, making them grow, developing a garden), rather than the scientific aspect (their biology, their cells, etc.) would be a good idea. If your character focuses on nurturing things, making them grow, they tend to have a ‘caretaker’ personality. This defeats the stereotype that autistics are heartless/have no emotions. This could work to humanize the character and to make him unique.

Furthermore, it would bring your character farther from the stereotypical autistic male, who is often obsessed with math/science. Giving them the science side of plants as their special interest, however, would play into that stereotype.

However, DON’T make him a savant. He doesn’t ‘magically’ grow plants (unless actual magic is involved). He has simply spent a lot of time with them and therefore knows a lot more about them than the average person. Don’t make him a genius.

You mentioned that he runs to plants when he feels scared. Why? Does focusing on his special interest comfort him? Does he stim with the smell? Is it a familiar environment for him? A combination? Specify this to yourself and the readers.

How practical is running to plants when he feels scared? Where does he live? Does he ever move to a place without plants, or travel? What happens when he doesn’t have access to this coping mechanism?

Take care not to infantilize them and make sure your other characters respect him, his intelligence, and his opinion. From what you’ve told me, there’s a pretty high risk of that happening, especially with the running away when feeling scared thing.

I recommend that you read Anne Ursu’s The Real Boy (here on the Book Depository, here on Amazon USA), partly because it’s fucking good, partly the main character is an autistic boy who doesn’t like eye contact and is hypersensitive and has a special interest in herbs. It sounds like your character has a lot of similarities with him, and it might help to read a similar character.

However, Ursu is still neurotypical, so don’t treat is as a bible.

Here is an interview with Ursu (does spoil the book) that might help you gain some insight.

Here is a review by Disability in Kidlit (which is a good resource in general), that also might help you gain some insight (again, spoils the book).

Primarily, I recommend that you do a shitton of research, and listen to autistic people.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask!

#autistic fiction #personal posts #reddragonwaterkitty #ask

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