: Re: How do I tell the reader that my character is autistic in Fantasy? I am a woman with aspergers and writing an autistic character has always been close to my heart. Fiera Allas, a fantasy

@Kristi637

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Does your character really need to be labeled? Write her out of your own experience, and people who share that experience will recognize pieces of themselves in her --as will people who don't share that experience.

I have a child with a diagnosis on the spectrum (and my wife always tells me I should have been diagnosed as a child!) and while the label is useful for gaining extra support, and to help people conceptualize his way of approaching the world, that's all that it's good for. It doesn't really say anything deep about who he really is as a person. It's just the way our particular culture, at this particular point in history, helps itself understand a portion (a sub-spectrum, if you will) of the incredible range of human diversity.

I don't see a fantasy world as necessarily having that same need. But it's your world, and you can write it as you want. So think about how that world might conceptualize ASD and what usefulness a label might have for it. Maybe that range of traits is always associated with magical gifts, or weaponry skills, so they call people with those traits the "gifted ones" or something along those lines. Or, if you don't want it to be so positive, maybe it's a set of traits that people recognize and fear, and therefore try to hide. The possibilities are wide open.

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