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Topic : Re: How to make a intellectually disabled character believable? I want to use a 12yo girl with down syndrome as main character. Trisomy 21 people has a low IQ, normally around 50, at least according - selfpublishingguru.com

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Perhaps the best example of creating the POV of a developmentally disabled main character comes from the first part of Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. One big issue there, though, is that it is really, really hard reading. The character (this bit is portrayed in first person) doesn't have a great sense of how to tell narrative and as such the story jumps around all over the place and sometimes key details are left out. You pretty much have to read that part a few times over to make much sense of it.

Otherwise, if you want to have a main character with Down's Syndrome, my advice is to do research on the subject. My guess is that you don't have a relative with it, so that's why you're asking. There are a great many pitfalls with portraying the developmentally disabled, not the least of which is presenting them as a modern-day noble savage (this is more or less exactly what Forrest Gump is). As with all of your other characters, you need to create someone with their own goals, their own demeanor, and their own strengths and weaknesses, and none of those attributes should be or include "Down's Syndrome". Should this influence all of that other stuff? Sure. But a good, fleshed-out character is more than a "person with Down's".


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