Indie Life: Using Asperger Special Interests in Fiction Writing

 

This post is a part of the Indie Life blog hop, in which we blog about life as an indie writer.  We are also remembering on this day the events of the Sept. 11th, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Welcome to my blog! For those who don't know me, I am not only an indie writer, I am a writer with Asperger Syndrome, a form of autism. One of the symptoms of Asperger Syndrome is special interests.

A special interest is a somewhat obsessive interest in certain things that brings a certain degree of happiness to those with Asperger Syndrome. They can be something useful, like an obsession with computers like Bill Gates has, something relatively normal like being an obsessive Star Trek fan, or something a bit odd like an obsession with railroad schedules or collecting doorknobs.

When it comes to writing, incorporating some of your special interests into the fictional work can have certain benefits. First, it helps keep up the writer's interest in the work of fiction in question--- an important issue for a writer who often begins and then abandons fictional projects. Also it can create reader interest when the special interest used is one many people have some degree of interest in.

Bringing the passion that the typical aspie has toward a special interest into a fictional work may pay off in the fact that a novel written out of a great passion is usually more compelling than same-old, same-old fiction. And, finally, the special interests you use in your fiction can help define the themes and topics which make your writing unique. Think of the Valdemar novels of Mercedes Lackey (who as far as I know does not have Asperger Syndrome). She often writes about child abuse, misunderstood children, horses, falcons/falconry, and, in a disguised manner, cops (the Heralds of Valdemar).

In my own WIP Starship Destine, I have used a number of my special interests. One of my earlier special interests is an obsession with the Star Trek series, particularly the original one. Starship Destine, like Star Trek, is starship-based science fiction. Some of the characters in Starship Destine are the extra characters I made up for Star Trek stories.

Another special interests I have is languages, and in particular created languages and international auxiliary languages like Esperanto  (learn Esperanto here).  I speak Esperanto pretty well, and I know some of a couple of other similar international auxiliary languages that never got the speaker base that Esperanto has these days. I could have incorporated this interest into my story by simply creating an idealized future society where all Earth people have agreed to speak Esperanto as a second language and thus done away with language problems--- at least until they meet their first aliens. But that kind of story isn't me. In Starship Destine there are no less than 3 international auxiliary languages in use--- the two major political factions each have their preferred IAL, and the Fleet uses a third to show its attempted neutrality.

I also have an interest in politics, as well as a dismay at the anger and hatred over political divisions today. Because I don't want to project contemporary politics into the future, I have replaced today's conservative/liberal dichotomy with a different one: we have the Omaynists, which include ALL of today's conservative/liberal/socialist/'reactionary' factions, who are characterized by the fact that they actually believe in things, and usually share the idea that at least sometimes it is good to tell the truth, and the Alliterists, who openly boast of telling lies and who admire the evil dictators of the past such as Caligula, Stalin, Hitler and Kim Jong-il.

Now, as beneficial as special interests can be to your fiction, there is a downside. Aspies can run on and on about their special interests to the point that they bore people. Think of all the details about whaling in Moby Dick, written by probable aspie Herman Melville. By modern standards at least he should have cut some of that out. And if he was a typical aspie, he might easily have added two or three times as much of those whaling-details. It's kind of like the social skills we aspies have to learn, that we have to limit the amount of stuff we say about our special interests to others, just give them very brief highlights to avoid boring them.

Another trap is letting your special interests eat your writing time, if not your life. That's a constant temptation for me in this project. One of the languages I use in the story, Universalglot, is a very obscure one, and a language I don't know very well yet. I'm very tempted to spend my writing time studying Universalglot or working on my Universalglot Facebook page. The essential thing is to set a fixed rule--- your writing time is for your writing. Your special interests you work with at some other time--- usually after the day's writing work is over.

After all this, I bet some of the neurotypical writers out there are beginning to wish that they were lucky enough to have Asperger Syndrome and the attendant flock of special interests. Don't despair, your more ordinary interests can take the same role in your writing. And though you may not have the same level of passion for them that the aspie has with special interests, they are also less likely to take up too much of your time.

Question: what interests of yours, special or otherwise, have you incorporated into your current writing? Is it working out?
 
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