Once upon a time I read an article about disability representation in fiction and how treating Autism like a personality quirk and not even naming the disorder in a setting that would have the means to diagnose it is bad.
Here is the problem, I have an Autistic character, but he’ll be the last person to tell you that. If you ask him him even something as trivial as “Are you neurodivergent?” he’ll get defensive and upset fast. Unless it’s a sappy ploy for sympathy, either from his boss who wants to fire him for making his fragile art students do push-ups during class, or to the reader in a shallow attempt at earning sympathy. Unless his love interest ends up hearing his diagnosis from his dad, his love interest will remain none the wiser.
There is a work-around, but that requires an outside perspective. I am Autistic myself, but I don’t have the outside awareness to know what is “normal” and what is “weird” and how my “weirdness” manifests in many cases.
Basically write something and find some emotional sap to read it ask them about “muh feels!” If it feels more factual, it won’t be a tearjerking thing that gets you accused of pandering for sympathy. “Fact of life” it, don’t harp on it, don’t make it the first 3 things we know about the character, or give it away in the first chapter, but “yeah, I got x, and I don’t want that to change things between us.” is plain practical.
Just because the character won’t tell people they are autistic, doesn’t mean the narrator (if it’s 3rd person) can’t address it. But you also have to take those sorts of articles with a grain of salt. If you are autistic yourself, you would know better than some random white knight on the internet making claims whether it’s offensive to you and people like you to not mention the disorder by name in your writing. You can bring representation without shoving it down people’s throats and you can do it in your own way rather than by some specific set of guidelines some stranger wrote down. What counts as good and bad representation are not hard rules and they are being changed all the time. Just do what feels right to you, and if people come at you saying you aren’t being sensitive to autistic people, you can honestly throw it in their face that you are autistic yourself and if you weren’t offended by it, anyone that is is probably offended for the wrong reasons. This is coming from a neurodivergent person too.
Most the time, people who aren’t the thing need to back off. Not never write what they aren’t but definately not tell others who are how to write what they arent.
We would never have new species in stories if we all wrote what we knew.
She lists a whole lot of examples of books she hated, but offers no recommendations of how you should write it. Unfortunately I never read any of the books she mentioned, so I have no idea how they dealt with various disabilities. The only example I can think of is the show The Big Bang Theory, where Sheldon is supposedly autistic or something and it’s never mentioned in any of the episodes. Have you ever seen it, and if so do you find it offensive? It never occurred to me that there’s anything insulting about it. I side with what @Xelyn_Craft said. You yourself know what’s offensive to you, and there’s no way to write a book that won’t offend someone someone who has their own issues. So my advice, for what it’s worth, is to write what you want to write with all the respect you’d personally like to see in a book, and don’t worry about offending someone like her. It seems nothing could please her! ¯\_(ﭢ)_/¯
Sheldon is an asshole that nobody calls out, but he’s arguably the funniest guy in the whole show.
You’re wrong, she’s written several articles of positive recommendations. Some people just get really negative and don’t see the silver lining in every cloud, or even how to make the clouds go away.
She has a couple on fantasy, fairy tales, and disability.
It is possible for her to be absolutely wrong in 1 article and spot on in every single other thing she writes.
She is not your personal Creator God.
It’s more likely that she has some of it right, but not all of it. The thing is that when you’re in the process of writing an article arguing for a specific point, you’re Pidgeonholeing everything you can into your example, to prove your point. Most papers that do that are biased.
So, you’re going to have to pick a book she is offended by and read around in the comments section, see what is known.
In the first article she lists many books by title and author that she finds offensive and why, like Tiny Tim from A Christmas Carol and the mc of Me Before You by Jojo Moyes, etc. You could probably find comments about those books on Amazon or Goodreads and see if other readers find the disabilities problematic…?
I do know that in the time period that the Christmas Carol was published in, there was barely a healthcare system and disabled people were in an even less accessible society. It’s a depressing fact.
I don’t see a lot of high-profile Autism representation that is even comparable to what I’m trying to write. The last outrage was about Music, which is about a girl who has a completely different place on the Autism Spectrum. I’ll look even deeper into disability representation in the meantime.
If she does not name them then they are figments of her own insanity. Even if not, you treat them as such because a source unverified is…ah, what’s the term? “Fake news.”
I would say keep it on a need to know basis. Vagueness and leaving things open to question are valid writing tools, and you shouldn’t give them up just to fill in someone’s etiquette check boxes.
Somewhat related. The main character of my first two novels is presented with several disabilities (nystagmus, photophobia, poor eyesight (and iris that turn crimson in direct light), skin with little to no protection from heat / UV light) that are symptoms of her albinism…the character Ashley is a full albino…However, Ashley’s albinism is never referenced or named.
This was done for two reasons. Education by stealth; to give the readers an accurate depiction of life with albinism,* at least better than what Hollywood / popular media presented at the time, without evoking any pre-existing stereotypes / stigmas by naming albinism (and potentially dissuading readers). Entertainment for all; to provide both the informed and misinformed or uninformed readers with a curious and engaging / inspiring character.
*
The Knowlton family’s website and community forum (long since vanished from the internet) were an invaluable resource for this goal, and a wonderful group. Many thanks to all involved.
Slightly closer to the topic, would Michael Burry from The Big Short be considered a character with autism or not?
the only positive albino character I ever read about was a lizard woman. No, really.
I would not know, I have never seen it or heard it talked about much, but some people online like to conflate “child-coding” with “autism-coding” though. Something to be avoided at all costs.
I’ve seen enough readers who think that characters that aren’t white, are white with no evidence. If your book attracts a large audience, some people will either be too thick to notice that she has Albinism or insist that she doesn’t because it’s not outright said.
This is coming from a neurodivergent person too.