Author Spectrum: How Autism Shaped My Screen Writing Career

I am Autistic, one of millions of people in the world with a specific neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave. "Disorder" does not mean "disease." I embrace autism and accept that it is important to my identity, just like my writing, and being creative. Here are three ways autism and writing overlapped throughout my life to make me who I am.

Autism and Creativity

Active Imagination

Since childhood, my favorite comic strip has been Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Waterson. Not a controversial choice, I know, but Calvin and I shared not just an active imagination, but a highly visual one. Just like him, I could easily see entire worlds, casts of characters, and great battles in my mind's eye.

Those scenes in my head, inspired by my own life and the films and TV I grew up watching, would string together into films, trilogies, or franchises worth of events. I would sometimes share them, but it took years for me to finally take my parent’s advice to start writing down these stories. Once I did, though, the choice of career as not just a writer, but a writer of the most visual mediums, was inevitable. I still have and cherish that imagination, and attribute it to my being on the autism spectrum. 

Autism and Understanding the World

I was not diagnosed as autistic until my teen years, but the signs were obvious in hindsight. I acted oddly for my age at almost every age. I would hyperfixate on ideas or events for months at a time, and found great comfort in simple, repetitive actions like dribbling a ball or running. But most of all, and common to people on the spectrum, I was, and still sometimes am, introverted, and other people and their non-verbal communication can confuse me. 

Fiction hasn’t just given me a career and entertainment; it helped me understand the world as a child. It still does in many ways. Free from the limits of my own perspective, or the real world, fictional characters taught me about human relationships and empathy. I look up to fictional heroes to improve myself, and the world. Sometimes, works of fiction scare me, but these prepared me for the frightening elements of the real world, and to face them. 

Autism and Emotional Truth

I can only speak from my own experiences and those of other autistic people I know, but don’t let the introversion fool you; we tend to be passionate people. Key passions of mine are art, social justice, and self-improvement, and though it sounds strange to say, those passions can sometimes overcome my capabilities; I’ll feel like I’m a bad artist, or not doing enough to improve myself or the world. 

In my writings, though, there are no limits. Not only can I write about characters who save the world or fail tragically, I can make them more compelling by putting my own emotions into them, so I’m writing what I know even when writing an alien bounty hunter. Stephen King, and his use of writing as personal catharsis is a personal inspiration (though I have no plans of becoming an alcoholic). Others' fiction helps me understand the world, but it can also help me understand myself by giving me an outsider’s view of my thoughts and feelings. 

My Advice

If you’re on the spectrum yourself, or you know and want to help a child who is, I recommend considering fiction and writing. I’m not saying all autistic people should become writers, but I think it’s worth trying to understand your or the child’s relationship with media, and seeing if that relationship could be cultivated, and bear fruits like better understanding the mind on the spectrum, learning about the world and people, or finding a meaningful new hobby or way of expressing oneself.