Aspies don't enjoy fiction?

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Sci-fi, anime, manga, fantasy, books, vdeogames, historical fiction (mainly about japan and/or samurais), fiction at movies . . . I love fiction

Nobody suggested that reading isn't great.
I spend vast tracts of my day reading - but exclusively on the web.

What's specifically at issue is whether Aspies have a preference for non-fiction.

It seems that the majority of those who do enjoy fiction, prefer SciFi - which doesn't negate the quoted proposition that Aspies dislike fiction .... since I think said proposition was more a reference to drama, which is known to have limited Aspergic appeal.

And SciFi isn't actually about drama.
So the original contention still stands, in my view.
Aspies don't enjoy (dramatic) fiction.

yep= love it. def another rubbish myth.

though- with some very aspie adendums- i hate short stories as i have a short attention span- so they just end too soon and confuse me- nightmare! change is wrong.

but most notably, i can never imagine the characters! this is a quesiton which comes up and is def true in my case. i can imagine everything eolse- houses esp are incredibly memorable to me.

i can even see a hair style, or clothes, but the faces are always fuzzy. i am def able to relate to things far ebtter than people, and love still life, architectural and lanscape photograpy, btu dislike taking pics of people.

i have to say, one would get a far clearer picture of asp's reading only the boards here than the rubbish of official diagnoses.- esp since, one of the features of asp's is inability to read between the lines etc, so i do tend to see thnigs in black and white and forget its a septrum disorder.
'im not technical?- oh, i cant have it 'etc.

Nobody suggested that anybody suggested that reading isn't great.

To clarify, I certainly did not intend to imply that anybody had suggested reading was anything less than great. I was merely being enthusiastic in my love of reading and intended the comment as 'self-declarative' (of my feelings about reading) rather than 'responsive' (to any comment made by earlier posters). It did not occur to me that someone might interpret the comment as something beyond a statement about my own feelings about reading. My apologies if this was less than clear.

What counts as drama then?

IMO science fiction is so broad it's not even a genre, since any genre can be science fiction (some of the science fiction masters talked about this back in probably the '50s).

Ironically a lot of stuff people think of as science fiction may not be, and vice versa (ie does Star Wars actually qualify as science fiction? Questionable, at best.)

I prefer "hard" science fiction. *LOVE* the Rama series, and Foundation.

For as long as I can remember I've loved reading fiction and creative writing
But what trewissick says about imagining the characters in stories, I experience that. Either the faces are blurry, its someone from a movie/TV or the face will constantly change throughout the book.
Also if I read a novel that has been made into a film after I've seen the movie I simply cannot imagine the characters looking like anything other than the actors involved.

I picture the characters fine. Not sure if I really think about their faces too much, but I picture their bodies at any rate. But I often don't really remember their names...just like in real life, even though their names are the only things identifying them in the book! Kind of weird...

Same here with the faces. And names... I learned years ago that I need to take notes when reading any novel. Most of the time, writing the name and a little something is enough. Just one line per person. But sometimes I forget and need to look back.

Weirdly I don't need to write the names down or anything, and I know who the characters are-but I'm picturing them visually in my mind while I'm reading. I don't really think of their names (even though that's the only info on the page), and I often (usually?) don't remember their names.

That's how I am in real life, it's just really strange that I could do the same thing with books, since I'm reading their name over and over, yet still the important thing is my mental image of the person.

In some books there will be a list of characters at the front of the book. This is especially useful when reading Dostoevsky and every character has three names.

It only works if I write it myself. Because I write it.

Writing helps your memory? I see.

That "Aspies don't enjoy fiction" is just an idle rumor.

Last edited by JetLag on 18 Aug 2008, 3:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Fiction is practically all I read. Mostly Fantasy and Historical Fiction, but I also read Sci-Fi.

Yikes! I'm bad enough with ONE name.

Come to think of it, I don't remember names on TV shows or movies either. Just like real life. I remember what they look like, who they are, etc., but can't remember their name. I remember the names of the main characters on like the Star Trek shows but that's only because they're distinctive and I've watched every episode.

I love reading fiction. And non-fiction. Either. And newspapers. And magazines. I'll read almost anything.

I'm not very good at writing fiction though, I don't think I'm very good at imagining and inventing stuff. I prefer to write stuff with a basis in reality.