Writing narrative, can you?

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My kids have all had a very hard time with the idea of writing fiction and narrative (fiction or non-fiction). The little guy kind of outgrew it, but the other two are 13 and 11 and still really can't do it. It's like the passing of events is just different for them, or maybe the things that are significant to them are just really different. They write very well if it's factual or persuasive, but stories seem to really baffle them. Their language skills are very advanced.

Is this their Aspieness or what?

They both have good solid Aspie diagnoses and ADHD.

I have a great deal of trouble coming up with original stories and characters. Everyone tells me I could be a talented writer due to my very large vocabulary, but I can never seem to formulate a decent plot or character. The only stories/characters I'm capable of coming up with are heavily cribbed from other sources.

I used to feel pretty crappy about this aspect of myself, until I learned that my idol Tim Burton is the same way. He admits that he has a lot of difficulty writing his own stories. That explains why he prefers to direct movies rather than get involved in the writing process, and why most of his movies are remakes such as Alice in Wonderland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

I've written fiction and narrative for a long time, though I didn't really do well at it until I was about 13. On the other hand, my NT brother has absolutely no idea how to write stories and simply cannot do it, so it's not a problem exclusive to those on the spectrum.

I think that I write well, but sometimes I'm not sure.

Thank you for your responses. I don't mind that they can't write narrative but in our state it's a requirement to move to Middle School. I'm not very good at writing narrative either, but I can do it....just not all that well. For these two it's something more extreme. They aren't even doing it badly and panic about it. The boy who is now 13 couldn't read until he was about 9. He was doing algebra at 4, but not writing it. He could explain algebraic concepts and we could do it with manipulatives. He couldn't connect a written symbol with the concept it represented. This narrative thing is more like that.

Maybe it's some other little neurological glitch and not specific to their ASD.

It's pretty common for aspies to prefer non-fiction in reading material (although that's not universally true; I like fantasy novels), so it makes since that an aspie might prefer and understand non-fiction writing better. We tend to be very literal-minded people, so things that are real and based in facts appeal to us more than made-up things, in some cases. Even in fantasy novels, I get very irritated when a writer gives a country a name that sounds Gaelic to my ears, but all the people from that country have Asian-sounding names. It simply could be that if your children are more interested in non-fiction, they may feel more at home writing non-fiction. If you really want them to give fiction-writing a try, encourage them to read a fiction book about their special interests, whatever those are, and then try their hand at writing their own works of fiction based on that example.

I would recomend 'writers on the
spectrum' by Dr Julie Brown.
It is the best book I have read on
AS......in it she documents the
life of Hans C Anderston, Herman
Nelvile, Emily Dikinson, James Joice,
Lewis Carol, etc......Brown makes
the case that executive function
in us AS types renders us gifted
at details and week on narative.

If you think of it, it makes sense.
I, like many of my bothers and
sisters in the spectrum, see life like
looking through long tubes, the intensity
of focus my be great, but the overall
view will be impared naturally.
c

I can write stories with dialogues, but it looks unnatural, because I can't describe feelings. I'm good in reports, coverages and formal letters.

My writing skills are above average, but much work is waiting for me, if I wanted to write a novel or any fiction.

I have no trouble with this. My degree is in English, Writing Concentration and I have written a collection of short stories. I used to tell my little cousins bedtime stories off the top of my head. I guess my problem is that I need an outside force to get me to write. Unless I'm writing for money and a deadline, I just won't sit down and do it. Stories tend to stay in my head.

It's not about my preference, it's about getting them through school requirements. I like reading fantasy and feel the same way you do about mixing up cultures like that. I think that reading non-fiction probably serves them better since their interests and gifts lean that way, but in our state there are writing requirements that must be met to move on.

They are great readers with fabulous comprehension, vocabulary etc. Eldest son has always, until recently, been a good student. Middle son is a top student who gets top grades in all subjects, but this writing thing is absolute. They have to write five different pieces and show competence in five different areas...or is it six. Fiction was tough, but they did it. This narrative piece is really tripping them up. They are processing story lines in some way that isn't helping them on this assignment. I just want to understand, not to fix them. They are great as they are, other than some of the attendant medical problem eldest son has.

That's really interesting Criss, and seems to fit what I'm seeing in my kids. Brown was in the spectrum? I'm going to have to look over some of her poems again, she's always been one of my favorites.

There's a game that we play at family parties - we sit in a circle and tell a story. Each player says anything from one word to one "page" and then the person on the left adds to it. But don't be serious! It could be -

Player 1: A man woke up ...
Player 2: inside a Shuttle ...
Player 3: with a parrot on his head ...

etc. the idea is to teach/allow the mind to wander out loud.

I guess it might be a variation on the "and then what?" school of narration.

Just a side-note - I was convinced I couldn't write fiction until a night when I waited for bad news - I picked up Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine - they have a Mystery Photo, about which they invite you to write 250 words. It took me all night but I did it.

Maybe pictures could help? allposters.com has lots. Look and them and decide what those people are doing.

Never been a problem. I was such a voracious reader from such an early age, absorbing the narrative style was something I just picked up by osmosis, same way I pick up other people's voices after hearing them speak for awhile, and I love creating evocative atmosphere; I talk to myself so much, dialogue just pours out.

Writing outlines is a whole different ballgame - that requires a strong executive function and I just can't wrap my head around the complexities of creating the whole story at once, so I tend to just plunge in and move ahead in a more or less linear fashion, so I'm experiencing the exposition the same way a reader would, with only a vague notion (most of the time) of what's coming next. That way the story builds on itself, scene by scene, as a serial. Once it's finished you can always go back and edit and fill in.

Same here! Gee, I thought I was the only one.

I have problems with completely original creative writing, however recalling events that I have experienced, or reinventing a particular fable is significantly easier. Being taught a specific structure that the writing should follow helped as well, even though my writing rarely actually fit the structure in the end.

All writing is quite time consuming for me, because my writing requires significant re-reading and editing to ensure that it will make sense to others. In school, I received significant time extensions due to a 94 percentile point difference between reading rate and reading comprehension ability, which helped compensate for the time I needed to edit my writing as well.

For context, I looked up this article on narrative writing.

After a quick read, this bullet stood out as a problem:

* Think like your readers. Try to remember that the information you present is the only information your readers have about the experiences.

Making sure that my writing can stand alone as a complete piece of information has always been a problem for me. I lost sight of this recently and wrote a couple of emails in my more natural narrative. 100% of which got returned with very confused replies.

Huntedman,

Eldest son gets significant time extensions for similar reasons. His cognitive processing speed is severely impaired, as in well below normal range, but his general IQ is quite good, well above average (especially if you leave the processing speed out of the equation!). His spacial reasoning ability is his biggest strength and is in the superior range.

It's ironic that "slow" is a euphamism for "low intelligence" when truly speed and intelligence don't always correlate. Middle son has a relative weakness in cognitive processing speed as well, but it's not really "impaired" the way Eldest's is. It's just a huge point spread from the rest of his IQ which falls into the very superior/superior range. I don't remember the numbers but probably pretty close to the 76 point spread you've got. He doesn't get accomodations for it because the tests have enough time built in for average/low average kids already. I'm often explaining to people that my kids need extra time to process things, but that their ideas are so great it's worth the wait. That's not the same thing as my original question, but interesting.