Do you write stories?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm writing a book about a painter who is autistic. I have no idea what the "story" is, it's not a mystery or anything it's really just a sort of "life" story. Drama I would say.

Here is a rough draft of what I have written so far. Guess I should figure out a title too.

Seth came out of his dream. Something about climbing along the top of a cinder block wall. His dreams rarely made sense and he barely remembered any details.
Even though Seth was awake now, he kept his eyes closed. It was the third day in the back seat of the family sedan. Seth's parents, Jason and Sarah were in the front seats. Jason was driving and Sarah was reading. The inside of Seth's eye lids had a reddish tint, sunlight was beaming through the window onto his face. He turned his face away from it. He could smell the bag of Cheetos on the seat next to him. It made his stomach rumble. They were on the highway, headed north. Moving to a coastal town in the Pacific Northwest called Evansport. They were moving there from Henderson, Nevada where Seth had lived most of his life. He opened his eyes slowly, because sunlight hurt his eyes. Just at that moment a cloud blocked the sun and Seth was grateful. He turned his head, looked out the window and saw a wall of immensely tall evergreens gliding past him. Seth stretched and groaned.

"Almost finally there, son" Jason said looking at him in the rear view mirror.

Jason took the exit that appeared a few minutes later. The elevated off ramp curved to the left, walled in by tall Douglas firs, maples and cedars. Suddenly the trees gave way to a breathtaking view of the ocean bay hemmed in by far off islands. Sarah took Jason's right hand into hers and squeezed it. Off to their right Evansport lay sprawled out. The off ramp let them onto Broad Street, one of the three main drags of the Evansport peninsula. The GPS lady told Jason to take a left turn on Cedar Drive and then a right turn at 27th Street.
A few seconds later the GPS lady cheerfully informed them that they had arrived at their destination. A two story house with wooden siding painted dove gray with white windowsills and shutters, loomed above them on a steep incline. About twenty five mossy stone stairs lead up to the front porch. This house, like all the houses around it was old. Much different from the cookie cutter mission style home built in the 90's they had owned in Nevada. Just then a green Jeep Cherokee approached them from behind and the middle aged blonde woman driving tooted the horn and waved as she drove past and parked in front of them on the narrow tree lined street.
"That's Mrs. McReady, the Realtor" Jason told Sarah.
Jason got out of the car stiff legged, while Sarah also got out and opened the back door to help Seth get out.
Seth's legs felt wobbly beneath him and Sarah put her hands under his arms to help steady him.
"This is my wife Sarah and our son Seth" Jason said introducing them.
Sarah shook Deloris McReady's extended hand and exchanged greetings with her.
"And who do we have here?" Deloris asked as she reached her hand out to Seth.
Seth pulled sharply away from her.
"He's a bit shy" Sarah explained somewhat apologetically.
In fact Seth was autistic and hated to be touched by anyone except his parents and a few family members.
"And how old are you, Seth, about ten?" Deloris asked.
Seth didn't reply or even look up at her.
"He's 12 actually" Jason informed her.
Deloris regarded the boy before her. He was small and skinny with pale skin and tussled dark hair. Put some round glasses on him and he could almost pass for Harry Potter, Deloris thought. He was clearly withdrawn and had a certain awkwardness about him. Deloris wondered what his problem was and hoped he did not have any behavior issues that would be a problem for the neighbors. He seemed quiet enough though. Too quiet as a matter of fact.

Deloris McReady led them up the rough hewn steps which had some sort of old pipe work as a banister. Seth struggled up them, still being steadied by his mother.

Most of the time I have no motivation to write but when I do it's a horror story.
Even though I write since I was a little kid sometimes I still have difficulties creating characters who are "normal".
That's one of the reasons why most of my characters suffer from something like autism, OCD, borderline or they are sociopaths. Or I make them different in another way so they aren't Mary Sues. It also makes them more interesting.

Not bad, Erza.

Me, I always wrote stories as a kid, especially in school for assignments and such. Also got top marks. I also use to make my own comic books, doing the writing and drawings myself.

I kind of abandoned writing for a while, but now I'm back into it since last year. Working on a sci-fi military novel you can find here: https://onedrive.live.com/redir?resid=E ... ile%2cdocx

For more inforrmation on it, my description of it is posted in the Aspie Writing Showcase thread.

I've just started on one today.
It's about a 19 year old, who's just started at university. However, he doesn't know anyone and because of his alternative style of clothing and his way of always being the quiet one people rather stay away from him than to introduce themselves. People start to bully him but he keeps taking it. But every time he gets bullied, he gets angrier. He’s tired of being the quiet and patient one and wants to unleash the anger he’s been building up over time. His way of thinking are turning his anger into madness. When he loses control he starts to torture the ones that have been bullying him. He overthinks every move, every step he makes. The combination of madness and being a very clever guy are making it extremely difficult for the police to catch him. Until he turns his back to his own friends and family.

I'm going to put the most work into describing his thoughts so the one who reads it will really be dragged into his world.

Nice start, Ezra. It'll be interesting to see how you work it.

I have a fictional story of my own up on-line since March of this year that's collected nearly 3,500 hits so far. It's loosely based on how I might have reacted to certain circumstances (out of envy) had they occured in my childhood, so obvously the main character would have the same issues I do. Some of the chapters aren't exactly "G-rated" due to explicity of various fixations and fetishes, so I don't think I should put all of it up on a board like this, but I'll show the introductory paragraphs and if anyone thinks they might be interested in reading more, feel free to P.M. me and I'll provide the source to additional material...

From Chapter One, "THE FIRST GLIMPSE"...

Christopher Sean Rockhill is a ten-year-old in the small community of Lephi, Utah (population 1,260 in 1980 census), which is just up the road from the larger town of Koab where he was born. He's lived in Lephi all his life and started kindergarten at Lephi's only K-6 school, Nollege Elementary (named after a war hero officer from Lephi) not long after turning six. He was known by "Christopher" pryor to starting kindergarten, but as there turned out to be two other boys in his class going by "Chris", a new nickname of "Rocky" just seemed to materialise in order to help distinguish him from what could have been an otherwise confusing schooling. Rocky lives in a family of four with his sister Sydney who is a couple of years older, his mother who works part time at the local community branch library, and his father who owns and manages the local cable/community antenna TV system. In addition Rocky's "pop" coaches the "Pop Warner" and "Little League" kids' football and baseball teams in Lephi. Because of this situation, Rocky has been under pressure for the past few years to participate in both, succeed athletically, and be a role model for other local boys interested in sports. Rocky tries his best at every sport he plays despite his short and somewhat husky build. Old timers in the community often state he reminds them of the character "Porky" in the classic "Lassie" TV show of the 1950's, only with a little more grown-out hair.
https://i1.ytimg.com/vi/FVEngAWDYZ4/hqdefault.jpg
Still Rocky mostly manages to meet his dad's expectations in his athletic performance. In academic issues though, Rocky has always lagged behind his sister since he started school. Sydney is virtually "straight-A" honour roll material, while Rocky has yet to see one "A" on any report card, settling for mostly "B's" and even a "C" or two in subjects like arithmetic and science. This has led to a yearly challenge from his librarian mother to catch up with his sister's grasp of the "basics". The fall of 1988 was no different. Rocky's mom handed out her list of incentives to him in an effort to motivate him to achieve higher as he prepared to begin his first day in fourth grade. The Rockhill home was on the opposite end of town from Nollege Elementary and Rocky would often go out and wait for the school bus coming in with the rural kids rather than take about a twenty minute walk to class. This day the bus showed up just moments after Rocky finally finished listening to his mom's spiel and made it outside, running as fast as he could in his new black Converse All-Star "Chuck" hi-tops. As he boarded the bus all short-of-breath, he saw the same old lineup of kids from his previous year of third grade and most he was able to recall names of as he panted hello to them. Rocky took a seat, caught his breath and the bus moved on but only for a couple of blocks when it stopped for another kid waiting at the curb. This time it was in front of the old Victorian style Blidsell house that had been empty for a year or so since Mr. Blidsell suddenly passed away and his ailing wife had to go to the nursing home. Rocky thought to himself, "wow, somebody's finally moved in there." A new kid boarded the bus, one Rocky had never seen before. This was quite rare for him, only having a few new children arrive since he began grade school. As this kid came down the aisle of the bus, Rocky began glancing over the shoulder-length blonde hair, striped polo shirt, new "designer" bib overalls, white socks, and some nearly brand new, very dark blue, if not black T-bar shoes in a style like he'd seen a few girls in kindergarten or first grade wear.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... rlotte.JPG"
The kid took the empty seat opposite the aisle from Rocky, looked at him and smiled. Rocky smiled back as his head began thinking, "I wonder what grade she's in?"....

That's an impressive start, Ezra. You have an eye for detail, those little observations that make a difference. A skill that all authors need to learn is how to edit their work, and this requires discipline, the ability to sometimes savagely cut things that, if you're honest with yourself, really don't work. Speaking as an author, this isn't always easy.

Please post more when you're happy to show it to us.

Well, I'm on Ch. 4 of my latest fantasy book with the Aspergian protagonist. So far things are going pretty shakily for her since so many new things have happened to her all at once, but eventually it won't be so bad for her--until the main villain makes his appearance, that is.

I made a prologue for my series. Somewhat rough in my opinion, but most of the people who have seen it before have enjoyed it

We’ve all heard stories of brave heroes who rose from the depths of poverty to grasp the very fabric of greatness and clench onto it tighter than life itself. Stories of ordinary people suddenly finding that they have been endowed with otherworldly powers and are now to achieve their wildest dreams. These grand stories rouse some inner spirit that slumbers in all of us. A spirit showing us not what we are, but all that we could be. But as quick as these stories dance into our minds they seem to fade away just as quickly. Many people live their lives wondering what could have been if they were so bold enough as to step beyond the threshold and enter into a new and perhaps stranger world.
I made that very step several years ago and I have never looked back at the alternative. Taking the plunge into this way of being has opened so many doors for me. I’ve seen much in my time and done even more, but that’s not why I am here. I am here to tell a story. A story which took me across the galaxy in an epic quest to help prevent the end of reality as we know it. I can’t quite detail to you who I am or when I made my entrance into the story, but if you look hard enough you’ll find me. An don’t think that I am limited to only what I have seen or know. You might say that I have a rather useful resource to help me check all of my facts and to make sure that this story is told just as it was lived.
And now I begin the story, the story of one man and his quest which changed the very fate of the galaxy...

I'm being extremely careful with my Aspergian protagonist to make sure that she also has genuine character flaws as well as her wonderful gifts. Making her more or less exactly like me seems to be the way to go.

Most of what I write are short stories, mostly of the horror genre.

I too had heard people with autism/Asperger's syndrome have problems with writing fiction... For the longest time I had myself- could not think of anything 'not real' (I never liked stories as a child, then I preferred history), but only when I was about 17-18 I started trying to write fiction (I have been writing essays on various topics for years though). I first genuinely struggled- it was really hard for me to come up with characters and make them both agreeable and interesing. I struggled to produce any sort of 'normal' dialogs and would be interested in my story for a while and gradually grew cold about it ever since... I guess the turning point was when I tried to write about myself- as openly as I could. The idea of writing things I didn't dare to pronounce- my mental problems, bullying, loneliness, sexuality- got me finally interested again.
The other big thing came, when I started to write short stories in one take with no idea what am I doing. Sometimes it would be more or less coherent, sometimes in the style of W.S. Burroughs... Apart from one story, I have never published anything (I have a blog and got a story (a more normal one) published in a university annual contest book) because I felt ashamed of what I have written . But, basically, I found some pleasure in inventing characters that are like me at least in some aspects and using them I exlore themes such as mental health, madness, love, sexuality, bullying, violence, societal coercion and so on. I still prefer the genre of essays in the style of Bertrand Russell or Albert Camus. It's just more agreeable with me than fiction, however I do like fiction now and treat writing it as pure fun and psychoanalysis of sorts as I can pour out my pain, anxiety, fear, intrusive thoughts, violent thoughts, bitter critique of people who surround me and rather outrageous self-hatred. But most of such open and honest stories lay unpublished and I'd be rather afraid to show them to people whom I know (what would they think of me then); most of these stories are in my native Lithuanian, though of late I started writing more in English and have written a few short stories in English too.

Yes I just joined a fan fic site, and posted a few stories.