I’m trying to be more positive about the books I read (and use to spark these posts), and this one was definitely thought-provoking, in a good way. This one was a cozy mystery set during World War II, in which one of the many characters was very definitely supposed to be autistic. Nowadays, he’d be called ‘high-functioning’, because he was- the oddball who doesn’t make small talk and likes math, but he was capable of talking, and lived by himself. Very stereotypical, but stereotypes exist for a reason, and his liking for math and codes helped solve the mystery. So he wasn’t in the story solely to check a diversity box.

But it was very obvious that he was supposed to be autistic. Not just because he acted that way, but the narrative was very specific about how he never knew what to say to his neighbors, how numbers were the only things that made sense, and he couldn’t tell what a person was feeling just by looking at their face- which was hard to do, anyway. A more subtle approach might’ve been to let his actions explain that he was autistic, and only mention it via the narrative once or twice- sort of the flip side of the ‘mention it three times’ rule of foreshadowing.

Maybe it seemed more obvious to me because I’m not used to seeing that level of detail explicitly laid out, and it got me thinking about how authors portray ‘weirdos’ and ‘oddballs’ in fiction. There’s a lot of ways to do this, that affect the story to a greater or lesser degree, because there’s lots of ways a person can be ‘weird’, and weirdness of all kinds is a spectrum, from mildly quirky to unable to function in a normal society. So I’m going to touch on a wide variety of examples, and you can add more in the comments.

It’s hard to portray a specific type of weirdness without sounding like you, the author, are crazy, or like you got your descriptions out of a psychology textbook. Not just autism, either; trying to describe a character who’s an otherwise normal human but- for example- always experiences music as a series of colors (a recognized form of synesthesia) is very difficult unless you’re writing in a magical or sci-fi setting- and even then, it’s not easy, just, more believable. See previous posts and other people’s articles on how difficult it is to write aliens. Weird humans aren’t literally aliens- stop laughing, you in the back!- but the challenge of trying to convey an unusual mental process or senses is the same.

This particular cozy was the first time I’ve come across a character who was meant to have a specific diagnosis, but that might be because I gravitate toward older works, in which oddball characters have traits, not a diagnosis. Which can be interesting in other ways, like the time I noticed a character in one of Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver mysteries was very accurately described as hypothroidal, and would’ve been treated with medication in a modern setting. I’m not sure medication would’ve stopped the character from being a jerk, but it might’ve improved her life in other ways. As it stands, she’s simply the overweight, lazy, slow thinking version of the wicked stepmother stereotype. (The character in question is Florence Brand, in Through the Wall, if you want to read it and judge for yourself.)

I, personally, prefer the older approach of giving oddball characters traits, not a diagnosis- as long as the traits are relatively consistent, like all characterizations. It gives more scope for the character’s behavior, without pigeon-holing them into a narrow category of ‘acceptable weirdness.’ Let the character’s actions speak for themselves; let them develop along with the story. Giving a character a categorizable disorder can be useful for a reader who also has that disorder, and is searching for the words to define it, but it’s jarring for everyone else- like the story has suddenly stepped aside in favor of an extract from a textbook.

It’s also possible to give characters quirks that don’t affect the story very much. Someone who eats the same thing for lunch every day might not ping as autistic to a reader. But if you’re going to make their quirks/symptoms a major part of the character, they have to be consistently a major part of the character- no dropping a trait on the floor just because it’s inconvenient to the plot. This is another reason to avoid categorizable disorders- if you want the character to develop and possibly leave some of those behaviors behind, it looks like you’re writing them inconsistently, unless it’s done exceptionally well.

Mr. Darcy from Pride & Prejudice is a good example of this; I’ve seen speculation that he’s autistic, but autism wasn’t a named condition during Jane Austen’s time, so Darcy is simply that guy with good formal manners who has trouble with talking to strangers. And- importantly, for his character and the story- he’s able to overcome some of those difficulties with practice. Hooray for character development, and not getting stuck in one place because the label says he should.

Luna Lovegood from the Harry Potter series is a favorite female oddball- cheerful, intelligent, and an obstinately out of the box thinker in the face of conformity. Fans have tried to ‘diagnose’ her with various types of neurodivergence, but Luna, a true outsider, evades categorization.

She’s also a good example of the realistic downsides of being ‘weird’. There’s one thing that rings true across most types of weirdness- autism, ADHD, depression, ESP, recognizable types of mental illness like bipolar disorders or schizophrenia: They’re all very isolating for the person who’s dealing with it. People like to find common ground with each other, and a trait that’s out of left field and affects only a tiny number of people can be very lonely- and on the flip side, there’s intense feelings of relief and sometimes a rapid friendship that develops when they come across someone with the same trait- or someone who’s pretending to have that same trait, which can cause chaos in-story and out of it. Luna’s casual mention of, “I liked DA meetings; it was like having friends,” in the sixth book is, rightly, a startling moment to other characters who don’t usually deal with that kind of isolation (Harry is, of course, isolated when he stays with his relatives, but he’s built five years of strong friendships elsewhere, and in typical teen boy fashion, forgets that his situation is unusual).

There’s a zillion other examples of oddball characters in fiction; this is just a sampling, and how I think the authors did a good job of showing a tricky subject.

Have you ever consciously set out to portray a character who, mentally, doesn’t fit in with normal society? Any tips or tricks that you found useful?