Writing a novel about a neurodivergent detective

[Kaznats]

I’m a former nurse but now retired and enjoy writing as a hobby. I’m currently writing a novel set in a not too distant future where a main character has ASD and is relentless on finding and following clues. While investigating the suspected murder she discovers details were hidden by the authorities in charge. The setting is in a small town and the sheriff is the brother of the detective’s transwoman confidential informer (aka CI or snitch). The detective discovers why her CI left the community years ago. Her sheriff brother and the coroner hid pertinent details about charges against the CI out of love for the character.

I see the story as being a neo-noir and I plan to show just how dogged the detective can be when she investigates her own fellow investigators. She believes everyone is a suspect until she can determine why they should be cleared. The facts she uncovers don’t actually affect her murder case directly but do showcase her ASD in action. What I’m hoping to find here are how to authentically write how she handles the revelations she uncovers of wrongdoing by the authorities. Implicating them in a decades old act would only hinder her own ongoing investigations therefore I plan to have her confront the sheriff and coroner who confess but state it was because they love the accused and although the evidence looked bad there was also exculpatory evidence and they decided in the end the accused would not be convicted but their would always be a shadow of doubt in many in their small community therefore they ‘helped’ keep justice blind.

My question for any who may have read this far is to critique my ASD detective’s reaction. She has a high moral compass and sense of justice but this also will conflict with her own ongoing investigation therefore she tells them they did wrong but that is on them and then proceeds with her investigation but now considers the authorities as unreliable narrators in some aspects of her investigation. Does how i portrayed my ASD detective’s actions to her discovery ring true for an ASD?

 

[AndyFBlues]

It could ring true, perhaps. It makes sense to me to have a character with ASD being relentless during an investigation. A lot of us can be hyper-focused on details. The MC reminds me a bit of Amos Decker in "Memory Man."

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/memory-man-david-baldacci/1120259031?ean=9781455559817
How the MC reacts to learning the truth, depends on your vision of who that person is. We are not all the same, and some of us react very differently to certain situations.

 

[Kaznats]

It could ring true, perhaps. It makes sense to me to have a character with ASD being relentless during an investigation. A lot of us can be hyper-focused on details. The MC reminds me a bit of Amos Decker in "Memory Man."

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/memory-man-david-baldacci/1120259031?ean=9781455559817
How the MC reacts to learning the truth, depends on your vision of who that person is. We are not all the same, and some of us react very differently to certain situations.

As a former nurse I’m trying to write the character as authentically as I can. She isn’t a superhero type, just highly focused on detail and determined but really lacking in social skills. It is why I use her neurotypical daughter as the primary protagonist to help the reader get inside the detective’s head through her daughter. Thanks for the response and I’m open to other suggestions you wish to offer. I do make her have a weakness, sensory overload that her teen daughter exploits for her own purposes at times

 

[AndyFBlues]

It sounds to me like you've got a lot of this figured out. I greatly appreciate you going the extra mile to create a MC with authenticity, rather than a cardboard stereotype of a person with ASD. We are all very different here, but that gives you a bit of freedom in molding your character and story.

Best of luck. Writing a novel is a lot of work.

 

[marc_101]

Whatever you do, please don't assign your character *all* the ASD traits listed in the DSM. Not a single person has all the characteristics. Most TV characters are terrible because of it. They have every single trait you can possible have. That person rarely or never exists. And you have to give them a personality, too, that interacts with ASD traits.

An example is Astrid in the Amazon Prime show. No human can know everything either. There is no human or autistic person who has expertise in every single domain.

Good luck

 

[Kaznats]

It sounds to me like you've got a lot of this figured out. I greatly appreciate you going the extra mile to create a MC with authenticity, rather than a cardboard stereotype of a person with ASD. We are all very different here, but that gives you a bit of freedom in molding your character and story.

Best of luck. Writing a novel is a lot of work.

Thanks and if you know of anyone on this forum who would like to be a beta reader let me know. I’m trying to show how those close to the ASD detective respond to her because I’m using them to ‘get inside’ the detective’s head, especially her teenage daughter who is trying to understand and emotionally connect with her mother.

 

[Kaznats]

Whatever you do, please don't assign your character *all* the ASD traits listed in the DSM. Not a single person has all the characteristics. Most TV characters are terrible because of it. They have every single trait you can possible have. That person rarely or never exists. And you have to give them a personality, too, that interacts with ASD traits.

An example is Astrid in the Amazon Prime show. No human can know everything either. There is no human or autistic person who has expertise in every single domain.

Good luck

Thanks for the input. My detective is slightly odd and socially inept but otherwise functional. I did make her do she is easily overstimulated by noise and vibrations because I know someone with those same traits. She also has claustrophobia especially in elevators but is able to soothe herself using distractions like doing mental math. But she clearly wants things her own way and hates working as a team member so this is why I had her leave the police force and become self employed as a PI.

 

[Levitat0r]

As I recall, the TV show "Monk" did this, but I never saw it. Shades of "Mr. Bean", who, incidentally always annoyed the daylights out of me, and I'm not sure what his specific problem was supposed to be, but he never seemed to know what was going on, and I think he got by entirely on luck, actually.

Back when I still had any faith in man's capacity to rule or participate in justice, I wondered if I would make a good detective, since tracking down software bugs is so forensic-like in nature. The hints as to what went wrong are so far-removed from the cause, and then it can be a single typo in many thousands of lines of code. Many, many needles in a haystack, all day long.

 

[Gerald Wilgus]

Wasn't that already done with Inspector Jacques Clouseau from the Pink Panther Films.

 

[Levitat0r]

Wasn't that already done with Inspector Jacques Clouseau from the Pink Panther Films.

Never saw that either, but IIRC he's about as flattering a caricature as Bean was.

 

[Levitat0r]

Luke wasn't much of a detective given that Darth Vader confessed to his face. It's a shame that real life isn't that easy. Also, Vader redeemed himself.

 

[Neri]

I’m a former nurse but now retired and enjoy writing as a hobby. I’m currently writing a novel set in a not too distant future where a main character has ASD and is relentless on finding and following clues. While investigating the suspected murder she discovers details were hidden by the authorities in charge. The setting is in a small town and the sheriff is the brother of the detective’s transwoman confidential informer (aka CI or snitch). The detective discovers why her CI left the community years ago. Her sheriff brother and the coroner hid pertinent details about charges against the CI out of love for the character.

I see the story as being a neo-noir and I plan to show just how dogged the detective can be when she investigates her own fellow investigators. She believes everyone is a suspect until she can determine why they should be cleared. The facts she uncovers don’t actually affect her murder case directly but do showcase her ASD in action. What I’m hoping to find here are how to authentically write how she handles the revelations she uncovers of wrongdoing by the authorities. Implicating them in a decades old act would only hinder her own ongoing investigations therefore I plan to have her confront the sheriff and coroner who confess but state it was because they love the accused and although the evidence looked bad there was also exculpatory evidence and they decided in the end the accused would not be convicted but their would always be a shadow of doubt in many in their small community therefore they ‘helped’ keep justice blind.

My question for any who may have read this far is to critique my ASD detective’s reaction. She has a high moral compass and sense of justice but this also will conflict with her own ongoing investigation therefore she tells them they did wrong but that is on them and then proceeds with her investigation but now considers the authorities as unreliable narrators in some aspects of her investigation. Does how i portrayed my ASD detective’s actions to her discovery ring true for an ASD?

You're detective sounds like a very plausible Autist. Many autistic people are quite rigid and obsessive in whatever their focus is. And part of the penanche for social justice relates to black and white thinking, which, while not just an autistic thing, more of a human pitfall, is, certainly "turned up" in a great many autists.

The other side, I believe, of the justice strength, in autists, is our empathy for anyone in an "underdog" situation, for reasons that should be quite obvious.

It is this "task-focus" as opposed to being "relational focused" that often gets in the way of social skillfulness. On top of that is our neural limitations. We just don't have the short-cutted neural byways that neurotypical people take for granted. Our brains are constantly having to make new connections, instead of relying on one's made in childhood and then revisited for social interactive reasons. Social interaction is the most "brain-heavy" activity and why we autists have to limit ours. We just don't have the neural short-cuts that save energy, like NT's. This is a key reason for our static info acquisition preference, the quicksilver neural needs of social interaction are compromised in us.

I think it unfair to assume we aren't as empathetic as NT's, although of course, being individuals, there are always varying degrees, in such a diversity of people. We are, however, often delayed in our abilities to show the empathy we may feel, for purely neurological reasons.

 

[Aspychata]

I really liked Monk, and Pink Panther. Good luck with story.

 

[UFO]

I’m a former nurse but now retired and enjoy writing as a hobby. I’m currently writing a novel set in a not too distant future where a main character has ASD and is relentless on finding and following clues.

Hi and welcome.

Why not-so-distant future instead of present moment? Do you have some ideas how to make some extra value out from such context?

Thanks for the response and I’m open to other suggestions you wish to offer.

Ok... Here comes some thoughts about what to consider before I have any idea what you actually know about autism. Or before I have any idea what I know and what I only think to know about autism

About characterization and motives of quitting:

How did the heroine end up to a police work in the first place? Did she pass things like medical examinations on her own, or was she hired because sheriff or some other official knew her from before and thus considered that her strengths overcome weaknesses?

While she might have been considered to be good at writing tickets, helping to defuse bar fights and such, was she often passed when considering promotions? Reasons might have been that people feel that something is "off" with her (especially if she masks and thus enters to an uncanny valley). She might not have been considered having enough political and social skills for more demanding tasks. She might have been considered (paradoxically) having lack of determination (for thinking too much, always wanting to have more facts before making conclusions, doubting quickly made decisions... *) ), or being too fragile or moody for more stressful tasks (autistic persons might show frustration before they realize themselves that they are frustrated)...

*) This is how having a "special interest" on facts could work: Hear a new word? Google its meaning. Only 90% sure of some fact? Google it to be 99% sure. It really sucks to say something aloud and then hit that 10% chance to be mistaken. One important fact brings up associations to some unimportant side tracks that normally should be ignored? Google them anyway. Do this, end up with a lot of new information that is useless while the main problem is still unresolved? Googl... No. Get exhausted, frustrated, and go to a meltdown, and give up whole investigation until at later moment you finally accidentally come up (without googling) some other situation where you finally find use for all that googled information and literally do a happy dance because of it (most neurotypicals just pinch their fists and say "Yes!")...

 

[Kaznats]

Ok... Here comes some thoughts about what to consider before I have any idea what you actually know about autism. Or before I have any idea what I know and what I only think to know about autism

About characterization and motives of quitting:

How did the heroine end up to a police work in the first place? Did she pass things like medical examinations on her own, or was she hired because sheriff or some other official knew her from before and thus considered that her strengths overcome weaknesses?

While she might have been considered to be good at writing tickets, helping to defuse bar fights and such, was she often passed when considering promotions? Reasons might have been that people feel that something is "off" with her (especially if she masks and thus enters to an uncanny valley). She might not have been considered having enough political and social skills for more demanding tasks. She might have been considered (paradoxically) having lack of determination (for thinking too much, always wanting to have more facts before making conclusions, doubting quickly made decisions... *) ), or being too fragile or moody for more stressful tasks (autistic persons might show frustration before they realize themselves that they are frustrated)...

*) This is how having a "special interest" on facts could work: Hear a new word? Google its meaning. Only 90% sure of some fact? Google it to be 99% sure. It really sucks to say something aloud and then hit that 10% chance to be mistaken. One important fact brings up associations to some unimportant side tracks that normally should be ignored? Google them anyway. Do this, end up with a lot of new information that is useless while the main problem is still unresolved? Googl... No. Get exhausted, frustrated, and go to a meltdown, and give up whole investigation until at later moment you finally accidentally come up (without googling) some other situation where you finally find use for all that googled information and literally do a happy dance because of it (most neurotypicals just pinch their fists and say "Yes!")...

 

[Kaznats]

My MC was clinically diagnosed as ASD and discovered she was gifted with focus and tenacity so being a social warrior she decided use her skills to help others by solving crimes. She was great at it too but solved one cold case too many and made others look less competent but too late, she was now a darling of the media who saw her as a ‘wonder girl’. So management started giving her crap assignments to keep her out of the media but she went rogue and began her own investigations that exposed corruption in her department. After being persecuted by fellow officers she decided she had enough and got her wealthy ex who is chief of surgery to fund her startup as a PI with him holding primary ownership. They still butt heads and to me that makes my story fun, that and her spoiled but curious neurotypical teen daughter who hopes to understand what makes her mom tick.

 

[AndyFBlues]

Thanks and if you know of anyone on this forum who would like to be a beta reader let me know. I’m trying to show how those close to the ASD detective respond to her because I’m using them to ‘get inside’ the detective’s head, especially her teenage daughter who is trying to understand and emotionally connect with her mother.

My literary skills are a bit meager, but I'd be willing to look the manuscript over if you feel it's ready for a beta reader.