Rick Rawes

I wake in the morning and sometimes I feel grey. I’ll start a conversation in the middle, having skipped seventeen different plot twists in between. I’ll overthink an interaction with a human being to the point of simply being unable to do it.

My point, and trust me I do have one, is that I think. From the moment I wake, to the moment I sleep – and even afterwards as my brain goes into the funk land of dreams – I have conscious awareness. It comes in waves and patterns that are simply my experience. What we as writers do, or I think what we try to do, even if we don’t always succeed – is try to think like someone else.

Not easy, is it?

To write as though you wake in a morning and immediately run through the upcoming day in your head. To write as though the feel of any fabric against your skin makes you want to scream. To write as though you forgot where your sentence started, when…where was I again? To live and inhabit someone else’s world is a true challenge – but shouldn’t we all do it?

Quick Disclaimer

This post is in honour of April as Autism Awareness Month – with broader discussion of neurodivergence as a whole. I don’t have a diagnosis of any neurodivergent condition, nor is it my place to comment on whether diagnosis is even appropriate. Please, by all means do educate yourself further on this topic through great charities such as the National Autistic Society or the Daisy Chain project, among many others.

What I’m going to discuss here is very much about thinking differently – hence, neurodivergence, as the best place for an author to start. I mean no disrespect, quite the opposite. If we were to all take a moment to think other people might think differently to us – maybe the world wouldn’t be quite as much on fire.

Or maybe it would, just for different reasons – like all of us trying to focus on seventeen things at once.

So with that said, why does the work of authors matter? Let’s consider representation.

Representation

Like many people, I don’t think my first experiences with understanding neurodiversity came from a particularly positive source. Unfortunately, the eighties, nineties and even early noughties of my youth were hardly the most representative.

Where neurodivergent conditions were named, or heavily suggested to be the case, they tended to fall into a few categories. Tourette’s was played for laughs, with tics and swear words being ‘so funny’. Or ADHD, particularly focusing on children. Who doesn’t remember a haggared looking Lynette run around on Desperate Housewives considering whether to medicate her poorly behaved children? (I guess anyone who never watched the program). Or anytime someone had autism or similar conditions – Rain Man for example – they would immediately be a complete savant with either music, math or some other incredible skill.

And to be fair, this hasn’t exactly changed in a lot of genres, Sci-Fi in particular. The Predator came under fire for so many things (many of them valid – I mean, gene enhanced yautija, come on) but also because once again a young kid with neurodivergence was a savant. Or Touch, the short-lived Kiefer Sutherland-led series in which his young son had an incredible affinity for maths which…okay I have no idea what was going on even by the end of the series. Aliens, maybe?

Other series have done it well. Many readers have found The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime to be a strong example of positive representation and how it can be done right – though granted not unanimous. It can be done. So it should be.

What Can We Do?

So starting from a pretty low bar, what can we as authors do? Some may say, why even bother? Should it really be our place to try to represent something which is so multi-faceted and also so different to the neurotypical experience of many of us?

To that I would say, I agree, I’m not an expert on neurodivergence. I’m also not an expert on dragons. I’ve never been to the OtherWorld or the Thoughtscape or Anwnn, or any of the other realms I write about. I’ve never been stalked by a psychic projection of my own subconscious guilt, nor fought a day in my life.

And in terms of characters? I’m not an expert on autistic people. But I’m also not an authority on the lived experience of people who identify as BAME or trans. I’m definitely not an expert on women – and honestly, can I really represent straight people?

There’s a point there somewhere.

We’re writers, our imagination is absolutely our tool. But our imagination also has a responsibility to be somewhat fair. We get some experience, we talk to people who DO live those experiences – I had great conversations with a friend with adult ADHD about his thought processes. And where we don’t have lived experience like that to draw on – we educate ourselves.

And if after that, you’re still wondering whether you can do a neurodivergent character justice? Or don’t want to offend someone with an iffy representation? Then maybe, just start with thinking about thinking. Making our characters diverse, in thought processes as well as physical appearance, emotional responses etc – that in itself will help to go some way towards a healthier representation of the human experience. The rich fullness of it. Someone may read it some day and feel a little more seen.

The only thing to not do, is repeat the mistakes of the past. Maybe don’t make someone’s tics a punchline, because it’s been done before. If your story requires a savant, maybe consider if it really does have to be a young boy who’s otherwise uncommunicative.

Summing it Up

In short, representation only goes wrong when you either repeat the mistakes of the past, or push forward with an ignorant present. All it takes is to try. To think about thinking. Your own and those outside your own experience.

So whatever you think when you wake in a morning, wherever in a conversation you may start – beginning, middle, or end – or whatever first springs to mind when you’re faced with the dreaded human interaction – maybe your character will approach those differently.

And if you’re unsure how differently? That’s when we ask.

That’s when we learn. When we think, whatever way we do that.

Rick Rawes
Leeds, West Yorkshire
Friday 10th April, 2026