#also please excuse the almost absent structure that's just how my brain works

[redrocketpanda]

This is just a random little thought that's currently unraveling in my brain that may be of interest to no one but me (which is fine, whatever, it's my blog and I'll leave my dirty laundry on the floor if I want to), but I am currently having some Thoughts about my fears around writing dialogue + characterization and wondering if this stems from being autistic...? I am also now genuinely curious whether those of you who are autistic who write fiction that involves people/characters (in all its many forms, including comics) may share similar fears/issues/generally relate to this

I find that I'm constantly tripping up whilst writing the fics I'm writing at the moment and started reflecting on what the issue(s) might be. In all of them, I know what's happening and what I want to happen, and yet when I come to write I feel like I start to choke. For the most part, I would say my previous fics have been quite Dialogue Lite. They tend to focus a lot on description and emotions. I know what the rooms look like, what the character's are doing, how they feel about each other... I know what it feels like to touch, to inhale someone's comforting scent, to be scared, to love... and I know that my writing is very emotive because of this

But when it comes to writing dialogue? Jfc kill me now. Every piece of dialogue I write feels like getting blood from a stone. It feels absurd. It sounds (to me) so unnatural. The KazuRei fic is supposed to be humorous and heart-warming; the Kunichi one teasing and hot. But my mind just draws a blank over and over again.

I don't experience this IRL - I always have something to say. People tend to find me to be charismatic and funny. But I have no idea how to translate this into writing, because I don't know how I'm doing it or sometimes even what I'm doing. It just comes out like that. I do also know that I constantly misunderstand people, often think about thing's very literally, find turn-taking difficult, and find things like RP stressful bc there's no dialogue options for me to choose.

And when I was sitting here reflecting on why dialogue scares me so much, I had this thought hit me; I don't really understand how people (who aren't me) talk to each other, I don't always really understand how verbal communication works, I don't really understand other people. And I'm scared of that being printed in black and white text for everyone else to see. I'm scared of people reading my work and realizing that I'm like... some kind of "broken" human.

If you ask me to pick a favourite character (let's take an easy one and go for Bakugou), I could tell you in intimate fucking detail about who he is, what his emotional landscape is, all of his fears and desires and dreams. Ask me to write something that he might say... and I can't. And the further we get away from characters that are like me, the harder it continues to get. I am finding it hard to even think about how my friends who I speak to every fucking day might respond to something.

Anyway, this was a really long ramble as my thoughts literally processed in my brain. And it's makes me super sad bc I would love to write something that people think is funny and has characters that people fall in love with, but I'm starting to worry that I don't have that capability