I’m not sure there’s such a thing as an Aspie style, though there may be similarities in the way we approach topics. Some of what you say about your writing is very different from mine, and some is quite similar. I don’t do creative writing, and my work is deeply analytical rather than passionate. I’ve noticed that some Aspie bloggers are very precise in what they write, but others can barely express their thoughts clearly. So…?

I do think you sound like me sometimes when you write. You make a good point about all the clarifications and the use of words like “tended.”

I had a go at professional writing and soon realised that I load far too much detail into my work. I’m fairly good at stripping it out nowadays, but I didn’t used to be.

Brill – I hoped that this article would bring out opposing views, and it has, to a degree.

I read the blogs written both by Catana and Soph – you can too by clicking on their name at the start of their comments above. If you go and take a look, you’ll see that they do have different styles of writing.

I agree with Soph – I think our writing style is quite similar in a lot of respects much of the time, and I think it backs up what I was saying about the potential of there being a typical Aspie writing style.

Catana on the other hand makes the very good point that his writing style is in some ways different. Catana’s writing is almost invariably short – usually 5 paragraphs or under per article.

If you discount the length of articles, I think that Catana’s writing style is quite similar to mine and Soph’s. The subject matter is of course a give away, but the descriptive style is once again quite similar to both mine and Soph’s, I think.

Catana, you say that you don’t use passion in your writing, yet I see passion when I read what you’ve written on your blog. That dichotomy is interesting to me – I think the combination of words you use suggests to me a writer who is passionate about the subject they are writing about. Perhaps I see myself in your words, and as I’m passionate about my writing, I make an assumption.

I know nothing of your background, Catana, other than what you’ve written in your blog – which incidentally means I don’t even know if you are male or female (not that it matters). You do however suggest in one of your blog posts that you used to write for money. I wonder, perhaps if your much shorter than Aspie-average blog posts are a product of being a trained writer? A camouflage of sorts, learned to help you fit in with your peers? That is pure guess work on my part.

I’ve also noticed, as Catana did, that some ASD bloggers have trouble writing well structured articles, and those same bloggers frequently have issues with spelling and grammar as well. However, these bloggers frequently have the flow style that I mentioned in my article, and . I’ve made my own assumption about these bloggers, that they are more profoundly affected by their autism than I am. That, of course, is an assumption on my part, and nothing more.

Your follow-ups and further comments on this would be most welcome.

Some people on the autism spectrum could talk the hind legs off a donkey, others (like me) are much quieter. It might be that some people write a lot and others don’t.

I know one autistic boy who can’t write at all and doesn’t appear to have talk about special interests (I wonder if he’s been told not too?) Just going off on a tangent there …

typo “have talk about”

I can so relate to this post.

I have trouble with not going into too much detail – even when I’m making comments on other people’s blogs. At work, I’m frequently asked to stop the detail, but I can’t.

I don’t think there’s an explicit “aspie style” but I do agree that much of our writing is similar. That’s because we’re so pedantic. My writing is often full of implicit disclaimers. I try not to use generalisations but instead use words like (“try not to”, “tend to”, “mostly”, “frequently” or “sometimes”) – I can already see that I’ve done it here.

The result is a sort of “flowery” speech which takes much longer to get the point across but which IMHO is far clearer than the crap that many NTs write.

There is a very famous author that I suspect may have AS.

I remember at primary school being told that my writing was too concise. ISTR I used to boil it all down to a very concise few sentences with very specific vocabulary from which I thought the rest could be inferred, but I was told not to do that, that I needed to expand it.

Anon,

How interesting – this sounds like the opposite of what I do. I wonder if you had previously been told off for writing things that were too wordy?

Go on then – what’s the author’s name?

Gavin,

I agree completely about the ‘floweriness’ of writing that you mention.

It feels to me that without all the additional detail that I put in (and often go back and continue to add upon re-reading), that the text wouldn’t be complete.

Like you, I think that adding more words makes what I write clearer. Not concise by any means, but clearer than I could manage if I were to pare it down to make it concise.

I often have to implement things at work, where the documentation is written by others. I’m continuously amazed at how lacking in detail it often is. I’ve sometimes gone as far as telling my boss that I can’t possibly implement what I’ve been told to do, because I don’t trust the instructions due to them having obvious detail missing.

James – I don’t want to post the author’s name because I wouldn’t want to be outed myself, and if I am right, that’s what I’d be doing. If the person concerned ever comes out, I’ll let you know that was the one I meant!

No, I hadn’t previously been told off for writing that was too wordy.

You’ve seen my posts here, I do put in that detail and clarification now (I nearly wrote “I think I do tend to”, which is an obvious “yes”!). I wonder if/when/why I changed. Maybe because the teacher told me to expand more. If I had examples of my writing I could look back and compare, but I don’t. I don’t think I was good at creative writing.

Do you think in words or diagrams?

I’m very interested in something I read on Catana’s blog about Aspergers and giftedness. I have also read things online about the difference between Aspergers and giftedness. Looking at the differences, I fall into the Aspergers type. Until I read all this stuff recently, I always thought I was intelligent, in the sense that I score well on IQ tests. But now I’m feeling that I am not really intelligent, I just have some Asperger mock ability to do well on IQ tests, and it’s somehow fake.

With regards to mock ability. I sometimes feel like I appear to be a good creative writer because I can mimic literary styles. Thing is, I’m never able to do it for more than a few paragraphs so I never get any further.

“’m very interested in something I read on Catana’s blog about Aspergers and giftedness. I have also read things online about the difference between Aspergers and giftedness. Looking at the differences, I fall into the Aspergers type. Until I read all this stuff recently, I always thought I was intelligent, in the sense that I score well on IQ tests. But now I’m feeling that I am not really intelligent, I just have some Asperger mock ability to do well on IQ tests, and it’s somehow fake.”

Anon, you can be aspie and gifted. They’re different things, so they’re not mutual exclusive. If you do well on IQ tests, it has nothing to do with being aspie; everything to do with your inteligence. And real giftedness isn’t strictly a function of IQ, at least not once you hit 120 or above.

Interesting observation; I tend to blog in “the aspie style”. I’m self-conscious about it, though, and edit heavily!

When doing any academic writing it’s just the opposite, I can’t seem to write enough. I’m so careful about sticking to the facts and no more that my writing is pretty sparse.

Just discovered your blog and am enjoying it!

Have you ever thought that the flowery writing style might be related to impairment of executive function. In my family, we also have temporal lobe epilepsy, and I tend towards hypergraphia–the overwhelming urge to write (especially when I’m overtired). I haven’t seen hypergraphia listed as an Asperger’s symptom, but it feels like it should be, since it is through our executive function that we edit ourselves, isn’t it? Part of my urge to write is to edit on paper what my brain seems muddled about. Often after I’ve been overwhelmed in the real world, I retreat to my computer keyboard to sort out what’s bothering me. Is that what creates “Aspie style?”

Also, for someone who thinks they have Aspergers, but isn’t sure, the book by Michael John Carley, “Aspergers from the Inside Out,” is a great read. Be warned, you might be halfway through the book before you experience your “AHA!” moment.

This reminds me of an event from graduate school. I studied computer graphics for a while (the programming type, virtual reality and that kind of thing, not the artistic type), and one of my research-assistant duties was maintaining the display code for the department’s self-built graphics computer. This code had been written and expanded over several years by many different people, most of whom didn’t comment their code well, or at all. So as I was adding my modifications to the code, I also went back and figured out what all those other little snippets of code did, and commented them. In great detail.

This, and my classroom coding assignments, led one of my professors to tell me I commented TOO well, in too much detail, and I should try to tone it down. I am quite possibly the only computer programmer ever in the history of the universe to be told she comments TOO thoroughly!

Man! I was half-way though the article before i realized that you ment writing style as in: “The way the words get to the paper”, and not: “How the handwriting looks”.

Oh, and yeah, I’ve noticed it. I can definitely see the pattern too, and I can recognize it in your wrinting too. I fully see the passion of your writing “burning through”.

Oh, and now when I say “recognize”, you have a typo in the post (which I actually would say is as good as an article): “recognisable pattern” (recognizable pattern).

i think this aspie writting style fits me and im fighting for a diagnoses, was fobbed off with unstable personality disorder. my boy being assessed and my girl fobbed off too.