Chapter two of Loyalty Fallen: The Desert Crossing is now live. You can read it here. In this chapter, Trista discovers a potentially deadly secret about Illian.

This blog post also covers how I’ve chosen to portray neurodivergent characters in Loyalty Fallen (as a neurodivergent person myself) and an update for week two of NaNoWriMo.

Neurodivergence in fiction

Writing about neurodivergent characters can be challenging, particularly if you’re neurotypical. While I can’t give advice for every situation, I can describe how I’ve handled these types of characters in Loyalty Fallen.

If you’ve finished reading book one of Loyalty Fallen, three things should be obvious. The first is that Ren doesn’t like reading. The second is that Illian is struggling with trauma. The third is that Calix’s stuttering and reclusive behavior are at least in part due to his past trauma. However, each of these facts was intended to be a lot more nuanced. Here’s everything you may not have noticed about neurodivergence and mental disorders in Loyalty Fallen.

1. Ren has dyslexia

Ren is dyslexic. According to Mayo Clinic: “Dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words (decoding). Also called a reading disability, dyslexia is a result of individual differences in areas of the brain that process language. Dyslexia is not due to problems with intelligence, hearing or vision. “

I have family members who are dyslexic, so I have some experience in how that affects their learning and reading. All of them have learned to read quite well, thanks to many people in their lives who didn’t give up on them and helped them find ways to overcome reading challenges.

Ren didn’t have similar help. Instead, his parents told him he was stupid. There is also an implication that he was abused by a tutor for his struggles with school, and his brother clearly saw him as a fool who was incapable of learning. Even when Ren escaped them, Kathryn didn’t know how to handle his dislike of reading and only nagged him to read more books. As a result, his reading remains extremely poor, as does his writing.

Despite these things, Ren is clearly not stupid. He is instinctive and a tough fighter, and he was the one who realized whoever poisoned Lorrin also must have known of Kathryn’s sensitivity to wine. So while he says he leaves the bigger plans up to Kathryn, this is actually a result of his insecurities, not any lack of intelligence. This fact will be shown even more clearly in the second book.

2. Illian has PTSD

While many readers would probably point to scenes of Illian losing himself in flashbacks or having severe nightmares about the wars as being the most obvious evidence of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Illian also has recurring headaches, which are more common in people with PTSD. His violent outbursts are also a symptom of PTSD according to research from the National Center for PTSD, though not everyone with PTSD suffers from this symptom.

Since Illian is presented as an antagonist in the first book of Loyalty Fallen, it’s also important to note that other characters who struggle with PTSD both in the current book and in future books are not portrayed in any way as villainous.

3. Calix is neurodivergent

While I didn’t have a specific diagnosis in mind for Calix, he may be on the autism spectrum as shown by his hyperfixation on curing poisons, his social struggles, and many other symptoms.

Calix also went through severe trauma, first in losing his parents, and second in accidentally killing a patient. Some of Calix’s more worrying behaviors and traits are more likely associated with his trauma as opposed to his neurodivergent state, and he also does not have every symptom commonly associated with autism. Regardless, it’s clear that Calix isn’t what many people would consider neurotypical, at the very least on the basis of his intense dislike for human contact and interactions.

Integrating neurodivergent characters naturally

When I chose to include these characters in Loyalty Fallen, I didn’t think about them in terms of trying to include a neurodivergent character or a character with PTSD or a character with a learning disability. Those things came later and seemed to naturally flow out of what I’d originally planned to happen to their characters and how I wanted them to interact with other characters.

For me at least, this is the preferred way of writing neurodivergent characters and is the best way to ensure they don’t become stereotypes. If you’re just trying to fulfill a particular set of symptoms typically associated with one type of neurodivergence, I believe you are far more likely to end up with a one-dimensional character that is entirely defined by neurodivergent characteristics, as opposed to a whole person whose neurodivergent traits complement that person’s character arc and journey throughout your novel.

With all of that said, on to NaNoWriMo progress updates!

Week two progress

I shared in my week one update that I had surpassed 18,000 words for my novel, Ashbranded, in the first week of NaNoWriMo.

I’ve now reached more than 40,000 words and should be at the 50,000-word goal within the next few days. I’m quite excited about how far Ashbranded has come! My new goal is to try to complete the novel this month, since it will be longer than 50,000 words and I seem to be hitting that goal without too much trouble, but we’ll see how things go over the holidays.

Final thoughts

If you’re trying to write neurodivergent characters into your novels, I commend you. Still, my biggest piece of advice would be to think about the character’s traits and backstory first. Then you can fit them into a category of neurodivergence if that works for you. Otherwise, you may end up with a two-dimensional character defined solely by one particular type of behavior, and that can quickly become a painful stereotype that has no place in fiction.

Next week, I’ll be talking about foreshadowing in your novel and how Loyalty Fallen features foreshadowing as a literary device. I’ll also continue to update you about my progress with NaNoWriMo. Until then, enjoy Loyalty Fallen!