Quote:TheTwisted1 wrote:NEET on disability here, who pretty much never socialized in college or work. I have only three friends, all of whom I met in high school or earlier (the earliest in 4th grade), and all of whom are high-IQ, STEM-focused, Alaskan-born males like myself. They and my immediate family are my only real IRL socialization, and I don't even do much actual interaction online (this is much more online conversing than I usually do). I'm not sure how much of this is explained by the Asperger's, how much by my lifelong mood disorder, how much by my sensory processing disorder, how much by a family history of antisocial tendencies, and how much by my 151 IQ.Uhm... Wow.
What Rob said. I would dare say that the Asperger's Syndrome and the mood disorder are definitely major contributors. The anti-social tendencies are, more or less, a product of that - besides, those two disorders are very much hereditary, which would explain your entire family's tendency in that direction. And there is a very strong correlation of people with Asperger's syndrome having high IQ scores. (Some software companies have begun snapping up programmers with Asperger's syndrome because they tend to code with a much lower rate of error than others.)
The only thing I can suggest is to absolutely OBSESS over the character's in question. Learn everything you can about said character from the source material.
Now, in this you're gonna run into a few speed bumps, depending on how well written the source material is. The better stuff has characters with incredible depth - you learn not only their motivations (example, the previously cited "Why do they even bother with getting up in the morning?" question), but their history, likes and dislikes, the reasons for those likes and dislikes, and their personality quirks. (A personality quirk basically being something that someone does for no other explainable reason aside from that it's just something that person does. Example: Yudachi from Kancolle and her verbal tic of saying "poi" all the time. Alternatively: Professor Desty Nova from Battle Angel Alita and his obsession with Flan.)
However, here's the speed bump: quite often you're gonna run into source material that leaves glaringly huge holes in the development of the character you want to write about. The worst offenders have characters making decisions that are completely contradictory to the character themself. (Hint: This is why a lot of people write 'Fix Fics' - they're correcting grievous contradictions like these while still keeping the story interesting... or at least attempting to do so. Some succeed at this and some fail.)
So, this is what you're going to have to do, and it's something that I've had to do myself from time to time.
You're going to need to extrapolate based on what you've seen of that character that makes sense thus far.
I'll readily admit: this is not easily done and requires a metric FUCKTON of research. (Wikis dedicated to a specific franchise are utterly invaluable.) Unfortunately, sometimes you're just going to have to make an educated guess. But then, sometimes the uncertainty is actually USEFUL! Who is to say that this character would behave one way or another in an unprecedented situation? You can use your Author's Fiat in these cases to dictate how a character is going to develop.
An excellent example is what I did with Yuki Mihara in my fic, Being You is Suffering. I basically took a character from the Tenchi Muyo manga who had but maybe one or two lines and a few pages total.
From that, I figured several things - her grandfather owns what is likely the largest driving school in the prefecture; ergo her family is well to do. The man in charge of the day-to-day operations is not the grandfather. This being Japan where nepotism is strong, this is likely the grandfather's son, ergo Yuki's father. The identity of the secretary that works under Yuki's father is never disclosed, so I use my Author's Fiat to say that she is also Yuki's mother. People tend to work incredibly long hours in Japan - it would not surprise me much if Yuki hardly even saw her parents at home. This is supported by the fact that her Grandfather, who is obviously at retirement age, is giving her a ride to school when we see her in the manga. Mediocrity is king in Japan; they do not like the nail that sticks out and will quickly, sometimes gleefully, hammer it back down. Yuki's elevated status could very likely alienate her from potential friends. Finally, Yuki suffered a traumatic event where she was nearly kidnapped by armed men (likely so she could be held for ransom). My character took quick and decisive action where he took a minor injury but kept her from grievous, possibly fatal injury.
Results: a terribly lonesome young girl who only wants friends and familial companionship, who develops an intense bodyguard crush on my character. This later blossoms into full-blown love thanks to the encouragement provided by other characters, as well as my character's unwillingness to push the girl away entirely. In fact, it begins to reach unhealthy levels - she takes everything as a challenge to overcome in pursuit of her love interest, and takes to these challenges with utter abandon. Eventually, much to everyone's dismay, she makes a horrible error in judgement and forces my character to come down on the girl... albeit in a very unusual, yet levelheaded way.
And that's pretty much it. Since she's such a tabula rasa, I can get away with quite a bit of Author Fiat just by extrapolating from what few, scant details I have of her.
Other characters you may have a more difficult time with. At that point, don't be afraid to ask for help. Post here in the forums, tell us what you know, what you don't know, and where you're trying to go with things. But don't use it as a crutch - use it as a learning experience to better yourself as a writer.
Hope this helps.