Example of Excellent Storytelling

"It was inconceivable to me that there could be more than one way to play in the dirt, but there it was. Doug couldn't get it right. And thats why I whacked him. Bang! On both ears, just like I saw on The Three Stooges. Being three years old was no excuse for disorderly play habits. For example, I would use my mother's kitchen spoon to scoop out a ditch. Then, I would carefully lay out a line of blue blocks. I never mixed my food, and I never mixed my blocks. Blue blocks went with blue blocks, and red blocks with red ones. But Doug would lean over and put a red block on top of the blue ones. Couldn't he see how wrong that was? After I had whacked him, I sat back down and played. Correctly. Sometimes, when I got frustrated with Doug, my mother would walk over and yell at me. I don't think she ever saw the terrible things he did. She just saw me whack him. I could usually ignore her, but if my father was there, too, then he would get really mad and shake me, and then I would cry."


This is a passage from Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison. As the title suggests, the book is an autobiographical account of John Elder's life with Asperger's, and it is told through many stories from his childhood before being diagnosed as an Aspergian and his commentary upon them as an adult who is now aware of how strange his behavior as a child was. The main reason that he is such a good storyteller is because he gives the reader insight into the thought-processes and mindset of a person with Aspergers despite the fact that it is very difficult to imagine how life with such a disorder would be. This short passage, which John Elder used to begin his book, reveals that John Elder was different from most children in many ways such as his impatience, violence, obsessive compulsive behaviors, high expectations from others and his lack of understanding when those expectations were not met, lack of social grace, inability to see situations from other people's perspectives, and other people's inability to see things from his warped perspective. It is incredible how such a short passage of a story is not only entertaining but also reveals so much about how exactly Aspergers made him different in a setting that many readers can relate to, which is very important considering that Aspergers is certainly not a relatable subject.