u/Kitchen-Point6391

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I had cognitive testing done when I was 15 years and 7 months old. I’m not a native speaker / I’m from a different cultural background, and before the test I had been pretty isolated for a couple months. I’d also been dealing with anxiety/depression before that, though I wasn’t especially anxious during the test itself.

The confusing part is that my overall score came out around the 16th percentile, but my fluid reasoning was average-high. My working memory and/or processing speed were much lower.

I’m not asking anyone to diagnose me or tell me my “real IQ.” I’m just trying to understand how this kind of uneven profile is usually interpreted.

Can lower working memory or processing speed drag down the overall score that much? And in a case like this, would fluid reasoning give a better picture of reasoning ability than the overall score? Also, could language/cultural background or recent depression/isolation affect scores like working memory, processing speed, or verbal comprehension?

Any honest answers are appreciated.

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I had cognitive testing done when I was 15 years and 7 months old. I’m not a native speaker / I’m from a different cultural background, and before the test I had been pretty isolated for a couple months. I’d also been dealing with anxiety/depression before that, though I wasn’t especially anxious during the test itself.

The confusing part is that my overall score came out around the 16th percentile, but my fluid reasoning was average-high. My working memory and/or processing speed were much lower.

I’m not asking anyone to diagnose me or tell me my “real IQ.” I’m just trying to understand how this kind of uneven profile is usually interpreted.

Can lower working memory or processing speed drag down the overall score that much? And in a case like this, would fluid reasoning give a better picture of reasoning ability than the overall score? Also, could language/cultural background or recent depression/isolation affect scores like working memory, processing speed, or verbal comprehension?

Any honest answers are appreciated.

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I’ve been messing around with a story idea and I’m honestly a little lost on where to start.

The basic idea is about a woman who’s already dead when the story begins. She was maybe an artist or public figure, and after her death, everyone around her starts remembering her in different ways. Her husband is probably the main character, and he seems like the person who “knew her best,” but the more people talk about her, the more it feels like nobody really has the full picture.

What interests me is not really a murder mystery or “what actually happened” type of thing. It’s more about how people turn someone’s life into a story after they’re gone. Like, who gets to decide what someone meant? Her husband, her friends, the media, the public, her work, old footage of her, etc.

The problem is I don’t know how to make that active as a story. I keep ending up with abstract stuff about memory, truth, narrative, identity, and all that, but I don’t know what the actual dramatic engine should be.

I was thinking maybe it could involve a documentary being made about her, or a retrospective of her work, or interviews with people who knew her. But I’m worried that would just become people sitting around talking about her instead of an actual story.

So I guess my question is: how do you make an absent/dead character still feel present and dramatic? And how do you make different memories of someone create conflict without it feeling like exposition?

Any advice would be really appreciated.

I’ve been thinking about stories where an important character is already dead or absent before the main plot begins, but still feels like a major force in the story.

Not just as a mystery to solve, but as someone whose presence keeps affecting the living characters. Different people remember them differently, argue over who they were, or try to turn their life into a clean story after they’re gone.

I’m curious what actually makes that work in fiction.

Sometimes this kind of setup can be really powerful, but other times it just becomes people sitting around talking about someone who isn’t there. I’m interested in the difference.

What makes an absent/dead character feel dramatically present rather than just symbolic or expositional?

Are there examples where conflicting memories of one person create real tension instead of just backstory? :::

I’ve been thinking about a type of manipulation in fiction that doesn’t work through obvious lying or hiding evidence.

The character may admit the facts, but changes how those facts are understood. A detail becomes “taken out of context.” A contradiction becomes “not the point.” A painful statement becomes “something said during a bad period.” The fact stays visible, but its importance is reduced.

I’m interested in how this works dramatically, especially in scenes where the manipulative character still seems reasonable, sympathetic, or even partly right. The tension is not that they are inventing a false reality from nothing, but that they keep controlling which interpretation feels most legitimate.

This seems different from a simple unreliable narrator or a villain hiding the truth. It is more about emphasis, framing, selective honesty, and emotional authority.

What are examples of novels, films, or plays that handle this well?

What techniques make this kind of manipulation visible to the reader/audience without having another character simply announce, “You’re manipulating the story”?

I’ve been thinking about a type of manipulation in fiction that doesn’t work through obvious lying or hiding evidence.

The character may admit the facts, but changes how those facts are understood. A detail becomes “taken out of context.” A contradiction becomes “not the point.” A painful statement becomes “something said during a bad period.” The fact stays visible, but its importance is reduced.

I’m interested in how this works dramatically, especially in scenes where the manipulative character still seems reasonable, sympathetic, or even partly right. The tension is not that they are inventing a false reality from nothing, but that they keep controlling which interpretation feels most legitimate.

This seems different from a simple unreliable narrator or a villain hiding the truth. It is more about emphasis, framing, selective honesty, and emotional authority.

What are examples of novels, films, or plays that handle this well?

What techniques make this kind of manipulation visible to the reader/audience without having another character simply announce, “You’re manipulating the story”?

I’m interested in writing a manipulative character who does not really lie.

Not in the usual sense, anyway.

He doesn’t say “that never happened.” He says something more like: “yes, that happened, but you’re misunderstanding it.” Or: “yes, she wrote that, but she didn’t mean it literally.” Or: “that was private, and it’s unfair to make it central.”

So the manipulation is not about changing the fact. It’s about changing the fact’s importance.

I’m trying to understand how to dramatize that without making it too obvious. I don’t want the character to twirl his mustache or have everyone else instantly realize he is controlling the story. I want the audience to partly believe him at first, because he sounds reasonable, grieving, intelligent, and maybe even protective.

The context is a widower managing the legacy of his dead wife, an artist. Other people begin interpreting her work and her life in ways that threaten his version of their marriage. He responds not by hiding things, but by reframing them. He makes certain details feel minor, exaggerated, misunderstood, immature, or irrelevant.

What are some good ways to show this kind of manipulation in scenes?

How do you write dialogue where someone is technically honest but emotionally unfair?

How do you make the audience feel, gradually, that the character is controlling meaning — without having another character just announce it?