Anonymous said: My character stutters when he talks in class or to people he isn’t close to, but I’m not exactly sur on how to write this without it being annoying or disrupting the flow. Any tips on how to write stutters?
When it comes to characters that don’t normally stutter, or that can control the stutter most of the time, or if the stutter is out of shock or surprise, it is prefered to use a dialogue tag.
“I don’t think this is a good idea,” he stuttered.
There are two other different ways to write a stutter, and in each of them you use the hyphen and the comma, respectively. The one with the comma is called stammer, which is pretty similar to a stutter except it is with a full word or short sentences.
The interesting thing about a stutter is that you don’t just take every word and stumble over it. It varies. You can stumble over every word that starts in a consonant, or every other word with a consonant (stutter), or just plain words (stammer).
If you make your character stumble over every word, it seems a bit over the top. And even if it happens in real life, readers see it as exaggerated and annoying. At least I do.
Make him stutter with certain sounds of consonants, not all of them.
“I d-don’t think this is a good idea,” he said.
“I don’t, I don’tthink this is a good idea,” he said.
I think learning about stutters is also helpful. And while stuttering is a neurological and physiological speech impediment, a stammer can be out of stress or excitement, which means anyone can stammer.
If you want you can make your character both stammer and stutter, if you think it won’t be annoying to read and you don’t exaggerate it.
Something that you shouldn’t do (or at least not a lot) is write the stutter and use a dialogue tag at the same time. It’s kinda redundant.
“I-I don’t think this is a good i-idea,” he stuttered.
I think by writing the stutter I already got the idea he was stuttering.
[The severity of stuttering] may also vary in the same individual from day to day and depending on the speaking situation. Saying one’s name and speaking to authority figures may be particularly difficult. For some individuals, fatigue, stress, and time pressure can increase their tendency to stutter. When stutterers feel compelled to hide their stuttering, it generally becomes worse.
Patterns of stuttering behavior also vary. Some individuals try to avoid stuttering by pausing before words, substituting words, and interjecting phrases such as “you know,” “well actually,” “um,” etc., whenever they anticipate a block.
Quoted from the National Stuttering Association
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