#bethanyofmight

Sort of. 

The thing is, ultimately, each individual reacts differently to different circumstances. But at the end of the day, it’s still up to each individual person to make responsible choices concerning themselves and the people around them. 

A person who was abused for poor grades and praised for good grades may develop a major perfectionist streak, but they may also develop a “fuck school” mentality and decide to pursue whatever they want. Both are reasonable reactions to their background, despite how different they are, and this is why you need to be careful about explanations in which someone’s past “caused” their behavior in the present. 

Moving on to another example. A person who has been hurt repeatedly - psychologically, physically abused, what have you - in the past may close themselves off to keep from being hurt again. 

However, if they choose to lash out and attack people to keep them from getting close enough to hurt them... well, that’s not really a wholly rational response, and it kind of makes them a jerkass. And no amount of explaining away by the author re: tragic past is going to make me forgive them being a jerkass. The caveat to that being if they realize they’re just perpetuating the abuse they went through and make the decision to change that about themselves.

In this latter example, the person’s past isn’t precisely *causing* the jerkass behavior, but it does play a role. And it can help the audience understand it. But personal choices on the part of the character do play a part in the way they act, as well. 

First and foremost, do some research into stuttering so you know where the main "problem areas" in terms of speech are. 

When it comes to actually writing it, you have a couple of different routes to go. For actually showing her stutter in dialogue, the standard is something like - "W-w-we went to the b-beach yesterday." 

The thing about that is you don't want to overdo it, or it will make it really difficult for the reader to digest. (Example: "We d-d-d-d-did-d-didn't...") Going this overboard may also lead into caricature territory, so keep that in mind as well. The reader will fill in the blanks regarding how bad the stutter actually is, especially if you tell them through the narrative. 

The other thing I want to point out is that if she's having an especially challenging time speaking, you may just want to express that through narration rather than dialogue.