The Do's and Don'ts of Writing a Story

LANGUAGE: Stutter Pt. 2

Stutters' usually depend on what they're stuttering:

A nervous stutter results in what s called mazing or rewording the sentence. That is the classic "I, um... well I... look it's just that... so we..." When someone is mazing their words you're seeing a of speech apraxia where the brain is having trouble forming verbal speech. This can be brought on by brain damage, memory loss, anxiety, nerves and several other things. 

The root cause of a nervous stutter is a disconnect between the mouth and the brain. 

With this you will also sometimes see the classic "S-s-s-sorry..." especially is the person has been trained to speak clearly and is now at the point of fatigues or stress where they are not mentally capable of forming words. 

The other kind of stutters a physical stutter, sometimes referred to as slurring, and another facet of speech apraxia. this stutter is caused when the muscles of the mouth, tongue and throat are physically unable to form certain sounds. This is often seen in the very young and victims of brain trauma. 

Sounds are acquired at different ages, so a 2 year old will probably not be able to clearly pronounce words (which is why a toddler sounds so off when they're written with developed dialogue). These mispronunciations are sometimes referred to as lisping, but only if the sounds are run together. If the person starts and restarts the sound because they got it wrong, it can also  sound like the classic sound stutter.

But it all depends on the character stuttering!

Do they have speech apraxia, audio processing disorder, muscle disfunction or another medical reason to stutter? 

These will have mazing, repeated sound stutters and be the classic stutter that annoys most of us in stories.

Are they stuttering because if anxiety, stress or fatigue?

This is where you will see repetition stutter, mazing, rephrasing and filler words. 

Does the stutter stem from intoxication or blood loss?

Here you will see all of the above. Mazing particularly for blood loss and repetitive words for intoxication. 

Stuttering is more than a repetition of certain sounds. It can't always be fixed in just a few repetitions, sometimes it's actually impossible to get the sentence out. Stuttering is a combination fo repetition and elongated sounds and also silent blocks. Sometimes you just have to give up. 

 - Silent blocks are when literally nothing will come out. Nada. Zilch. Apart from the quick "sorry about this I have a stutter" warning as I know it's going to happen. I can't say anything else.

 -  For some wild reason if another person says the word that you are trying to say, there is a short window in which the stutter can repeat the words without stuttering. 

 - Stutterers are often trying not to stutter. They know which words, which sounds are going to trip them up. They're only at the beginning of the sentence but they already know they can't say the last word - so as they're talking they are recalibrating the sentence to find the words that they can say. Sometimes this means their sentences can start off with a clear sense of purpose but the meaning comes vague. 

 - They will pretend to forget words if they can't say them, all the time, they're trying to trick you into guessing and saying the words for them so they can utilise the short window in which they can repeat it but don't make them repeat the words a minute later or they'll have to pretend to forget it again. 

 - Filler words. Lot's of filler words, They're trying to prolong getting to the word, often speaking very quickly so that they can trick themselves into saying it because the build up is way worse. 

 - A lot of people with stutters have problems with names. 

 - Stutters can be heightened when showing sincerity or kindness which can often make them appear kind of rude. Some often don't say please or thank you because they'll stutter on it and internally fall into guilt for the rest of the day because the other person probably thought they were rude. 

 - Stutters are not directly caused by nervousness but they can be exaggerated because of them. Stutters can appear worse depending on who you're around and in what context. 

 - They're terrible at arguing because they can't say the words. 

 - They're also terrible at jokes because they'll stutter on the punch line and ruin it.

 - Stutterers will work out little ways to help stop the stutter, for instance, work on telephones. I f they're on a call and feel they're about to stutter, they will start to do one of two things a.) make as much noise as possible because the stutter is better if they can't hear themselves talk and b.) start doing things with their hands, such as folding paper because if they're not concentrating on words so much they can trick themselves into speaking more fluently. This is only an example, people have different ways of adjusting.