How to write a character that has a speech disorder (stuttering)?

Question

A friend and I are writing a manga, and there is this mc(main character) that is having the speech disorder - she stutters.

Writing the question directly to avoid confusion.

Afterwards providing some attempts to clarify both what the question is about & details.

Finally I will add Background, and then some Context and References.

Question

How should I write a character - that suffers from a speech disorder (stuttering)?

I'll add some examples below, as the question might seem broad.

Examples

Some previous attempts of mine have been:

To write about how I myself as a stutterer feel (that is, I write on my phone).
- However, other (stutterers) might disagree(everyone is different) other stutterers maybe, don't use any help at all (and talks either way)
Because we all are different I try to be "inclusive" or, how to put it. I try to make it more "general" Instead of only writing how I myself feel about stuttering.

Background

I have this speech disorder myself, I stutter so much so I write on notepads/my phone and show it to the person instead of talking in real life.

What does this have to do with the question?

It is, that I am unsure how to write the person (not the stuttering-itself).

Context and References

I have tried to search for specifically writing about the speech (disorder) and not the usual, brief stuttering one might get when scared or surprised.

Like 'wow!'

"Ww-w-wow!"

or 'really'?

"r-really?"

What I actually mean is more like, actually having difficulties(actively struggling) to say the word "wow" or, "really".

A more concrete example

My real name is William. So I often have (major) difficulties saying my own name because of the 'W'.

So I end up just saying

my name is W-www-w (...)

And then - after a few attempts - literally writing on my phone "William" and showing.

But I didn't find any question that is directly about what I am asking.

Note: some might think stuttering appears when there is a stressful situation, like "introduce yourself in front of a class" but, my stutter is, regardless if I am stressed or not. that is, I stutter as much as alone as if I would be in front of a class.

Comments

One thing I considered doing is, having the character just write on phone, (in some anime/mangas they write in notebooks so it's - kind of the same but different)

We can also of course use sign language; (both of which has been in manga before)

As a attempt to re-phrase what the question really is asking it is:

How should I go with writing how the character feels, but so it doesn't feel as a cliche, because I guess writing about myself is not that good (I think?) this is my first question so sorry if trivial parts is missing.

Internal References

Some references that were (in)directly helpful were:

Indirectly helpful:

Directly helpful:

External References

score 12 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 15 '23 at 19:12

So if I'm interpreting this correctly, you want to write a character who stutters based off yourself, but want to know how to avoid them coming off as cliché or offending other people who stutter/stutterers due to being nonrepresentative, right? And have attempted to search for resources only to find a sum total of nothing useful? (can attest to this, the advice out there is terrible.)

I stutter myself and also often wrestle with how to bring this into fiction, so you're not alone! If you don't mind, I'm going to divide this answer into two parts:

Avoiding cliché

You would think that, especially because the clichés about stuttering are not exactly true to life, this would be easy to do. However.

A trap it's easy to fall into here is accidentally writing in a way that lets people project the clichés into your story, even though they're not actually there. This is because there are a few narratives about stuttering that are incredibly common in fiction (although, IMO, not realistic and actually fairly offensive), to the point where people will actively expect to see them if a stuttering character shows up. The three main ones I know are:

stuttering as a symptom of cowardice
stuttering as a symptom of shyness, anxiety, low self esteem, or similar
the stutter magically vanishing, typically as a reward for character development

As someone who stutters myself and knows that RL doesn't work this way, I am not primed to look for these the way fluent people not familiar with stuttering outside fiction are. I have multiple times been surprised to find a stuttering character interpreted in a way that fits into these tropes when I didn't think it was there in the text. (Examples: Khalid from the video game Baldur's Gate 1 being treated as cowardly, Simon from Terry Pratchett's book Equal Rites losing his stutter and that being interpreted as a reward for his character development through the book by fluent readers) I've been taken aback to find that the cultural narrative here is just that strong that people will just... bring their own clichés.

This means that it's probably not enough to just not write these tropes, especially because you as a stutterer cannot judge very well whether a fluent reader will read them into your work anyway. I would suggest going to the effort of actively subverting or undermining them, or in SOME place spelling out clearly that the trope will not be happening. Things like - the stuttering character is brave to the point of recklessness, maybe saying that since they have to run a gauntlet just to order coffee every day everything else seems manageable. Or lampshading in a scene in which someone says something a la thinking the stutter will go away if they get over their Issues (TM), or suggesting that why don't they try singing instead of speaking? And the stuttering character rolling their eyes and telling them they've obviously been reading too much bad fiction, if it was that easy they wouldn't stutter.

For the record, needing to do this sucks. I don't think I'll ever be able to write a character who stutters who is also generally nervous because I know it'll be interpreted as causative - this sucks. The fact that if you manage to avoid these clichés you've probably already produced a refreshing unusually well-portrayed stuttering character is good for you in the moment, but overall also sucks. But with the state of stuttering portrayals it's the advice I have to give.

Avoiding offending other people who stutter

This is a reasonable worry, because as you may know the stuttering community has a lot of veeery different experiences and attitudes towards stuttering. I've worried about this myself a lot because I know my own attitude is an outlier.

That said. The fact that you stutter yourself means that if you base your character's attitudes on yourself they will definitely be representative of one person who stutters - you. And they will almost certainly not be representative of some other people who stutter, just because it's such a diverse condition. So where to go from there?

My main advice would be to make sure that you depict everything the character is going through and what they think and feel as that character's experience of stuttering and not The Way Stuttering Is, Always, For Everyone. An easy way to do this, if you can swing it, is to bring in another character who stutters at some point (potentially for a bit part) who has a very different experience and outlook on life. If that's not possible, maybe give your character some history of interacting with other stutterers with a different experience. Even something as simple as a memory of interacting with someone in a shop once who also stuttered and was significantly [more/less] accepting of it can help avert this. If you're not sure what other experiences and takes there are, I suggest checking out the stuttering community - some of the podcasts on Stuttertalk may be a place to start.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 16 '23 at 23:21

I'm not sure it can work, but maybe you can sometimes express your character thoughts using some graphical convention like specific speech bubble and sometimes use ordinary speech bubble where he stutter. It may even be possible to use both at once to show what the character wants to tell and how he fails to do it.

Just my two cents. I believe I would be quite empathic with a character written that way.

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 01 '23 at 12:58

To make a character like this authentic, then just fill the character with some of your everyday experiences. Trust me, reality is sometimes the most authentic thing you could do while writing or drawing something like this. Every great artist takes influence from real-life experiences one way or another, and as Picasso said: "A good artist borrows, a great artist steals." No-one can accuse you of plagiarising your own real-life experiences.