Writing character stutter in screenplay.

Just Jeremy

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I'd like to introduce a character that stutters into a screenplay and wanted to know if there's any hard and fast rule in which to do that. I had a look at the screenplay of the only film I could remember with a stutterer, A Fish Called Wanda, and found Cleese writing it as it sounded - "Nnnno he had to ggggo ttttto the bbbbank". I wondered though if us mere mortals are expected to write it into the character description or parenthetical.
 

cornflake

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I'd like to introduce a character that stutters into a screenplay and wanted to know if there's any hard and fast rule in which to do that. I had a look at the screenplay of the only film I could remember with a stutterer, A Fish Called Wanda, and found Cleese writing it as it sounded - "Nnnno he had to ggggo ttttto the bbbbank". I wondered though if us mere mortals are expected to write it into the character description or parenthetical.

Interesting question.

My instinct is to say parenthetical, but I went to look at King's Speech (it's on Deadline.com).

See pg. 4 -- there's a later note indicating a change in the stutter when speaking to specific people, etc.

I think if it's less of a major character I might still go with parentheticals, depending on the frequency of the character's dialogue.

Also note the script on Deadline appears to be a shooting script -- you don't need that level of camera direction, etc.