Wanting to understand stammering for my new book

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JP Rose

Author JP Rose tells us about her plans for including a character who stammers in her next book, and invites you to help by sharing your experiences as a parent, family member or someone who stammers.

Hello, my name is JP Rose and I am a children's and young adult author. I also write adult crime fiction under the name Jacqui Rose. Between both names I have twenty-six published books, and I have been lucky enough to win awards along the way, including most recently the Diverse Book Awards and the Historical Fiction Award for my children's novel Birdie, which is currently shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal. 

But this article isn't really about any of that. This is about a girl I knew many years ago. She was my daughter's friend at school, and she had a stammer. I remember the impatience of the people around her when she spoke. The "Come on, spit it out". The "Hurry up, I haven't got all day". I remember watching her close off, slowly, over time, retreating from situations where she should have been finding her voice and growing into herself. My daughter lost touch with the girl when she left the school, but I have thought about her many times since. I think about her especially now, in this world of social media and instant everything and relentless pressure on young people, and I wonder how it feels to be navigating all of that with a stammer.

Which is how my new character Otis started to come about.

Otis is thirteen years old. He lives with his single dad, and together they move to a remote Scottish island that turns out — and I appreciate this is quite a leap — to be almost entirely inhabited by vampires. It's a middle grade adventure story, funny and frightening and full of heart, and Otis, the main character, has a stammer.

Portrayal

I am an author of colour, and I know there are a lot of conversations around who can tell whose story. I am actually someone who believes that any writer can and should be able to tell any story, provided they tell it with respect, with research, and with a genuine effort to understand experiences that are not their own. I feel that strongly. But I also know how easy it is to think you understand something and discover, when you actually listen, that you had more to learn than you realised.

The portrayal of Otis and his stammer needs to be authentic and written empathetically. It needs to break down the stereotypes that exist in literature around stammering.

Which is exactly what happened when I spoke to Catherine Woolley, STAMMA's Children & Families Lead, about my plans. I came into that conversation thinking I had done my homework, that I had a reasonable understanding of what I wanted to write about when I was creating Otis, that I was not the kind of writer who wrote stereotypes. I was wrong about that! 

Catherine was wonderful, warm and generous with her time, and by the end of our conversation I realised I had been carrying some misinformation I hadn't even known was there. Not driven by malice. Driven by assumption, by the kind of gaps in understanding that exist when you haven't spoken to people with lived experience. I am so glad I had that chat with Catherine. And it made me more determined than ever to want to know more before I head into my main draft of the book.

Share your experience

The vampires in this story are, I hope, entirely fictional! But the portrayal of Otis and his stammer needs to be authentic and written empathetically. It needs to break down the stereotypes that exist in literature around stammering, or at the very minimum, not add to them. So, I am looking to speak to families and individuals — I would love to hear from you. I am looking to speak to anyone who is willing to share their experience, whatever that looks like. Young people, parents, adults looking back on childhood. I want to understand the navigating of school, of friendships, of being misunderstood, of the impatience… or not, of others. And I want to understand what it feels like to have a parent who loves you and still doesn't always get it right.

Because that is what I am writing too. Otis's dad is not a villain. He is a man who adores his son. But he is also a man who sometimes says the wrong thing, who doesn't always have the patience, who needs to learn. I am not writing him to demonise fathers, parents or anyone. I am just looking to write a true depiction of family life… although, hopefully none of you have to share your town with vampires!

If you would be willing to talk to me, I would be enormously grateful. Please get in touch at jprosewriter@gmail.com 

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