Screams and contractions

Quadrillion said:

Screams, yells, etc:

I for one like to show my characters expressing angst. What are some good words to use for anger, pain and fear? and HOW SHOULD THEY BE SPELLED?

Example: "Aaarrrggghhh!" (is this the best spelling?) "Ayeeeeeee!"

Regarding contractions:

How do you write the frenzied quote: "The ship's going down"?
or
Is it "The ship 's going down"?

Thanks in advance.

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Things like "argh" and "ayee" make my teeth hurt, unless they're used for comic value, or in a good old school comic book, or it's National Talk Like a Pirate Day in your story.

To express emotion, I'd use intelligible words, including the occasional expletive. For example:

"I can't believe you!"
"God!"

For inarticulate outbursts, I'd just write:

He screamed in pain.
She howled.

And so forth.

If you must use "argh," pay attention to which sounds in the word can actually be drawn out. Principally the "ah," unless you have a character who rolls his "ars." For example:

"Aaaaaaaaargh!" or "Ar-r-r-r-gh."

I'm not sure why one or the other of your "frenzied" quotes would be more frenzied. "The ship's going down" is grammatically correct. "The ship 's going down" is grammatically incorrect and conveys to me, at least, no added emotion. Now something like "The ship, she's going down!" -- that puts across a bit of unease.

I thought this was going to be about giving birth. :shrug:

I don't waste energy trying to come up with the best spelling of these types of things. I do use them where appropriate, and I think it can add more to the story than a simple "he screamed" when used in context. I don' spell out every scream, but in certain situations it fits better.

Stephen King mentions the use of this type of dialogue in his book "On Writing", I don't remember the specific page number, but he supports their use as well.

I basically just try to keep the expression phonetic, because I get a different mental image when I see a zombie go "Blarg" or "Blaughhh" or 'the zombie rasped/choked/chortled' etc.

lol I was glad to see that it wasn't about giving birth.

Yeah, Ahhrrgghh is kind of out of fashion. I admit to using a few odd exclamations, but only where I want to give the exact flavor of a grunt or yelp (and generic plus modifiers runs on too long), and I try to keep them short.

IceCreamEmpress said:

I thought this was going to be about giving birth. :shrug:

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Glad it's not. The thought brings back some unpleasant memories. When my son was born, I fought really hard, but crashed to the floor twice. The doctor's finally said, "Get that man out of here before he hurts himself." Childbirth is something I wouldn't want to go through again.

FORUM LIST said:

This first draft is so frustrating. ARGGGGGGGH >:-(
BlueLucario Yesterday 07:01 PM

Screams and contractions
Quadrillion

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These two threads are next to each other on the forum list, and I thought it was funny.

Maryn said:

My critique group had a long and at times slightly heated discussion about non-word sounds and how they should appear in fiction. The consensus was that spelling the sounds phonetically is hated and reviled by nearly all readers. They'd much rather read Jeremy screamed as he ran away than "Ayeeeeeee!" Jeremy ran away. And it's not limited to screams but to snorts and muttering and raspberries and kissy-noises and dogs barking and cats yowling and every other sound that is not a word.

On the contractions issue, there's no blank space in a contraction, so you'd write The ship's going down. The apostrophe takes the place of all the missing characters, including blank spaces that separate the words ship and is.

Maryn, glad to meet you

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I disagree with the idea that it is reviled by 'nearly all readers'. I think you are making stuff up

Just write "he screamed." Spelling out the scream just seems so amateurish or childish (may work in a middle-grade book).

There's no space between a word and apostrophe.

Whether you can get away with using arghs and aiees does depend on your genre and intended audience.

They work hard in the comic book or graphic format because you're telling the story in pictures and dialogue for the most part. You could draw a character with mouth wide open to denote a scream, but maybe he's just yawning. Putting "Aieeeee!" in the dialogue balloon will tell the reader one thing, "Hurray!" another.

Children's and YA books can sometimes support "arghs." A famous (and infamous) one appears in The Prisoner of Azkaban, when Sirius Black startles Ron Weasley into something like "AIEEEEEEEEE!!!" Sorry, JKR, if you didn't want me to laugh at this tense juncture in the story. I was on the floor.

Which brings us to humor. The more humorous the book is meant to be, the more you can get away with "arghs."

Conversely, the more you intend your book to be regarded as serious or literary, the less you can afford "arghs."

I don't know whether "arghs" originated in the comic book, but I can't think of one example of an "argh" in pre-comic literature. If someone knows about the birthplace of "arghs," I'd love to hear about it.

Like it or not, the comic utility of "arghs" colors them. If you intend your work to be taken seriously, by a mature audience, well, they're blue jeans at the Opera Ball. Nothing intrinsically wrong with blue jeans, but at the Ball, they're simply out of place.

Quadrillion said:

It is much more difficult to give birth to a novel than to a child.

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Mmphm. I'd say it's a pretty apt comparison. Take about the same length of time, alternate moments of despair with exhilaration and a lot of "why did I think this was such a good idea, again?"...though at least my novels don't make me throw up my toenails for eight months running.

I think giving birth to a query letter is harder than giving birth to a novel or a baby.

Quadrillion said:

It is much more difficult to give birth to a novel than to a child.

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Yeah, you can get the whole "giving birth to a child" thing over and done with in a day or so, while "giving birth to a novel" just drags on and on and on ..... and on.

Hrrmph. This thread is like the screeee of fingernails on a chalkboard. It makes me want to aaaiiieeee straight into the street. j/k. Seriously, I agree that sounds like these should be described rather than spelled out. There are plenty of onomatopoeic words you can use that actually exist in English without making up your own (screech, babble, blah, squelch, harrumph, etc.).

JTstories said:

I disagree with the idea that it is reviled by 'nearly all readers'. I think you are making stuff up

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Maybe you're just not very smart.

steve said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Quadrillion
It is much more difficult to give birth to a novel than to a child.

Yeah, you can get the whole "giving birth to a child" thing over and done with in a day or so, while "giving birth to a novel" just drags on and on and on ..... and on.
__________________

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And when you give birth to a child, the doctors usually don't say that its the worst baby ever and you should never have had it, and they never want to see you in their hospital giving birth again.

On the other hand, you have to keep feeding the darn kid every day - no sticking it in a box under the bed when you realized how bad it turned out.

Sarpedon said:

And when you give birth to a child, the doctors usually don't say that its the worst baby ever and you should never have had it, and they never want to see you in their hospital giving birth again.

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Guess I'm boring. I want the norm. I also want the show me, don't tell me.

::why am I beginning to feel old::