What is your opinion on gunshot sounds in text? Are you okay with "BOOM!" and "BLAM!" as interjections, or do you think they belong in comic books only. Do you use them yourself?
I think it depends on your writing style. I do use onomatopoeia for my works but I mainly write fanfiction where anything goes. If I read "BOOM" or "BLAM" early on in a novel I think it would be okay so long as it doesn't happen very often. If you're writing children's - young adult novels, I'd allow more leniency but if you're going for a serious adult novel you might throw some readers off.
I'm not a fan of using them as direct interjections with the intention of having sound leap off the page as if you were hearing them in person. The cool thing about literature is that it's a medium that is inherently void of direct senses. It's literally black words on a white page and nothing else. It has no taste, sound, appearance (save for the black on white) or texture by itself. The words themselves create the senses in the reader's mind on a secondary level. I like that. Let the words do what they were intended for, thinks I. If we try to create sound we might as well include copious illustrations, scratch and sniff patches, and textured paper. Might as well watch a movie at that point. Or God forbid, go outside and experience life.
I’m OK with using onomatopoeic words for gunshot sounds. I’m OK with using onomatopoeic words for anything. Like.. animal noises, a motor running, balloons bursting, tyres scraping the pavement, coughing, sneezing or other noises people make. I think they create pretty vivid pictures.
I'm in favor of it, though I wouldn't resort to "Boom!" and "Blam!" If you decide to do it, go on Youtube and find as many videos as you can of the gun you have in mind being fired. Then imitate the sound phonetically. But not in all-caps.
Depends on the context for me. If it's someone describing a noise they heard, through a dialogue, then fine. But used in the description of a gunfight, for instance, it would sound a bit comic book.
So the consensus is no consensus. I could have guess as much. I was curious though, because I've read both recently. I use them myself, sparingly. It depends on the tone of the piece, but I especially use them when I want the gunshot or explosion to be a shocking interruption. Often though, I try to paint a sound picture, as @Homer Potvin suggests. "I pull the trigger. The report of the shotgun in the enclosed space is deafening." I think both are fine though. Then again, I've reads stacks of Marvel comics for years. To me, it feels almost like a mixing of media. I like that. I enjoy when an author successfully incorporates comic or cinematic elements into a novel. I suppose the same could be said of authors who spend pages painting a still frame word picture, but I prefer to get to the story. It's why I can't stand Charles Dickens.
Yeah, that's how I used it. Something to induce a "What the heck was that!?" reaction from the POV character, especially when he/she doesn't expect a gun to be fired.
Bang! ... Pwunnn! Bang, Bang! ...Bang! Bangbangbangbangbang! BANG! Aaaaaaaaahhhh!! Sorry... I use them reluctantly, except when being silly in forums. They work best when you are after an emotional, fast impact on the reader, and can't afford long sentences slowing down your narrative.
It is a little known fact that John Prine was the first (and probably still the only) person to use the word "onomatopoeia" in a country song: "Bang went the pistol Crash went the window Out went the son of a gun Onomatopoeia I don't wanna see ya Speakin' in a foreign tongue."
The original post just threw me back into my youth, and remembering Adam West. That pretty much sums up my thoughts on it.
You raise a good point. Why doesn't Batman dance anymore? I would say it depends on your style and how you use them. It can sound silly, but it can also not. I don't use them a lot, but I also don't use guns much in my stories, either.
Writing can describe a sound, but it can never properly convey it, unlike a moving picture. Don't bother.
I dislike phonetics in capitals, possibly because they remind me of comic books. If I want to read a comic book, I read a comic book, not a proper book. Period. That said, I've seen someone use descriptions of sounds in lowercase italics, and I found that very convincing. e.g.
Chuck Palahniuk uses tons of onomatopoeia, including gunshots, and he really talks them up in his new writing manual. I would definitely call Palahniuk novels "proper" books, so I don't know about them only belonging in comics. I wish I could think of more examples. Stephen King uses sound effects. I'm almost sure I've read gunshot noises in his books, and I know I've read it in a lot of mid-century sci-fi. I decided against it in my WIP. I've used them before, and I think they can work well, depending on the piece. They just sounded out of place this time, so I changed them to things like, "The report of the shotgun was deafening in the enclosed space." I'm not even sure I'll keep it that way, but I probably will. Still, it lacks the audience-jarring effect Palahniuk talks about. Again, I've read many, many comics, and while they're not all winners, I don't see it as a lesser art form. I don't think borrowing from comics is any lower than emulating cinematic storytelling, and there's a hell of a lot of that in modern literature. A final note on Palahniuk: He observes, and I have no idea if this is true, that women seem to have a much stronger aversion to onomatopoeia in general than men. I wonder if that goes back to comics as well. Hmm. I don't know.
Could work. Depends on your skill and the looseness of the scene itself. I think if the prose is too rigid and conforming it's going to stick out like a sore thumb but if you're going for the gusto - yeah. Ever read Tom Wolfe? - he uses a lot of onomatopoeia and dots ... and I always felt it worked well. He knew how to capture that idea of crowd noise and mindless interjections and it really brought the scene to life.
I don't use onomatopoeia often, but when I do it's without any change in format. No italics, no exclamation marks, no quotes. While immersion is important for the reader, don't take it this far : Spoiler
I didn't want to suggest that comics are a lesser art form. They are just different from written books, in that they are composed of pictures and few words. If I use only a very few words, I'd react differently to the few words there are. So uppercase 'words' like BOOM (which is accompanied by something that explains the noise), have another impact than in books. OT off.
I didn't think you were. The "proper book" comment was meant to be entirely separate from the "lesser art form" one. A lot of people do think that though. That's why I said that. I was mostly just trying to explain that I think the comic book format has elements that can carry over, onomatopoeic interjections for the purpose of jarring impact being one of them.
I might say the gun went "buck, buck" if I wanted to use onomatopoeia. Otherwise, you might say "his pistol spoke twice" or something along those lines. I'm inclined to agree with Iain in that the onomatopoeia would work best as a character's impression in quotes, not an interjection from an omniscient perspective.
You may not know that "buck buck" (also called "Johnny on the Pony") was a children's game popular among inner-city kids. (Bill Cosby referred to it in one of his early monologues.) So the use of the phrase may introduce unwelcome connotations.
