What is a good synonym for rumble? I'm trying to describe the sound that is produced from an explosion and I don't want to keep repeating "rumble". What are some words that can be used for the sound of an explosion, other than rumble? I already know "boom" and "bang" but for some reason I don't like them or I'd like to learn alternatives. Bombs rained on a village in the distance. With disgust, she watched the explosions light up the horizon like shards of lightning. They were followed by a muffled rumble and then a tower of dust and smoke and ash rose into the night sky.
I think this is very difficult. It seems rumble is just so perfect that any alternative will fail. The only thing I can think of is to relate it to the sound of thunder or earthquakes. The sound of the quaking earth, possibly. Or that distructive sound you feel within, that shakes you to the core. Or the desperate sound of despair. By coincidense, I listened to the very sound this morning in a Ukraine report. Sorry to say it was simply a rumble and that sumed it up perfectly. The booms and bangs are too singular for a rain of artillery, I think.
For first draft stage, I just go to onelookthesaurus.com and find the best synonym there and highlight it for review during edit #1. I like it because you can also filter by part of speech, so you may know the verb to describe what you want, but not a noun. Warning: like any thesaurus, you have to be careful as the meanings may be subtly different than your desired word. This could result in bad or confusing sentences, especially if you aren't a native speaker. In addition, some of the suggestions on onelookthesaurus (even high ones) are flat out wrong, since it uses some type of adjacency algorithm (I think) but I find the site to be useful when writing a first draft when you don't want to get bogged down and have your flow interrupted. The entries for 'rumble' has several good suggestions I think (some bad too) like 'roar', 'howl', and 'wail', and depending on the type of explosion, 'hiss' and 'screech' might be appropriate. Note that howl and wail are all the way down at #24 or lower, but I think they are superior to many of the ones above it.
You don't need to keep talking about the sound, unless you're adding new information or characterising it in some different way each time. Words you could use—some describe the sound and some describe other aspects of the scene: Quake tremble shudder shake heave The earth groaned and shook, buildings trembled and shuddered, etc.
A single explosion doesn't, in my experience, "rumble." I think words that might better describe the sound of a single bomb or a single explosion might be "thump," "whump," "boom," or "krump." There's also "kaboom," but I typically encounter that word when someone is describing a catastrophic failure of a Glock pistol. For multiple explosions as from a bombardment, perhaps "rolling boom" or "rolling whump"?
Since you're describing so much atmospherically (horizon, lightning, sky), I would do something like this: They were followed by a distant/low/ominous/etc. thunder and then a tower of dust
I think your description sounds just fine the way it is. I don't think you need to change anything. It's quite good.
I use this when writing poetry and find it invaluable. It’s not the only dictionary/thesaurus out there, of course, but this one has some incredibly useful features, like the ability to filter results by number of letters or syllables, or the letter it starts with, etc. https://rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=Rumble&typeofrhyme=syn&loc=mfp
