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Can we dialoguify sounds? By dialoguifying I mean turning something that shouldn't be put in quote when that something correspond to sounds into a dialogue by putting it between quotes and treating it as a dialogue.

For example:

"Bang, bang, bang, pow." Celine banged on the door. "Bang, bang, pow, pow." she continued. "Bang, bang, bang."

What are some alternative ways of doing it?

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    The word you're looking for is onomatopoeia. And, no, don't put it in quotes.
    – Cyn
    Jun 26, 2019 at 22:26
  • If it's in quotes, I'm going to assume she says the words "Bang" and "Pow" out loud while she's knocking. Which could be amusing, but probably isn't what you're going for.
    – Chelsea
    Jun 27, 2019 at 18:34

3 Answers 3

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I wouldn't recommend this.

Anything that appears in quotation marks is meant to be taken literally. When I first read your example, my first thought was that Celine was talking - and actually saying the words "Bang, bang, bang, pow." This approach is likely to confuse the reader.

A common alternative is to use italics instead:

Bang! Bang! Bang! Pow! Celine banged on the door. Bang! Bang! Pow! Pow! she continued. Bang! Bang! Bang!

(Unless, of course, you want a door that actually talks when someone knocks.)

Feel free to adjust the punctuation to your liking - Bang-bang-bang! could work as well.

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Onomatopoeia consists in creating words whose sound is similar to the sound you want to reproduce. For instant, an explosion could be replaced by a single

Bang!

or the barking of a dog could be written as

Woof!

Note that quotes are not necessary. Putting these words in italic is sometimes a good practice, albeit unnecessary.

This is not uncommon in comics, and, among the rest, in older Batman series. It is also extensively featured in Futuristic poetry from the beginning of the XX century.

That being said, the frame challenge is that, as you show in your example, the English language has already a good amount of onomatopoietic words, verbs in particular.

Back to your example:

Celine banged repeatedly on the door. She raised her fists and punched, boomed, clanged, knocked, tapped, slammed, bumped, thud, thumped, smacked, stamped, stomped, and clomped until they finally opened.

Or, if there was a meaning in the different words, you could consider:

Celine banged on the door. She knew the code well: three loud bangs and a softer one, then two and two, and finally three loud bangs.


Please consider upvoting Cyn's comment, which first suggested looking into onomatopoeia.

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    I don't know if I'd use quite that many synonyms in one sentence. After a while, it just looks like you're trying too hard.
    – Kevin
    Jun 27, 2019 at 2:59
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If you want special areas to denote onomatopoeia, I have a great new medium for you to discover: The comic book. Unfortunately, the narrative medium was not made for the purpose you're proposing.

I'm all for breaking conventions, especially if there's a damn good reason, but this is a bridge too far.

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