Onomatopoeia-tize Your Writing!

Swish! Rumble! Crack! Do I have your attention? Rather, do those onomatopoeias have your attention?

What are (or aren’t) onomatopoeias?

Those words (⬆️above) are pretty great, don’t you think? Including onomatopoeia. That one’s a personal favorite. It’s defined as the “naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss)” or the “use of words whose sound suggests the sense.” (Source: Merriam-Webster.)

Onomatopoeia is fun to say (less fun to spell), and when writers use onomatopoeic words, they can make their sentences pop!

💥Look, there’s one now: pop! 💥It feels like the word deserves jazz hands, doesn’t it? Or maybe not. But can you see it splashed across the background of a comic book panel or zapped into a scene of an old Batman episode? (Think: Bam! And Pow! And Clash!)

Boom! There’s another one!

That’s a lot of exclamation points for one post, but not all onomatopoeias come with their own punctuation, and plenty of them are quiet or funny, rather than dramatic. Some whisper or whoosh, meow or moo, hum or gurgle or warble or whistle. Others splash or zap.

Did you spot those last two a couple of paragraphs ago? I believe they’re examples of onomatopoeias, but I’ll admit there’s a gray area for me, where a word seems like it might be depicting a sound, but may instead be another type of descriptive word, such as a verb or adjective or interjection. I’m looking at you, burst and twinkle and ouch. (Onomatopoeia or not, descriptive is good, in my opinion.)

Why use onomatopoeias in your writing?

Onomatopoeias (and other descriptive words) can enhance writing by drawing the reader closer to what’s depicted in the text. Such words have the potential to lift dry, flat ideas into a fuller sensory expression.

Let’s look at a few basic examples:

1. The noises of the time machine echoed in her ears.
2. The whirs and clicks of the time machine echoed in her ears.

1. One footstep after another moved quickly down the hallway, and something collided with the door.
2. One thud after another pounded down the hallway, and something crashed into the door.

1. She heard voices, things cooking on the stove, and the faint sound of the coffee maker.
2. She heard the hum of voices, the sizzle and bubble of things cooking on the stove, and the faint drip of the coffee maker.

There can be too much of a good thing, of course, but onomatopoeias often add interest to sentences. They can brighten the humor, deepen the suspense, or swell the mood of a piece. Where might a horror story be without the creak on a step? A romance without a throaty whisper? A children’s story without the slosh and squish of rubber boots in mud puddles?

Are onomatopoeias universally appealing?

All this talk of sounds made me wonder something: What do hearing impaired or deaf people think of onomatopoeias? I won’t speak for someone else, but I did a little research and learned some interesting things, among them, these:

• Enrichment: For those who haven’t always been hearing impaired or deaf, the inclusion of onomatopoeias in books, movie captions, etc. can enrich the experience. Whether audience members can recall a sound or not, an onomatopoeia may contribute to the plot (the ominous crack of a twig in a dark forest) or to the ambience of a scene (the chirp of crickets on a summer night). (Source User Experience.)
• Enjoyment: For people who have little or no frame of reference for sound (i.e., they’ve always been hearing impaired or deaf), onomatopoeias may not be all that important. However, researchers in Japan (2019) created a device that produced vibrations in response to audio information, which allowed children involved in their study to feel onomatopoeias. The experience seemed to increase the enjoyment and usefulness of the lessons being taught. (Sources: Value Hearing and Springer Link.)
• Emotion and excitement: Sign languages can also contain onomatopoeias. They are used not only in signing sounds but also to provide visual representations of an object or its behavior (like a leaf falling to the ground or an elephant waving its ears). In her blog The Limping Chicken, Amanda Everitt notes (and demonstrates) how such signs can “visually link meaning with form.” As she says, “Sound is not just for the hearing . . . . Sound can be made visual.”

The gift of expression

It’s inspiring to consider how different senses relate to one another, and how onomatopoeias and other descriptive words can help build an experience for audiences. On that note, it’s time to dive willy-nilly into a list of onomatopoeias. Here’s a whole, expressive gush of them:

• babble, bam, boing, boom, bubble, burble, buzz
• chatter, chirp, clang, clank, clap, clash, click, crack, crash, creak, crunch
• ding, drip
• fizz, flick, flop
• giggle, glop, groan, growl, grumble, gurgle, gush
• hiccup, howl, hum
• meow, moan, moo, mumble, murmur
• patter, plink, plunk, pop, pound, pow, purr
• rattle, roar, rumble, rush, rustle (but not hustle or bustle)😊
• screech, shatter, sizzle, slosh, slurp, snap, snort, splash, splat, squeak, squelch, squish, swish
• tap, thrum, thud, thump, trickle
• warble, wallop, whir, whisper, whistle, whizz, whoosh
• yawn, yelp, yowl
• zap, zing, zip, zoom

And the onomatopoeia that currently tops my list: susurration. It’s a whisper or murmur, and it reminds me of a soft, warm breeze passing through the leaves of a tree. A breeze like that is a sound and a feeling, and it’s also one of my favorite things on the planet, much like onomatopoeias.

Are you an onomatopoeia fan too? Have any favorites to add to the list above? Do tell!

“Sound gives life to our words just as well as the images they conjure up, and the sound is there, whether or not we read them aloud.”

A.A. Patawaran, Write Here Write Now: Standing at Attention Before My Imaginary Style Dictator

Thanks for reading, and please contact me at Three Quills Editing to discuss just about anything: books and poetry, rescue pets, your favorite pollinator-friendly native plants, or—one of my personal favorites—to request a free sample edit. I’d love to hear from you!