: Re: What is the best practice for writing a character that speaks with a whistle lisp? For a character that whistles when pronouncing the "s" sound, how can I write in the lisp effectively? I

@Candy753

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Affected speech is really hard to do. Few are the authors I've seen pull it off, and sometimes even the masters fall short. A few points of advice.

If it's not important to the story, ditch it. It's nice to give your characters personality and traits to bring them to life, but unless his lisp is integral to the story, give him a third nipple instead. Save yourself.
If it must be affected speech, you have two paths available to you: overwhelming success or dismal failure. There is no try. Among those books whose authors pulled off affected speech:

Lenny (and half the other characters) in Of Mice And Men
Diana Gabaldon's Scottish brogue in Outlander
Gollum in Lord of the Rings
Hodor in Song of Ice and Fire (pardon my snark)

Among those who failed: pretty much all the rest.

If you still must, don't write it out phonetically. For all the reasons I listed above. Have the character speak normally, and tag his lisp as needed.

"Well, there'n seven apples when I sat down," whistled Fidge, "But no
sooner as I stood up to see the sunset as I heard a sussurus over-"

Stephanie punched poor old Fidge right in the face, and he tumbled
backwards over his bench with a terrible holler and clamor. I can't
say as I blamed her either.

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