: Re: Onomatopoeia usage, how much of it detracts from the story? So, in a novel I'm writing, there is a situation where the first-person protagonist is in a lot of pain, so much that she is screaming

Like many things in writing, it can be good if done well and bad if done poorly or overdone.

If you wrote a story that was filled with onomatopoeic words, it would surely quickly become tedious.

Bob cried "Ola!" to me as my car clunked down the bump-bump street while my dog made grr-ing noises in the back seat ...

Worse if they're made up words rather than established ones. Like you'd get away with referring to the cat's meow and the machine's banging noises more than the cat's mmm-preee and the machine's brang-a-lang.

Picking one combination of letters to represent a moan or screen and re-using it throughout a scene seems pretty safe to me. I don't most readers would notice a problem. Well, there could be a problem if you go on and on about the character moaning and screaming and the scene gets too drawn out, but that's a different issue.

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: How should I "remind" the reader of something that they may have forgotten? Say there is a small detail in the beginning of the book that has a big effect later on. The reader might've forgotten

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: I think the main advantage of using a fictional place is what you perhaps allude to in your comment about "adaptability". With a fictional place, you can invent whatever you want that helps

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: In general, I'd say that clear references to another work of fiction are a bad idea. It makes it sound like you're writing fan fiction rather than an original work. You can refer to particularly

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: Citing footnote in mla There's a footnote in an annotated novel I'm reading, and I want to use what's said in that footnote in my essay. I'm not sure how to cite the footnote within my essay,

: Re: Onomatopoeia usage, how much of it detracts from the story? So, in a novel I'm writing, there is a situation where the first-person protagonist is in a lot of pain, so much that she is screaming

More posts by @Annie587

: How should I "remind" the reader of something that they may have forgotten? Say there is a small detail in the beginning of the book that has a big effect later on. The reader might've forgotten

: I think the main advantage of using a fictional place is what you perhaps allude to in your comment about "adaptability". With a fictional place, you can invent whatever you want that helps

: In general, I'd say that clear references to another work of fiction are a bad idea. It makes it sound like you're writing fan fiction rather than an original work. You can refer to particularly

: Citing footnote in mla There's a footnote in an annotated novel I'm reading, and I want to use what's said in that footnote in my essay. I'm not sure how to cite the footnote within my essay,

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