How do you guys come up with onomatopoeias?

[KennethLopezJr921]

Sound effects (or onomatopoeias) have always been a struggle for me, mostly because I have trouble writing them out. Stuff like car honking, and other commons sounds made into words aren't a problem. But the more abstract a sound is, the harder it gets. I mean, I know what they sound like in my head but trying to write it out isn't easy, and I think that's why I often forget to put a sound effects for things like walking in some cases.

I do have some solutions like remake the sounds with stuff I have lying around the room and write down what I hear. For example, I would take a show and tap it against a wall or my leg just to hear to hear the sound and write down what I think it sounds like. Other times, I'd just snag sounds by looking up similar scenes portrayed in other comics or manga.

Does anyone else run into this same issue when it comes to coming up with sounds and onomatopoeias?

[nathanKmcwilliams]

I tend to go with the classics as seen in silver age comics.
"Ka-Thwokk" "Krakka-booom" etc. Basically if it has a hard C sound, just throw a K in there. Boom. Instant sfx

[noenoh]

I have problem with them mostly because I am not sure how to use them in English (when I do my draft I put them in Spanish adn of course its super easy cause our onomatopeias and letter sounds are congruent and more sound accurate when writing)so I have to do a lot of search on them on example sites but that takes a lot of time for me so, the same as you, I tend to forget to add them in the end xD;;;;;;;;;;

[LadyLily]

onomatopoeias

Is this for a comic or novel? If this is a novel, I like to make it sound as poetic as possible. I find that draws a reader into the mind of the character the best. I like to, also, compare it to another sound. You don't have to get technical with it. Give a reader something to feel or compare it to, and you're good.

Ex: "He closed his eyes and could hear her approaching by the sound of her skirt like the rustling of leaves on a tree."

[artamazon]

If it's an odd sound, I reference other comics to see how they handle the effects I need. Otherwise, I say the sound effect out loud and try to feel out what letters I need. Sounds silly now that I write it out, lol.

[KennethLopezJr921]

In this instance, I'm referring to comics. I use them interchangeably

[DokiDokiTsuna]

I would think the simplest way to do it is to actually try to reproduce the sound with your mouth and listen to the sounds you create...? ^^; I mean, that's what onomatopoeias are...phonetic transcriptions of sound.

Like, when a character walks, people often use 'tmp', 'clop', 'clak', etc., depending on what shoes they're wearing and what they're walking on. Try to say those in a way that sounds like footsteps...you can hear the connections, right? There's a reason they chose those spellings (and the capitalization...tiny sounds usually get lowercase spellings, or at least small text).

Or for another example: explosions. You could just write 'BOOM'...or you could try to customize it depending on the type of explosion. Make some explosion sounds and write down what you hear, just as an exercise.

'CRRSSSSHHHH' is more like a cascading explosion, like a lot of objects collapsing and falling on each other...'BLOOOSH' would be like an underwater explosion, I think. 'FOOM' would be an airy one, like maybe an explosion of dust, rather than a solid object.

Of course, there are some more abstract sounds I made...'KRRSHKOOW', for one. I could use that, but it's a little complex...onomatopoeias work best when they're as simple and straight-to-the-point as possible. You don't want the reader to spend a lot of time trying to figure out what sound you're trying portray.

The easiest way to simplify, at least for impact sounds, is to start by taking out as many vowels (and other voiced sounds) as possible, try to limit it to the most 'inhuman' sounds. So we take out the 'O' and the 'W', and we have something like 'KRRSSHHKK'. Nice~
You can also simplify by patterning the new sound off a more 'established' onomatopoeia, so the reader will have a more ingrained sense of how to interpret it. So, going off of 'CRRSSSHHH', we can make 'KRRSSHH' (basically, we took off the final 'K' sound, which does make it simpler).

Or to give a better example, if you want to make a new heartbeat sound, and you start with 'boom-boom, boom-boom' (which is a little weird) you can look at the established 'ba-dump, ba-dump' and maybe make 'b-boom, b-boom' or even 'b-bmp, b-bmp' (notice how we gradually shave off vowels and/or add more consonants to refine the sound).

Hope this helps~

[WLHcomics]

I usually take inspiration from comics I read, sometimes I'll just use a simple sound effect, it just depends on what I'm drawing I guess, I don't think I've ever used anything too snazzy for sounds yet.

[KennethLopezJr921]

That's actually a pretty cool idea!

[iamvcdgamer]

I mostly check out other popular comic and manga series and get ideas from there. I also try and voice out the sounds I use.
Lastly, I usually check out this site:
http://www.comicbookfx.com/fxlist.php
They have a database of sound effect used in comics.

[sensibleshroom]

Disclaimer: I'm a writer, not a comic artist, but I think I have some advice.

Weirdly enough, I don't use onomatopoeia a lot. Though, if you're struggling with it, I'd say look up a list of words and get familiar with them, and maybe look into Foley work. I know it sounds weird, but watching videos about Foley art got me more comfortable with describing sound in my writing, because I used to have a heavy tendency to favor visuals. I still do, but Foley helped a lot with my descriptions. If you don't know what Foley is, it's basically the art of creating the background track in a movie. They use weird, every day items in a specialized studio to recreate things like the sound of thunder, footsteps, gunshots, rain, sword fights, banging, wind blowing, etc. Your method is kind of similar to it, but watching videos of them in action may make it easier for you when you can't make the noise yourself to refer to.

Edit: the raw sound is also crisper than what appears in movies, because they mix it afterwards to be more viewer friendly. For instance, gunshots do NOT sound like that irl unless you're very far away. If movies were fully accurate, people would be walking out of the theater with hearing damage. You don't have to worry about that in a comic, so the raw sound may help you make it more realistic.

[Dialusion]

Half of the time, I'll verbally make the sound and write it down (or make multiple sounds I envision and write them all down.) I end up with onomatopoeias like "Bvoom" "KRACK" and my most used one "BA BA BAM". Since I try to imitate Manga/Anime too, I pull from there, but give it an English equivalent. Some things like "Dadada" is easy enough, others like "Rin Rin" would be "Ring Ring". Things like that.

[Legendofgenii]

The only ones I tend to struggle with are magical sounds.

My favourite onomatopoeia is CLONK!