How do you spell a sneeze sound?

[SneezyBoi]

I’ve read a lot of sneezefics over the years, every author has a different way of writing how a sneeze sounds.

My question is, how do you tend to write a sneeze sound?

Me personally, I go with “H'ktchu!” for quiet clean sneezes and for loud sneezes,“hiHH-ISsSHU!”

Idk lol 😂 

[AlexK]

I normally just write it the traditional way, "AhChoo!". Expect when I write a "gigantic" sneeze (Which is pretty much all the time), I usually write it like this, "AAAAAHHHHCHOOOOO!!!!!!"

[AceOfSpades]

I’ve absorbed so many different methods of spelling sneezes, and I’d like to think that I’ve found a select ‘style’ for my spellings that reflects the techniques I’ve liked the most.

I try for more ‘natural’ sounding spellings, and I actually tend to avoid ‘achoo’ or any of its variants. For hitches, I use a whole lot of ‘h’s, to reflect the fact that they’re usually not vocalized and instead are more breathy! Occasionally, I’ll throw in a ‘hah’ or ‘heh’ or ‘hih’, especially if it’s mid-word with a similar sound.

I seperate sneezes into sections, as well! It’s most common for people to use apostrophes to seperate them, and I’ve taken this practice and run with it.

Sneezes in general can be broken up into parts— you have a draw of breath in (a combination of h, a, or e sounds works well for this) and then the sneeze itself (often more intense, so things like ‘ch’ and ‘sh’ and d and k sounds.) Sneezes don’t always end with ‘oo’ sounds, but I tend to mix these in with most— ‘u’ and ‘h’ are generally my go-to letters for this part. 

So I go with something like, ‘hH’KSHU’H!’ or a personal favorite that I overuse, ‘A’DSH’UH!’ The whole thing is a sort of mix-and-match for me, I have a selection of existing sound combinations in my head and I just tend to pick and choose one fast as I write.

Stifled sneezes can still be intense, but I try to reflect the effort it takes to hold them in and silence them. Sometimes, I allow the sneeze to reach the first few letters of the ‘main’ part of the sneeze before I have the character successfully stifle it into silence, usually using a ‘ngk’ or ‘kdt’ sound. I sometimes include emdashes and exclamation points to portray drawing the moment out a little. So, it would look like ‘hH’Kdt!’ or ‘hhH’D—ngk—!’

I also tend to experiment in varying emphasis— As you’ve probably noticed, I use a mix of capital letters, italics, and bolded sections to mix the intensity. As things get more intense I may transfer to capital letters and/or italics. I tend to reserve bold for sneezes.

I also often have a specific way I hear my characters sneeze in my head, and I reflect it in the way I spell their sneezes. I… don’t really have a thought process in coming up with character sneezes, they just kind of appear, but I do try and keep them distinct and unique for each character.

For example, my character Twenty tends to take in a big breath before letting out a harsher and more intense sounding sneeze. This, especially with long buildups, is my favorite type of sneeze, and so I tend to overuse it. He gets a long ‘hhhH—‘ sound and then a pause before the actual release of the sneeze. For the sneeze itself, he has a lot more harsh sneezes, which feature a lot of ‘d’ and ‘k’ sounds. He also tries to stifle them for his own dignity (or out of necessity) sometimes, and so I have to keep that in mind, too.

So for him, a full sneeze might look like:

“Hh— hhAH— A’DSHU’H!”

And with a stifle, it may look like:

”Hh— hHGkt—!”

However, on the other hand, his companion Laurence sneezes nearly the opposite. Twenty is prone to fits, but they’re never rapid-fire like Laurence’s are, and as a result I have to make Laurence’s sneezes shorter and quicker. (I’ll admit that I haven’t quite gotten around to experimenting with what this would look like, but I’m assuming shortening the sections and drawing them out less, more like a ‘hHkch! Ktch!’ etc etc etc until he’s done. Breaking it up with a moment to hitch, of course.)

Overall, I really try and vary the sneeze spellings throughout whatever I’m writing, just so it doesn’t get extraordinarily repetitive. I personally think I need to branch out even more and incorporate more sounds into my technique, because it’s far from complete— I don’t use ‘S’s nearly enough, the second spelling you gave is a nonexistent sneeze spelling in my current works. Definitely want to incorporate that one. There’s so many different ways of sneezing!

…Good lord, I’ve put too much thought into this, and it really shows 😅 I apologize for the text wall! Passionate about the subject I suppose.

[1a2b3d4c5]

3 hours ago, AceOfSpades said:

Sneezes in general can be broken up into parts— you have a draw of breath in (a combination of h, a, or e sounds works well for this) and then the sneeze itself (often more intense, so things like ‘ch’ and ‘sh’ and d and k sounds.) Sneezes don’t always end with ‘oo’ sounds, but I tend to mix these in with most— ‘u’ and ‘h’ are generally my go-to letters for this part. 

So I go with something like, ‘hH’KSHU’H!’ or a personal favorite that I overuse, ‘A’DSH’UH!’ The whole thing is a sort of mix-and-match for me, I have a selection of existing sound combinations in my head and I just tend to pick and choose one fast as I write.

This is actually super interesting! I always appreciate spelling like what you described, but I was never sure how people figured out how to do it that way, where you can really hear it in your head. Thanks for the explanation!

[AceOfSpades]

On 1/2/2024 at 4:44 AM, 1a2b3d4c5 said:

This is actually super interesting! I always appreciate spelling like what you described, but I was never sure how people figured out how to do it that way, where you can really hear it in your head. Thanks for the explanation!

Of course! I also love it when people spell like that, and I soak up writing techniques like a sponge. Happy to share, glad I could help!