On the Nature of EEEAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!

Three E's, eight A's, three G's, and three H's. Not bad.

Tangible screaming isn't used very often nowadays. I think that it's because most writers have caught onto the fact that a character's tangible scream isn't as descriptive as narrating the act of the scream itself. Or maybe it's the exact opposite - that narrating a scream allows for less familiarity, which is usually the requisite atmosphere for a 'scream' moment.

I mean, look at the two statements below:

* Gareth turned, and finally saw it. He screamed.

* Gareth turned. "Eeeaaaaaaaaggghhh!" he screamed.

The first statement is a lot more acceptable by modern literary standards, whereas the second statement would probably get your editor laughing uncontrollably at its sheer cheesiness.

Tangible screams are probably put to use a lot more effectively in comics or other visual media, where you can't merely tell a reader that a character has screamed; You have to literally show it. While it's possible to frame a visual image to make an expression of fear or terror obvious, a tangible scream would make the scene a lot more understandable to any reader at first glance.

Tangible screams by themselves take a bit of work. They're probably among the most accurate of onomatopoeic devices, seeing that a tangible scream should be constructed so that the reader can hear exactly how it sounds in his mind. I'll point out the fact that the example above, "EEEAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!", emphasizes the 'A' sound above everything else. That's because the 'A' sound has to comprise the body of this particular scream. The character literally starts with a high-pitched 'E' sound, degenerates into an 'A' sound (as, presumably, his mouth opens wide to scream), and then trails off into 'G' and 'H'. The exclamation point doesn't have a sound associated with it, so I think that using multiples ("!!!") is more pretentious than realistic.

The scream could just as easily been, say, "YYYAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!", but I think that starting with a pure 'E' sound makes it more natural. The 'E' sound starts off smaller, which perfectly emulates the image of a character having to open his mouth in order to scream.

The length of the tangible scream has also shown itself to be manipulable. "ACK!", while not truly a scream, is nevertheless a tangible exclamation in the same vein - and a favorite of Archie comics. Because "ACK!" is used as an expression of sudden, unforeseen surprise, it literally doesn't seek to draw itself out over the course of a few seconds. To use the exclamation "AAAACCKK!", I think, would be to invite criticism.

I don't sit very well with the use of "AAAARRGGH!", though. Although it's a relatively well-known member of the tangible screams, it feels unrealistic to me. I can't resolve the idea of having an 'R' sound in a spontaneous primal scream because it takes at least a small amount of effort to make. 'A', by contrast, is standard issuance - it's one of the few sounds you can make when the doctor has you pinned down with one of her tongue depressors. "AAAAGGHH!", in a sense, sounds a lot better.

There's actually a distinctiveness between "EEEAAAAAAAAGGGHHH!" and just plain "AAAAAAAAGGGHHH!", interestingly enough. I've already mentioned the fact that the 'E' sound comes from a partially open mouth; "AAAAAAAAGGGHHH!", therefore, comes from a screamer who probably had his mouth wide open to start with, I think.