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Q&A How to describe an angry voice in dialogue?

Your trouble in finding a word is that it does not exist. You will need to use adjectives and other descriptions to properly describe it. My first piece of advice would be to find a good example ...

posted 7y ago by Thomas Myron‭  ·  last activity 4y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-12T17:49:00Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24520
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T05:34:17Z (over 4 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/24520
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T05:34:17Z (over 4 years ago)
Your trouble in finding a word is that it does not exist. You will need to use adjectives and other descriptions to properly describe it.

My first piece of advice would be to find a good example of what you want and describe it. You've found a good example with batman, but you're obviously having trouble describing it, so here's what I'd do:

**Step 1- Breakdown**

I believe the scene you are referring to in the Dark Knight is where Batman 'interrogates' the Joker, and, upon realizing Dent and Rachel are both gone, yells 'where are they?'

The first thing you need to do when trying to figure out how to describe something is go for the technical and literal side of things. Break it down into exactly what is going on.

- Elevated voice. Batman is pancking, realizing what is going on, and his voice is raised as a result. 
- Gravelly undertone. Here it's because Batman is trying to hide his identity. I don't think your protagonist is doing that (unless he's a superhero too), so we'll come back to that. 

**Step 2 - Brainstorm Description**

Once you know what's technically going on, describe it. I often find I don't have the right word or answer for something. When this happens, I sit down with a piece of paper and start writing descriptions, no matter how ludicrous or implausible they might be. Make them up if necessary. Below I'm just going to write whatever comes to mind to describe the two above characteristics.

- **Elevated Voice.** Angry. High-pitched. Loud. Yelling. Shouting. Echoing. Shattering. Violent. Stinging. Reeling back from. Sudden. 
- **Gravelly.** Undertone. Deep. Gravelly. Rumbling. Threatening. Ominous. Like subdued thunder. Dangerous. 

**Step 3 - Determine Cause**

Now go back to your scene, and determine the protagonist's emotional state.

- Responsible. The protagonist (I'l call him Jim due to lack of a name) is responsible, and obviously Raaisel doesn't know that and thinks _he_ is instead, so Jim is probably feeling a shade of guilt over that. 
- Panicked? Really depends on the background, but it feels to me like Jim could be a bit panicked. His world got turned upside down you said, so I think this is reasonable. 
- Afraid? Afraid for Raaisel. Obviously Jim cares for him a great deal, and besides obviously not wanting him to be hurt by bearing the burden, he also doesn't want Raaisel to take the blame and the hit that will inevitably come with it. 

So we know that Jim is probably a bit afraid/panicked, probably feeling responsible for what's going on, and since he's overprotective, most likely wanting to shield Raaisel from any potential damage.

**Step 4 - Apply Description**

Now all we have to do is figure out which of the descriptive terms we have in step two will work, given our context.

The first half of the words relating to elevated voice deal primarily with loudness. You don't want this. Some of the later ones seem to hit closer to the mark. `Shattering` has interesting visualizations. `Reeling back from` and `sudden` indicate Raaisel wasn't expecting the tone of voice. Actually that presents an interesting idea: instead of trying to describe the words, describe Raaisel's _reaction_ to the words. We'll take that into consideration.

Moving on, we have the gravelly part of the dialogue. `Rumbling` has a nice ring to it, as well as `dangerous`. I like the `subdued thunder` idea, and that also gives me a thought: we could be using the setting to describe Jim's words. There's an earthquake, right? If it's still going on, it conveniently has the low rumbling, dangerous sort of undertone that you're looking for. You could just say that Jim's voice matched that.

**Step 5 - Put it all together**

So using that, I'll give this a few runs:

> Hearing this, I dropped to my knees, and grabbed his face. “Have you absolutely lost your mind?” My voice was filled with fear and the urge to protect Raaisel, and just a hint of guilt.

There's a thought. Take out the tag completely. Note that I've replaced the comma before the dialogue with a period, as the previous sentence has ended.

> Hearing this, I dropped to my knees, and grabbed his face. “Have you absolutely lost your mind?” My voice shattered the quiet before it, rumbling, trembling, almost dangerous.

Let's try describing Raaisel's reaction.

> Hearing this, I dropped to my knees, and grabbed his face. “Have you absolutely lost your mind?” My voice was low, rumbling, but louder than I had intended.
> 
> Raaisel blinked as my words struck him, actually taking a small step away from me.

Now I'll try using the setting.

> Hearing this, I dropped to my knees, and grabbed his face. “Have you absolutely lost your mind?” I said, my voice akin to the rumbling of the earthquake below us.

Now I'll just say the line a few times myself the way I think you're visualizing it, and describe it that way:

> Hearing this, I dropped to my knees, and grabbed his face. “Have you absolutely lost your mind?” My voice was half way between a whisper and a shout, deep, rumbling like the earthquake below us, but still full of the panic and guilt I felt in my heart.

The word whisper brings the mental tone way down, but the sentence keeps going. 'Shout' and 'earthquake' bring the volume up slightly, and 'panic' is far enough after 'whisper' to bring it up to the level you want. 'Guilt' adds a hint of emotion contradictory to 'panic,' giving the whole line a taste that can't quite be defined, but is still understood by the reader.

A lot of this depends on Jim's emotional state at the time, as well as that of Raaisel if you use his reaction for the description. Changing those factors will probably give you different results.

Sorry for the long answer, I tried - believe it or not - to keep it as brief as possible. Hopefully you find it helpful, and welcome to the site!

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2016-09-08T22:46:48Z (over 7 years ago)
Original score: 14