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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48749
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Usually, that is left for the imagination of the reader. You might want to avoid misspelling on purpose. You can swap the order of the speech and its description. Doing this you can prime the reader to "hear" the dialogue in a different light:

> He sung the words, dragging out his L's, "Looking and looking... In all the wrong places."

Since your second example has the L being dragged, the problem with the first example is that he dragged not _all_ the words, just the L. Notice that I didn't specify which L was dragged. It could be all of them or just one. Each reader will have a different opinion, and that's good. It makes them relate to the text by using their imagination to fill in the blanks you intentionally left.

You can't avoid being misread and misinterpreted. Each reader will get a different experience from your text, and it is this experience that matters. The Death of the Author.

Character dialogue can be written in any way you want. Yes, you can misspell on purpose. Some authors even put the text in italics to show it was intentional. Just like the use of exclamation marks, it is a matter of style.

Original score: 2