Writing for Pain

I started a new short story yesterday and needed to know how to write the sound pain makes in dialogue. Apparently, there is a word for this Onomatopoeia. Thank God I don't have to say that for you! I would butcher that word in speech. Merriam-Webster describes it as "the naming of a thing or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with it (such as buzz, hiss)."

Funny, this long, weird, hard to pronounce word is what labels the process of writing sound in dialogue. Anyway, my protagonist is in excruciating pain, and I felt I must show that in his words. After some research, I could not find that exact spelling to depict the man's suffering phonetically.

I inserted "Aieeeeeeeeee" in dialogue as I've seen that used before. But it still didn't feel like the right fit. To clarify, I researched again and ended up in a forum where someone asked my question and multiple writers answered. The general consensus was that to use phonetics would be to take away authenticity.

It would make the work appear amateurish. It would weaken the impact. That was it. That was the right answer. I immediately wrote out some ideas. One was, "He screamed in a foreign language in so much misery that it halted the crowd speechless."

Sure, I can make it better but it's a good start. Sometimes it's better to go with the majority. They only confirmed my deepest belief that there was no way to write the amount of pain this individual was feeling phonetically. It had to be more than that. My gut was right. Go with yours too. You'll have better results.