Hi

Normally I would go onto Google and type 'sucking sounds thesaurus' or similar and see what comes up, but I'm using the work laptop and when I typed that in I got a strongly worded message about inappropriate search terms and company policy.

Please can anyone suggest other words that sound like a sucking sound? My example is the leather 'made a sucking sound' as she peeled her face away.

Thank you!

I'm using the work laptop and when I typed that in I got a strongly worded message about inappropriate search terms and company policy.

Do you actually need to change it? Looks fine to me as it stands, unless it's not achieving the tone you want - coming across as a little too fifty shades when it needs to be more gritty/unsettling/whatever.

Hi Astrea

I don't know why I feel I need to know the word for the sound or something that would work in this context.

Velcro rips apart, and you can almost hear the ripping in the word, the 'r' suggests the sound. But although a face peels off the leather sofa, it doesn't suggest the sound.

Do you see what I mean, or am I taking this too far?

Squirch?

<Added>

But that's more like something you'd get in a children's book...

Thanks Midnight

You and my husband are on the same track, except your word is more sensible than his, although I agree that squirch wouldn't fit in women's fiction. The joy of the strange sounds that can be produced when writing for children!

Maybe my husband should write for children. He is adamant that the sound word I need is Sshllp (spelt exactly like that), whatever that is. He's making the noise right now while doing the action of pulling his face from a sticky couch.

Don't ask!

Sharley

There aren't enough words for sounds, are there.

I can't think of one for this - which doesn't mean there isn't - but what I usually do when I get stuck is go for a verb:

I unstuck my face from the leather

Slowly I peeled my face away from the leather

and hope the reader "hears" as well as "sees" the action.

'peeled away' is what came to my mind as well. I can't think of a sound word to encapsulate this.

Peeled it is and I'll probably leave out the sucking sound bit.

I have to say I am pleased that it didn't come easily to mind, as I spent ages going through all possible sucky words and if other WWers can't think of some... well, there can't be (m)any good ones out there.

<Added>

I forgot to say thank you!

My face and the leather peeled apart with a sound, half-slurping, half-tearing.

Or could clinging or stickiness be used to suggest the sound?

The (sticky) leather clung to my face as I peeled it away.

Thanks Chris!

The words I can think of - slurp, and squelch, have connotations (like suck).
How about joining two unlikely words: a moist rasp

You could say something like the "sudden thwack as her face left the couch reminded her of childhood and her brother's rubber sucker arrows when Mum pulled them off the walls."

In the early 60s, my older brothers sometimes used to get bows with rubber sucker arrows for Xmas and the arrows often got stuck on the walls. They drove Mum up the wall as well as they used to make marks and I got the impression they were quite difficult to remove.

Thanks Alan and Sylvia

I'd forgotten the rubber arrows and the strange sucking sound they made.

I did have colleagues sticking post-its to their faces the other day (their choice) and pulling them off to listen to the sound. I have very helpful colleagues!

Maybe you could use a simile? e.g. 'She grimaced - it sounded like water sucked down a drain - as she peeled the leather from her face.


Colin

as she peeled the leather from her face.

Some possibility for misinterpretation and that would open the door for much better sounds, though again, probably not ideal for WF.

'She grimaced as she peeled leather from her face, the soft sound of tearing flesh and her constricted breathing punctuated at intervals by the popping noise of over-extended veins when they snapped.'

G