Emphasis on dragging a syllable of a word.

Question

Say, in a dialog one would want the reader to read "sleepy" as "sleeeeeeepy" (dragging the e), how would one write it?

Of course one cant write "sleeeepy" as that would be incorrect. Is there perhaps a symbol that can be used or perhaps a writing method?

Exe: "i am so sleepy" but pronounced as "i am so sleeeeeepy"

Note: one would write "i am so slee....py" but further research on ellipsis usage made this incorrect as one would read it with a pause between the syllables instead of dragging the 1st syllable.

Answer 1

Exaggerating a sound or syllable like that can have a nice effect. For example, someone is more likely to yawn after reading the word sleeeeeeeepy than in just reading the word sleepy. The two ways I've seen something like this spelled is as you've done above, or with dashes, such as:

I am so sleeeeepy.
I am so sle-e-e-py.

Though, the first one is clearer in how you'd want the reader to read/pronounce it.

Finally, another more conservative way to write this, would be to describe how the words are pronounced:

He responded, "I'm so sleepy", yawning out the last syllable.