Post History
To show that somebody is drunk you should add descriptions about what the person is doing and how the environment, especially other people are reacting to it. Staggering through the bar and nearly ...
Answer
#2: Post edited
by
Secespitus
·
2019-12-29T18:52:21Z (almost 5 years ago)
- To show that somebody is drunk you should add descriptions about what the person is doing and how the environment, especially other people are reacting to it. Staggering through the bar and nearly falling over the other guests, someone needing to support your character to get them outside, the head rolling from side to side, other people needing to ask multiple times because they just can't understand the slurred speech, eyes being unfocused, topics being changed seemingly at random, insensitivity towards topics that are normally considered inappropriate, bottles of alcohol falling out of the persons hands because they can't properly control their motions and mental focus anymore, ...
Those and more are all things that happen around the drunk person because there is far more to someone being drunk than not being able to speak properly. Especially when it ends with someone being dead. That needs a lot of alcohol in most novels if it's not planned beforehand.
- To show that somebody is drunk you should add descriptions about what the person is doing and how the environment, especially other people are reacting to it. Staggering through the bar and nearly falling over the other guests, someone needing to support your character to get them outside, the head rolling from side to side, other people needing to ask multiple times because they just can't understand the slurred speech, eyes being unfocused, topics being changed seemingly at random, insensitivity towards topics that are normally considered inappropriate, bottles of alcohol falling out of the persons hands because they can't properly control their motions and mental focus anymore, ...
- Those and more are all things that happen around the drunk person because there is far more to someone being drunk than not being able to speak properly. Especially when it ends with someone being dead. That needs a lot of alcohol in most novels if it's not planned beforehand.
- If you are really bound on writing "wrong" words to show exactly *how* your character is talking you need to be careful about the language you are writing in. Different languages have different sounds, which means there is no concrete guideline that always applies. A big impact is also that long and complicated words become too complicated. Which ones those are depend on the character and his environment - which words does your character sometimes use to sound sophisticated, but not often enough that they are becoming part of the main vocabulary your character always uses? Those will be hard and your character will probably try one or two times before giving up and using easier words. Such different speech patterns are an easier way to get a feeling for the drunkeness for the reader than "wrong" words where you have to guess first what it's supposed to say.
- The best way to find out what sounds become complicated is to go out drinking with a couple friends if that's a thing you and your friends enjoy and listen to them or other guests while staying sober. It's more effective with friends because you are used to their normal speech patterns and may more easily recognize differences. Just don't force anyone to drink "for science" - in a pinch you can probably find a bunch of videos on YouTube where you can hear very drunk people in your native language trying to talk, maybe even as a game where the people have to pronounce difficult words or tongue twisters ;)
- There are also differences in genre. For example in comics where you have far more clues about the situation because of the visuals and the "rules" are far more lax anyway it's pretty normal to use such "wrong" words.
#1: Initial revision
by
Secespitus
·
2019-12-29T18:45:11Z (almost 5 years ago)
To show that somebody is drunk you should add descriptions about what the person is doing and how the environment, especially other people are reacting to it. Staggering through the bar and nearly falling over the other guests, someone needing to support your character to get them outside, the head rolling from side to side, other people needing to ask multiple times because they just can't understand the slurred speech, eyes being unfocused, topics being changed seemingly at random, insensitivity towards topics that are normally considered inappropriate, bottles of alcohol falling out of the persons hands because they can't properly control their motions and mental focus anymore, ... Those and more are all things that happen around the drunk person because there is far more to someone being drunk than not being able to speak properly. Especially when it ends with someone being dead. That needs a lot of alcohol in most novels if it's not planned beforehand.