Hey Writing Forums Comunity! I'm just getting started with creative writing and I could use your help! I'm wiritng a story about five friends who go to the beach and one of them drowns and dies. What I would love to know is how to make that happen. My chars will probably get drunk and while one of them is in trouble, the other one is going to drown without the rest of them noticing. But I'm not sure about the details. So far I have two guys who are really good swimmers, a girl with a twisted ankle, and two other girls. Can you give me ideas about how can I make this character drown wthout others noticing? It may or not involve alchool, the twisted ankle, etc. I'm just really stuck! Thanks in advance. Btw, the one that has to die is a girl.
Is this a short story? Or is that the end? I ask because I think that matters a lot in a story like this. Because what happens next is very reliant on what happens here. If the story is about regret of what happened or the characters trying to hide the fact she died in their care. Making the situation mean or reckless is probably gonna make me care less about the main living characters. But that could be what you want if the story is about one or two being more worried about getting caught. Where do you want the story to go? That more than anything will give you the best advice on which angle to start with.
There's a breeze blowing out to see. The girl is playing in the waves. She notices something floating just off the sandbar in front. It's her hat. She starts swimming for it. The wind makes her swim farther than she thinks. When she grabs the hat, she realizes she can't touch bottom. She begins swimming back toward the sand bar. The wind and the current are fighting her. A wave hits her as she breathes in. She chokes and panics. Unable to breathe, and thrashing wildly to get back to the sandbar, she loses consciousness. The others on the beach see only the hat floating in deep water.
You could have a rift in the friend group that causes some characters to be distant towards another. They could get into a fight, causing one girl to storm/swim off. No one would bother to check where she had gone until it's too late. That kind of behavior on the other characters' end could cause severe guilt in more than one way! Also, remember that they are drunk. I am sure the girl can easily drown, and the rest of the group could be just as easily distracted by the drinks or whatever else.
Drunkenness, water, and, if you choose nighttime, darkness, seem like an eminently plausible way to produce a drowning, without having to add anything more.
The girl, under the 'fluence of the wine, comes on to one of the guys. He rejects her (too drunk, not interested - gay, or loyal to his regular girl-friend - just plain mean; or maybe he thinks that she is. Or maybe "If she doesn't want to when she's sober, I don't want to when she's drunk".) and she goes off in a strop. 1/ Trips on a rock in the dark, hits her head and drowns in two inches of a rock pool. 2/ Goes swimming to cool off, gets out of her depth before she realizes/ gets lost in the general darkness and waves (waves over two feet in height [typical waves in Beaufort scale 4 = "gentle breeze" = 7-10 mph wind] will mean she'd only be able to see any distance at the top of the wave - which would make it difficult for her to maintain direction.). Depending on how warmly she's dressed, she would also be subject to exposure.
She was sidelined at a party on the boat and decided to take the dinghy and go ashore. The current was taking her out to sea, so she tried to swim for shore and didn't make it. Maybe ask Natalie Woods...
It's not a short story, I'm actually trying to write something...a bit longer. I don't know where this is going since I already had many projects that I left unfinished, but I'm aiming for a novel and just see where it goes. It's not the end, actually is the beggining. The story is about regret, yeah! They all have to deal with the fact that their friend died on that night, and that they all could have done something (or not). What if it was just a bit reckless? Like they could have made better choices but teenagers are always a bit reckless right? I want the story showing them drifitng apart but all having the same feelings about the death of their friend, so it conencts them in a way, don't know if you get the idea...so that while they have different lifes they are going to reunite because of sharing the same past.
Well that's a good idea! Maybe she can lose something while some other friend is in trouble, goes after it and drowns without anyone noticing.
Wow you guys have great sugestions! Thanks a lot! I will consider which one is the best fit to the story, but this one Sounds really good
I mean... that's pretty good right there. That sort of thing happens all the time; it's a very realistic scenario. I'd just have them just horsing around, with several of the characters pretending to drown, since they're all being goofy and having a good time. Then, one of the characters starts actually drowning, and no one notices right away. Since they're drunk, and it's nighttime, they have trouble finding the person right away, giving them time to expire.
People who are drowning don't make noise. To make noise, you have to be able to breathe. The whole problem with drowning is that breathing isn't going according to plan. As a result, it's really pretty easy to drown without anyone noticing. This exact thing (drunk drowning) happened to a kid one year ahead of me the night of graduation.
You can make sound using the back of your tongue, your pharynx and your soft palate. Even if your lungs are full of water, these organs can create a seal at the back of your mouth and then expel air inside your mouth outwards. It makes a choking sound, and somebody may do it in an attempt to breathe while drowning. It’s not very loud, but it is audible. Also, depending on how long they’ve been deprived of oxygen they might still be able to move, so others might hear them splashing in the water.
Perhaps there's a bonfire or volleyball game on the beach. The girl who drowns got bored being there and asked her friends if they want to go out to swim with her. They say no so she goes by herself. She accidently swims out too far and starts freezing and franticly thrashing around for help, but it's dark and she's too far away from shore. A wave pulls her under and she drowns. Only at the end of the party when they're getting ready to leave do her friends realize she's missing.