I'm unhappy with this sentence. Suggestions for fixes? His head hurt from last night’s drinking, which seemed to take increasingly more to induce restful sleep. JD
I'm not quite sure what you're saying. Is it that he habitually drinks to induce sleep, and the amount of alcohol required to put him to sleep is increasing? Or that his head hurts due to drinking, and therefore it's taking more time for him to fall asleep?
Last night's bender seemed like a good idea at the time. But the morning came too soon, and with it a pounding head and wormy stomach--and dried blood on his pillowcase. You can no more drown your sorrows than drink yourself into a mindless sleep, he reckoned. But he would try again tonight.
He lay awake, sweating beneath tossed sheets. Stale beer and cigarettes seared his tongue. Edit: Oh, the point is that he's drinking more to sleep? Hmm . . . thinking. He lay awake, sweating beneath tossed sheets. This time he'd chased the beer with three shots of bourbon. He hated himself. I don't know. Something like that. I'm just trying to stay simple.
I just needed wanted help with the one sentence, but it seems like it needs context, so here's the whole paragraph: Marko sat on the balcony of their apartment and stared down the length of the street at the tiny sliver of ocean that could be seen. The view calmed him, and he stared at it for hours as the mug of tea somehow grew colder than the air around it. His head hurt from last night’s drinking, which seemed to take increasingly more to induce restful sleep. Something in Marko realized that he was on the verge of having a problem there, but it was just one more problem in the stack, and didn’t stick out any more than the rest. The whole thing needs work, but fixing the one sentence would propel me to fix the rest. JD
His head hurt from last night’s drinking. It was taking more and more each night to induce restful sleep.
Assorted thoughts: His head hurt from last night’s drinking; it grew harder and harder to achieve oblivion, but he refused to bear wakefulness. His head hurt from last night’s drinking; oblivion was increasingly expensive in both whiskey and hangovers, but compared to wakefulness, it was well worth the price.
I like it. I'll replace "oblivion" with "sleep", but it's so far the best suggestion (though @David Lee's was worthy). Thank you.
How's this sound? His head hurt from last night’s drinking; sleep was increasingly expensive in both whiskey and hangovers, but compared to lying awake, thoughts churning like a turbid eddy, it was well worth the price.
His head hurt from last night’s the drinking; sleep was increasingly expensive in both whiskey and hangovers, but compared to lying awake, thoughts churning like a turbid eddy, it was well worth the price. - His head hurt from the drink. Sleep was expensive in whiskey and hangovers. Compared to lying awake, thoughts churning a turbid eddy, it was worth the price. or - His head hurt from the drink.
Why doesn't he just take a few sleeping tablets, or smoke a joint, a shot of NyQuil? I'm sort of not getting the link between booze and peaceful sleep. And while whiskey might be expensive in the figurative sense, it sure isn't in the literal sense.
I hope you fix this one too. Somehow the tea grew colder? There's no somehow about it, we know exactly how the tea got cold. You have a tendency to use more words than are necessary.
You know exactly how a mug of tea would grow colder than the air around it? Can you explain that phenomenon?
Perhaps: His head hurt from drinking. Sleep was increasingly expensive in both whiskey and hangovers; but compared to lying awake, thoughts churning like a turbid eddy, it was well worth the price. Setting of the novel might not allow for sleeping tablets, joints, or NyQuil's availability. Drinking in order to sleep is actually a very common phenomena. Hell, sometimes I need at least half a bottle of whiskey in me before I can get a decent night's sleep. I'd love to live wherever you are and get to say that whiskey isn't expensive in the literal sense.
...and air in the ice cube or liquid. Air, a gas, can freeze or become colder than the air...it's all physics.
It's out there if you really want to know, google it. My point wasn't about physics anyway, but that we know the tea got colder because he had been sitting out there a long time. "The view calmed him and he stared at it for hours as the mug of tea grew colder". Would be just fine.
Water feels both hotter and colder than air. Air that's twenty degrees colder than your skin feels normal, water the same temperature feels cold. ... Water that's even a little colder than your body conducts heat away quickly, while air is a thermal insulator, taking much less heat away. It's not so much about pure physics as it is about thermodynamics and - more importantly - perception. Basically, the cold tea feels colder than the air around it, and therefore the character perceives it as being colder.
You corrected the "somehow", which was there to refer to a seemingly impossible situation - that tea could continue to radiate heat after it has arrived at the temperature of the environment. And because this is physically impossible, that the narrator is using that exaggeration to remark on just how inconveniently cold the tea had become. "The mattress somehow became lumpier as the night went on." "Despite a reasonable interest in the topic, the clock on the conference wall somehow never moved." So I don't understand your objection nor your insistence this is normal.
I know that was directed at @EBohio, @Fallow, but I'm confused as to what you feel he was insisting is normal? In terms of liquid being colder than the air around it, he's correct, but not literally correct. Hence why I clarified the matter:
@NathanRoets and @Fallow win the prize for reading the sentence exactly the way it was intended. Of course, the prize is nothing more than my adulation, which, when combined with a couple dollars, will buy you a mug of tea.
