Making a pathetic alcoholic sympathetic and complex.

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by Link the Writer, Aug 11, 2014.

  1. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I that one thing that can keep you interested in a dysfunctional person, even if you don't like them, is their delusions. I'm not sure if your character is delusional enough. His blaming his childhood, his beloved, etc., suggests that he knows that his drinking is a problem and that he knows that he should stop. But that's a huge, huge boundary of self-awareness.

    I think that your character would be more interesting if he were less self-aware. He doesn't drink too much. He's a man, he can hold his liquor. Only couch potatoes have a problem with drinking; as long as he goes to the gym every day, he'll work the alcohol out of his blood, he's fine, he's fine, he's fine, he's FINE!

    He has to drink tonight; his friends would drop him, girls wouldn't see him as cool, if he were drinking a club soda. Only babies drink Pepsi! It's just a beer, beer's practically water. He needs a drink to loosen up, to dance.

    He got an interview with an agent; he's finally going to have a real shot at pitching his book/his song/whatever his life dream is.

    It's not his fault he showed up at that interview drunk, it's Joe's fault for getting him drunk last night, he couldn't go without something to ease his hangover.

    In general, I would suggest doing some research on the self-delusions that addicts use to support their addiction.
     
  2. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    Thanks for the posts, everyone! Very informative and helpful.

    @Lemex - I...thought it was the Irish who had that drinking culture? *flees*

    @outsider - You're right, the more I think about it, the more I think that 17 is probably too young to be a full-blown alcoholic. Have a deep craving for it, drink behind his father's back, etc. Would that be more realistic for a person that young? He craves it, but it's not so full-blown?

    @minstrel - Good point. 'Pathetic' is too strong of a word for me to use.

    @prettyprettyprettygood - He does have a bit of a sarcastic outlook on life, cracking self-deprecating jokes when the situation arises. He also likes to create new games to play among his friends.

    @matwoolf - Yeah, he'll need a motive, he'll something to live for besides just alcohol/'feel-sorry-for-myself'. I'll take care of that. :D A flat character is an uninteresting character in my opinion.

    @ChickenFreak - OK, I'll do research on the self-delusions. That'll give me some good ideas.
     
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  3. Sheriff Woody

    Sheriff Woody Active Member

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  4. daemon

    daemon Contributor Contributor

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    Hooo boy. That is so true. It also depends on what you expect when you begin to read it. I think that most readers have its controversial nature in mind, so they expect Holden to be an edgy, worldly character who recognizes corruption in the world that everyone else is blind to. Me, I heard beforehand that it is the story of the mental breakdown of a lonely boarding school dropout, so I filtered the experience not through my own ideas of what is wrong with the world, but through the feelings that I had after my first year of college, when my self-imposed situation was similar to Holden's.

    Which is to say, @Link the Writer, an author cannot perfectly engineer a certain reaction in the reader. Even John Green's characters, widely regarded as some of the most sympathetic characters in young adult literature (especially Hazel), have been criticized for being too witty and sounding too much like John Green. I think that opinion is a steaming pile of horseshit, but when you politely ask people to clarify it, you generally find that they went into the story with a preconceived expectation of what the story is about, what it should accomplish, and who the characters are supposed to be. There is no way for the author to avoid this.

    What the author can engineer, however, is a complex and reasonable character. Complex meaning that he is interesting to examine apart from the plot, and reasonable meaning that he is not just a personality in a vacuum, but a person who makes decisions for identifiable reasons.

    To help with complexity and reasonability, here is my favorite question to ask about any fictional character, and you should ask it about yours:

    What does he want or need right now, and what stops him from getting it?

    Holden Caulfield is one of my favorite fictional characters. He wants:
    • his brother back (impossible to raise someone from the dead)
    • for anyone to take him seriously (combination of his bad luck in finding people to talk to, and his own neurotic demeanor that makes him unappealing to talk to)
    • to keep innocent children sheltered from the adult world (it goes without saying that children cannot be sheltered forever, so the author opts for a more symbolic statement of that fact by showing Holden trying and failing to wipe all the "Fuck you" graffiti off of the school walls)
    • to avoid growing up (obviously, everyone either dies young or grows up, but the story makes this point very tangible because Holden recently had a growth spurt, and his hair is graying early)
    For these reasons, he is an amazingly complex and reasonable character, and one of the most sympathetic characters I have ever encountered, despite being a pathetic loser who wasted his time, his teachers' time, and his parents' money at four different schools, and is currently developing a problem of drinking and smoking at age 16.

    That thing you said about wanting the reader to feel like your character has the potential to change if he would just let himself? That is exactly what you want to aim for. And Holden is one of the most successful examples of that kind of character.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2014
  5. yagr

    yagr Senior Member

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    I was court ordered to attend AA meetings at thirteen years old. I wasn't an alcoholic. Not yet.

    That was back in 1978 and the idea of court ordering folks to AA was novel. The definition of alcoholic has undergone many facelifts over the years - in recovery circles the phrase used is 'the bottom has been raised'. The professionals in both the medical and psychology fields are averse to using the word because it means so little today. They prefer the term 'alcohol dependent' which is much broader without any of the fuzzy lines between one stage and the next.

    While I trust that you can create a believable character, you are almost certain to alienate some readers. Defining 'alcoholic' is akin to trying to define 'good Christian'; you're simply going to offend a majority because there are too many candidates in the race for One True Definition.

    I don't know if it is possible but, despite the fact that you will run into some of the same problems, drug addict is imminently more believable at 17 yo. Todays narcotics are so powerful that few would argue that full blown addiction can manifest itself by such an age.

    Regardless of whether you stick to your original plan or modify it, I would suggest that you attend a couple of open AA or NA meetings - particularly if you can find a young peoples meeting. Every big city has at least a few meetings that are specifically for young people, although 'young' is defined loosely and everyone is welcome at an open meeting - including non-members looking to develop believable characters.

    Good luck.
     
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  6. JamesBrown

    JamesBrown Active Member

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    If you write from too far outside the experience of being someone who has a substance dependence you end up just creating a character who fits in with a stereotype, and it sounds like you're doing that.

    Alcoholics don't spend all their time drunk, they can find it difficult to get drunk actually. They, or drug addicts, have to consume a certain amount of their particular substance everyday just to feel normal. It no longer becomes a choice. This is because the substance they abuse generally acts to increase the amount of "happy" chemicals in their brain. So their brain responds by producing fewer of these chemicals to compensate for this. So without taking their particular substance, they suffer severe withdrawal symptoms, anxiety, severe depression, tremors, seizures. This is often the dilemma that addicts face, being able to be in right place to even contemplate suffering the effects of withdrawal. Imagine condemning yourself to a sleepless week, having dark visions of hell and all your worst memories will come to the fore of your mind, and it could all be relieved with a quick fix.

    And once your addict, you stay an addict. The temptation never totally goes away. I used to have a ten a day sleeping tablet habit. I haven't touched one for two years, but sometimes I find myself thinking about them again. I resist though, especially as they've been made a class C drug now and I can't order them from Hong Kong any more!

    I think it would work better if you made him a heroin addict, maybe he got bored growing up in a suburban town - big problem in America apparently. He would need some reason stronger than the one you've stated to turn his life around. Maybe he gets some girl pregnant and he wants to be a good father, like he never had.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2014
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  7. Selbbin

    Selbbin The Moderating Cat Staff Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    Read Bukowski.
     
  8. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    While I get your point about tolerance, I saw my brother shit-faced drunk too many times to count. I think he totaled 5 or 6 cars by the time he was 25.
     
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  9. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    Yeah ... no. The totalitarian system in that film isn't the same thing as the more socially liberal systems we have here in the west. I've actually seen Leon Thomas's stuff before, and he's not bad; but he has a habit of not seeing the woods for the trees.

    @daemon: Excellent post - I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. You are absolutely right. I tip my hat to you.

    About John Green's characters: I've heard that criticism before, my usual response is I've met teenagers who are that witty. I've taught A-level English Literature, some of my students have been exceptionally bright and sophisticated despite their years.
     
    Last edited: Aug 12, 2014
  10. bythegods

    bythegods Banned

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    As an ex-alcoholic I say that this is a worn out idea for a character. Alcoholics are often highly driven, accomplished and successful people - the polar opposite of the 'loser' alcoholic stereotype.
    Of course there are plenty of low achieving alcoholics out there sitting on street corners with open palms but, it would be hard to pull off a convincing sob story to make me feel any pity for them.
    So unless you have real experience with that sort of thing, never mind the alcohol - make your character a real person.
     
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  11. Link the Writer

    Link the Writer Flipping Out For A Good Story. Contributor

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    After further consideration, and reading these posts, I've decided he won't be an alcoholic. Also, I wrote a mini-interview on a separate word document (I was told writers do that) where I asked him if he were an alcoholic, and his response was, "...Please have me do something different. Not everyone with a 'dark past' is an alcoholic. Besides, I hate liquor. Can't stand the taste of it!"

    With that said, I'm off to re-work the first chapter. :D Thanks for the responses everyone. Gave me a lot to think about.
     
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  12. Sheriff Woody

    Sheriff Woody Active Member

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    I believe the point of Renegade Cut is to highlight the interesting trees that people don't tend to notice. I may be wrong, though, but that's the reason I enjoy the series so much.
     
  13. EdFromNY

    EdFromNY Hope to improve with age Supporter Contributor

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    This is only true to a point. I remember my dad. For years, his tolerance kept increasing and increasing...and then, at one point, it just evaporated. Of course, but that time he was almost completely dysfunctional, anyway. And, he had already been through at least two bouts of withdrawal that I knew of, so that might have had something to do with it.
     
  14. Lemex

    Lemex That's Lord Lemex to you. Contributor

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    Yeah, I guess that is fair. :)
     
  15. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    This is a good point. The bums on the benches are visible. I recall an open heart surgery patient once who went into DTs after the surgery. No one in the family had a clue he was that addicted to alcohol.
     
  16. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    This is a known pattern of alcohol tolerance. The detox pathway in the liver breaks the alcohol down faster and faster then it eventually quits.
     
  17. PensiveQuill

    PensiveQuill Senior Member

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    I had two alcoholics in my family, both interesting in their own ways but both polar opposites.

    Relative A was a brilliant photographer, who got into photography while running guns in the Vietnam war. His work was NatGeo worthy and I remember as a child watching hours and hour of slides of all the exotic places in the world. As beautiful as many shots were he had many that were likewise disturbing, a dog eating a child's body in the River Ganges, that kind of thing. Commonplace in the area's where the photo was taken but nightmare horrible to our privileged eyes. He died young of liver failure. I never once remembered him anything except sober but he did little with his life after those days and slowly put himself in a grave. After his death everyone lamented what a sad, sad thing it was and how wasted his life had been. I remember him as a very timid man of few words.

    Relative B. I have seen her drunk more often than not but if you didn't know her you would be hard pressed to know she was so. Alcohol on her just accentuates that mean spirited part of her, makes her tongue lash others harder and makes her an unforgiving and judgmental person until she eventually passes out on the sofa. It robs her of any kind of charity towards others and she cares not whom she hurts when she is raging. Alcohol just seems to lift the mask of civility off her to reveal what she is truly seething with underneath. It's quite a scary thing, but once you witness it, you cannot ever let yourself forget that this woman knows no empathy for others no matter her more seemly facade might tell you.

    There ends my treatise on a sympathic and unsympathetic alcoholic.
     

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