Smoking/Drugs/Alcohol

Discussion in 'Character Development' started by C-James, Aug 26, 2017.

  1. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    The hardest part for me would be not to parody young people, or 'millennials' because the joke is wearing thinner, the

    'Another peanut, Boris?'

    'No thank you, I'm brain-training, wouldn't want my protein levels to bruise the cranial structure. Anyway, my mummy's coming to collect me. Great party, by the way.'

    'Nneh.'

    I never said that.
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2017
  2. Banananarchiste

    Banananarchiste Member

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    Hey I'm 19 and also new on the forum!

    I think it really depends on what you want to write.
    If you are writing a kid's book about little friends and their stories in the parc you might not want to talk about those things.
    Of course, if you wanted to make a plot around drugs, then yeah you could get some 'edgy type' characters like addicts and junkies.

    I'll try to help you with what I know, so please let me use my story as an example.
    I'm also working on my first novel, the main characters are all young adults. (The theme is about a 16yo guy making his way through the graffiti scene in the late 90s.)
    He discovers many friends, also young adults. Drugs are present, but as most YA would use. These guys aren't junkies, addicted to the trip. They get to parties throughout the book, drugs are also present for everybody, not crazy or edgy.

    The key to make it look normal is to work with it as something normal. You won't spend your time describing how your character walks, its normal for him to walk. So simply don't spend whole paragraphs around drugs.
    Simply use small sentences like "He lit up a joint before falling on the couch." because they do make it look normal.

    Hope I helped you :)
     
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  3. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    For what it's worth, the teen smoking rate in the US was 15.7 percent in 2013. So it's not as if it's universal.

    And do teens really think that smoking--plain ordinary tobacco smoking, the kind that their parents and grandparents and slightly stinky aunt with the constant phleghm voice were all enslaved by--is that shiny-glamorous-I-wanna-be-that?

    Really?

    Eugh.
     
  4. Cave Troll

    Cave Troll It's Coffee O'clock everywhere. Contributor

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    Technically it is glamorous to smoke. (I am sure a lot of non-smokers think its hot secretly.) :D


    Though overall smoking is considered a bad thing in modern society.
    Typically the villains are the only ones who smoke in movies anymore.
    And you don't really read to much about it in modern books. So for most
    teens it is about rebelling and trying to act more mature than they really
    are. And for a small minority, stress management. I started based on
    the latter at 17, and am now 30.

    It all boils down to why someone smokes. Any sane smoker is because
    it helps with stress (drinking not so much). If it is just to look cool and
    they got addicted, then that is their own damn fault. Though everybody
    has their own reason for falling prey to their vices, even ones that don't
    have any 'dangerous' effects on the body later in life. Like people who
    chew their nails, or something like that. Habits happen, and some are
    just more bad for you than others.

    Also smokers have an excuse to leave and cool down. Non-smokers don't
    and will probably wind up in an altercation, because they don't have
    an excuse to step outside and calm down. For all the bad things say about
    smoking, it save lives. :p
     
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  5. JindleBrey

    JindleBrey New Member

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    I'm writing a novel in which drugs is a very large theme. The basis of the plot is that a group of teenagers meet to take a new drug and it results in a death of a character, thus initiating the plot. So in my case, it is a primary aspect of the story.

    Lots of young adults have a bit of weed every now and then, so you can include it if you want it to be realistic.
     
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  6. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    I've never smoked. I tried it like all kids do, but it never 'got me'.

    However, I think it can look incredibly cool. To see some guy lighting up well... the click-click of his Zippo... that first inhale... talking through the exhale... picking a shard of tobacco from his lips. It's all very cool.
     
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  7. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    It's cool until you're in your 60s, and you have severely blocked arteries in both legs that the consultant tells you is because of your heavy smoking habit WHICH YOU QUIT 20 YEARS EARLIER. (This has just happened to my husband. He can't walk more than about 50 yards at a time, before the pain gets too much and he has to stop and rest. And he's one of the lucky ones, because the blood bypassed his arteries and is using capillaries instead. But his days of getting around, never mind his main hillwalking hobby are over. And he struggles to sleep at night because of the pain.) No, smoking is NOT cool. It really isn't. It killed my dad via emphysema, and my mother-in-law via lung cancer. The momentary look of sophistication—if that's what it is—turns into a lifelong battle with addiction and ill health. Seriously, not worth it. I would never write about it as if it was glamorous in any way.
     
  8. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    Characters drinking, smoking, and getting high has become ultra passe. In fact, I think these are largely subjects that merge "write what you know" with "don't bother writing at all." These sort of experiences simply aren't unique enough for most readers to be impressed. Not saying it can't work if you want to go hardcore of if you use it in an appropriate context that is itself unique, but "smoking drugs alcohol" is definitely something you want to reconsider before smearing your work with it, especially if you think it's edgy.
     
  9. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    What about the really good drugs, I never got the chance, and won't again till I'm dying/ on my death bed?

    ...altho, there's a terrible epidemic in the US? Shouldn't be flippant, point remains..
     
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  10. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    There might be some mileage in a character who gets tanked up to write, some comedy to be found as he narrates the utter shite down the club, and has a crowd of followers...that might be a fun write? We used to have a couple of guys here who could only write on a 'higher consciousness,' I often get accused of it, I know, but I'm only very very very very creative. [or 'Llama ears' as that dog-bully called me, I shall have my revenge.]
     
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  11. Laurus

    Laurus Disappointed Idealist Contributor

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    The opioid epidemic is bad enough that they have needle disposal cases in the bathrooms at my university. In an administrative building...
     
  12. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    Yes, it's very bad. I can see the appeal at...22..? A shame.
    ...


    ...personal, deleted, sorry...
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2017
  13. Spencer1990

    Spencer1990 Contributor Contributor

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    Along with needle exchanges and Naloxone being offered OTC in a lot of states.
     
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  14. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Yup. My father spent the last couple of decades of his life dealing with heart and lung issues and died much earlier than he would have otherwise. My mother, who smoked far less, died in otherwise quite good health--she could reasonably have lived another decade or two--of a smoking-related cancer.

    I know it's hard to imagine, as a teen, that you're going to value the last few decades of your life and care about their quality or even about getting them. But you will.
     
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  15. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    We've got needle disposal points in the public toilets in the liitle devon town where i work - it's everywhere
     
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  16. Sclavus

    Sclavus Active Member

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    Some people smoke, drink, and/or do drugs. That includes teenagers. How it comes across in your writing can depend largely on what you're trying to accomplish.

    If something seems to be in my writing for the sake of controversy, I take it out. If it doesn't serve the story, it needs to go. But I do have characters who smoke, drink, or do drugs because that's part of the story. One of my characters smokes and drinks as a form of celebration (cigars and whiskey). Another drinks as a ritual, to remember fallen comrades. Another experiments with drugs because he thinks it opens him up spiritually, and he's a hyper-religious whackjob.

    In writing those characters, I don't condone nor condemn their activity. I tell it like it is. If a character gets drunk, they probably irritate or amuse my sober characters, but the drunkenness has a point to it. Don't put something in a story merely to cause controversy. A character smoking can be:
    • Confidence: I'm so relaxed I'm going to enjoy a smoke before I kick your ass.
    • Resignation: One last cigarette before I face the firing squad.
    • Nervousness: Oh God it's all closing in what the hell are we going to do I need a cigarette to calm down.
    • Hard living: Smoking six packs a day will make you look like Waylon Jennings. I know because Jennings smoked six packs a day.
    • Anger: I could smoke, or I could kill somebody. I think I'll smoke.
    • Depression: What's the point of life? Who cares if I smoke myself to death?
    • A need to fit in: All the cool kids are doing it.
    • Curiosity: What's the big deal?
    • A certain taste: I like fine wine, good cigars, and exquisite caviar.
    • Pain: Getting shot hurts and a cigarette would help because I say it would.
    All of these (and more) could fit drugs or alcohol as well. I've known teenagers (now adults) who never touched any of it, and had no desire to. People like me were curious enough to get hooked (on cigarettes, in my case). Others wanted to push their limits, to see how much they could consume. People try different things for different reasons, so we have the freedom of never needing to justify a character's actions beyond serving the story.

    So, after all that, the question to ask yourself is: does my character doing _____ move the story forward? If not, cut it. If so, leave it in, and let people say what they will say about it.
     
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  17. Laurus

    Laurus Disappointed Idealist Contributor

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    Eyup, it is everywhere, including the underpass on the bike path where people hang out and shoot up. There's a big BIOHAZARD box right there. I think the city realizes it's a high crime spot because they keep running those folks out. Anyway, don't want to derail.
     
  18. matwoolf

    matwoolf Banned Contributor

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    It probably is edgy. In a previous century I swallowed Lou Reed/Trainspotting hook, line & consumer.
     
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  19. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    its probably edgy to a YA audience - to us cynical 40 somethings it been there done that got hot rock burns in the t shirt to prove it
     
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  20. 123456789

    123456789 Contributor Contributor

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    Heroin, maybe. Weed, alcohol, and cigarettes? It's all in the writing workshop...again and again and again, often in first person person present for some reason...
     
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  21. Laurus

    Laurus Disappointed Idealist Contributor

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    O hay, I'm already famous, neat
     
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  22. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    Yep, dad died from lung cancer at 54 and my stepfather passed from the same at 62.

    I've never had the slightest inclination to smoke anything, though I have to say if I wasn't drug tested at work on the regular I might try edibles.
     
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  23. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    who knew that making teapots was such a high security job :D
     
  24. Laurin Kelly

    Laurin Kelly Contributor Contributor

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    BUT WE MAKE HAMBURGERS NOT TEAPOTS MOOSE
     
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  25. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    I'm a manager i don't have to know these things :superlaugh:
     
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