Group Inebriation

Titus

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I have reached a point in the novel where my characters unwittingly take in an inebriating substance when all electricity and magic goes out. I need to do a twist better than booze but each time I try it feels corny and overly sentimental.

Any advice on writing inebriated characters?
 

blacbird

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How about something other than alcohol? Any number of hallucinogenic substances, including a made-up one, might work. A famous real-life example is the fungus ergot, which infects the grain rye, and has been responsible for mass poisonings leading to mass hysteria. One of those occurred in a village in France in the 1950s (as I recall), and was recounted in a book titled The Day of St. Anthony's Fire, which I read long ago. This thing happened in medieval times, as well, and was blamed on supernatural forces.

caw
 

Conrad Adamson

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It's not necessarily corny. It is the stereotypical "everything has gone wrong, f it, we're getting smashed" substance but that can also be used as a short cut to help develop the general emotional state of the group. The alcohol doesn't have to be the focus of the scene either, just part of the setting where more important things are developing or happening.
 

benbenberi

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Are you writing the drunk characters from the POV of a drunken person, or from an external POV? Because in my experience drunk people are much more amusing to themselves than to anyone else. From the outside, they're variously boring, annoying, or dangerous.
 

BethS

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I agree. The viewpoint is crucial here. How are you approaching this? IOW, are you describing this phenomenon from an outside observer's perspective, or from within the mind of one of the participants?
 

Treehouseman

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As the point of every story you'd have to seriously look at what you are intending to do with the drunken scene. What is is supposed to lead to? How does it move the story forward? Keep it to under a page, for like Benbenberi says, it is boring.

If a character inadvertently gives away a truth, make him loud and garrulous.

If he goes for a stroll and discovers something, have him jolly and dancing.

If there is supposed to be a fight, have him sullen and argumentative.

From an outsider, having characters drunk for more than a couple of paragraphs, where they talk nonsense for too long is bound to bog down your story and you'll inevitably have to cut it out. This is one of the places you could tell rather than show to move it along.
 

indianroads

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I'll echo what others have said about the POV character, and believe the scene would be much more interesting from the POV of someone stoned out of their mind.

As to the inebriant - I would shy away from booze as it's just too common (oh, they're drunk... yawn), and would go with a hallucinogen like acid (LSD). I did a lot of that back in the day, and can tell you that each trip is different because the experience is based on the personality of the person and the environment they are in.

I suppose it all depends on what you want to achieve with the scene though.
 

Titus

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This is meant to be more of a cultural reference. My MC is forcibly relocated to live in another society and I'm looking to throw her off the deep end to understand it. This should go horribly badly given the MC's social anxiety. I'll likely incorporate some of the issues here to help.
 

Lehssner

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I think writing drunk characters could be fun, and I would enjoy reading an interaction between drunk people. As long as it isn't completely over the top. I don't go crazy everytime I'm drunk and neither do most people I know. I agree that it depends on what you're trying to achieve with having your MC be drunk. I'm not quite sure how her having social anxiety and trying to deal with it and her being drunk go together. A little more info would be helpful!
 

Jason

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There was an episode of Star Trek: TNG called The Game where the crew got addicted to a visual game of discs flying into saucer type funnels and the crew was overwhelmed because of their addicted status...just another interesting take on how to get people distracted or loopy from something other than booze.

I think the synopsis made the euphoric feeling very erogenous too....easily quite addictive! LOL :)
 
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Marissa D

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My favorite historical example of inadvertent mass inebriation involved part of Alexander the Great's army, on campaign in the Black Sea area. They found a bunch of beehives and gorged on the honey; unfortunately, the bees had gotten all their pollen from the local enormous growths of rhododendrons around there...and honey made from rhody pollen contains some nasty neurotoxins. It took days for them to stop tripping out.