Drunken Dialogue

TheIT · Feb 21, 2006

Let's say a character has had a few too many drinks and his speech is getting slurred. When writing his dialogue, should I attempt to emulate how he sounds (like turning s's into sh's and dropping t's), or just have the narrative indicate that he's drunk and leave his words alone?

luxintenebrae · Feb 21, 2006

I don't think I'd mind if some of it were slurred, as long as it's still easy to read. I think it would be more realistic, too. I might laugh a little if he's too drunk to walk but is speaking as eloquently as all the sober people around him. Maybe you could write an example to give us a better idea what it would look like?

TheIT · Feb 21, 2006

I'm still working on the scene, but I might have a sample tomorrow. I was wondering if anyone knew any general guidelines on how to depict drunken dialogue, or incoherence in general. This seems like a variation of how to depict dialects, but I'd guess there's a little more leeway.

The specific scene I'm envisioning has my MC downing a large drink of what he thinks is fruit juice but is actually something stronger than tequila. By the time he realizes the mistake, it's too late. He's got a very low tolerance to alcohol and this is the first time he's ever been drunk. The loss of control will be terrifying to him.

PastMidnight · Feb 21, 2006

If I were writing it, I would probably not slur the sounds, but maybe indicate through syntax, grammatical errors, groping for the right word, saying silly things, etc. It's been a while since my college days, so I can't think of any examples off the top of my head of drunken speech. But then again, it depends on the character. Some people almost sound more well-spoken when drunk, some wax philosophical, while others get downright goofy. I think if you show a change in speech that is different in some way from how the character usually talks, and then indicate that they are drunk, it could be sufficient.

PastMidnight · Feb 21, 2006

Oh, I forgot the person who is normally quiet but who finds that they can't shut up after drinking! There's always one of those at a party....

DamaNegra · Feb 21, 2006

Yeah, there's different types of drunk. When I get drunk I can walk on a straight line if I concentrate and my speech is perfectly coherent (or at least as coherent as it is when I'm sober, which is not much) but I do tendo to swear too much when I'm drunk.

I've got a friend that, when drunk, just stares at space without saying nothing the whole time.

You get the idea. A sample would be good.

blacbird · Feb 21, 2006

This is a lot like the issue with accents. A little goes a verrrrrrry long way. My guess is that most editors would frown on very much of this.

caw.

luxintenebrae · Feb 21, 2006

That's true, not everyone slurs when they're drunk. Some people just swear a lot. I don't know about turning s's into sh's and dropping t's, but some people really emphasis their r's and w's, and they might drop some letters or syllables (I think, I'm usually trying hard to ignore them because they're not making any sense anyway). They draw out a lot of words, don't they? I'm trying to think back to the last family get-together.

But yes, I think PastMidnight is right, maybe just show the actions of the person and their illogical dialogue and circular reasoning. Keep saying the same things over and over (some never stop harping on a topic). Maybe get one of your friends drunk and record the conversation!

PastMidnight · Feb 21, 2006

luxintenebrae said:
Maybe get one of your friends drunk and record the conversation!

All in the name of research!

TheIT · Feb 21, 2006

Thanks for the suggestions (and no, I'm not interested in doing field research

).

The character in question is a very well educated young man who prides himself on speaking precisely. I like the idea of playing with his syntax and word choice. He's got a lot of pent up grief and anger which the alcohol will unlock, so I can see him going through several different stages of being drunk from euphoria to despair. It's going to be a wild ride.

pdr · Feb 21, 2006

Just a suggestion.

This is how ee cummings did it.

ygUDuh

ygUDuh

ydoan
yunnuhstan

ydoan o
yunnuhstand dem
yguduh ged

yunnuhstan dem doidee
yguduh ged riduh
ydoan o nudn

LISN bud LISN

dem
gud
am

lidl yelluh bas
tuds weer goin

duhSIVILEYEzum

Just a touch in your dialogue perhaps?

Another example of the drunk I thought was cleverly done was in Terry Pratchet's opening pages of 'Guards! Guards!'
Might help you to read that too?

reph · Feb 21, 2006

Some people seem to forget most of their vocabulary when drunk. They slide into simpler speech, dropping down several reading levels. They speak in short sentences that use familiar, automatic phrases and require little thought. They may repeat themselves.

"Hey, I got a friend named Brian. You know Brian? Yeah, Brian, he, he, he's a helluva nice guy. Helluva nice guy. Great guy. Yeah, he'd give you the shirt off his back. Right off his back, any time you ask. Nice guy, know what I mean?"

luxintenebrae · Feb 21, 2006

Then he might go from "the shirt off his back" to a tangent about what shirt he just bought, how much it costs, how long it took him to work for it, how much he makes, how much Brian makes, and then go back to telling you how great Brian is and whether you know he'd give you "the shirt off his back." Very circular conversations. :tongue

reph · Feb 21, 2006

Right, lux, and that reminds me: drunks' talk is boring.

Haggis · Feb 21, 2006

I think minimal dialogue changes would be best. Instead, maybe you should focus on the show-type stuff--room spinning, inability to focus, bartender cutting him off, knocking a drink over, friends laughing at him, etc.

Cheryll · Feb 21, 2006

Haggis said:
I think minimal dialogue changes would be best. Instead, maybe you should focus on the show-type stuff--room spinning, inability to focus, bartender cutting him off, knocking a drink over, friends laughing at him, etc.

I agree. Show other aspects of how the alcohol is affecting him, not just his speech.

Cheryll

Pike · Feb 21, 2006

Another thing to think about is if you try and write slurred speech, how hard it can be to read. You don't want your readers to stop short in the middle of a passage so they can try to decipher what you've written.

Phouka · Feb 21, 2006

The whole slurred speech bit seems like an overused cliché to me. It's just so easy to overdo it and end up with a parody of a drunk character. But, having a drunk character speaking normally while you describe his drunk behavior rings untrue, as well.

I like the rambling example, perhaps with a judicious addition of a few missed letters (wha' vs what) and ums and ahs. It needs to be subtle to prompt me as a reader to hear 'drunk speech', but I think it is necessary.

Pike · Feb 22, 2006

I just remembered a Louis Anderson bit that revovled around a drunken friend at a Denny's late one night. He laid his head down, moaned, and then said, "I want beets! You had beets the last time I was here and I want them." He then mumbled about not liking someone and their whole family, then cried about something else. It was a freight train set on derail. I can remember drunken conversations similar to that.

dante-x · Feb 22, 2006

It's a funny thing the use of slurred speech to depict drunken state. In all my drunken experiences, and experiences watching others that have been drunk while I have been sober I can note very few memories of people actually slurring their speech. No, I am not and was not an alcoholic. Those years driven purely by a desire to research for any manuscript that I might have wanted to present in the future that required an in depth understanding of inebriation. Perhaps the slurred speech has been played up a little too much in literature and media and might not actually reflect the most probable reality.

reph · Feb 22, 2006

dante-x said:
Perhaps the slurred speech has been played up a little too much in literature and media and might not actually reflect the most probable reality.

I think that's true. People become gushy, weepy, belligerent, or whatever their style is at a lesser degree of intoxication than it takes to remove so much muscle control that their mouths don't work right and they start leaving off consonants.

MarkN · Feb 23, 2006

There's several scenes in the James Herriott books (All Creatures Great and Small, etc) where he ends up getting thoroughly plastered, which he describes to great effect, but I don't recall him ever using slurred speech in his dialog or anything like that. (Did he? It's been a while since I read them.) As I recall, he said things like his tongue felt thick, or the words didn't want to come out right, or things like that, but when he wrote the words, he wrote them normally, so when we readers read the dialog, we didn't have to "translate" it, but we still got the clear picture of drunkenness.

Julie Worth · Feb 23, 2006

You can have a character slur, but don’t do it very often. Let his words do most of the work.

“You leave that alone. You hear me?”

“Leave what alone? What are you talking about now?”

“That’s right, honey, thass exactly what I’m talking about. Talking.” He turned to me, his eyes opaque. “I’ll say what I say, and you leave it alone.”

MattW · Feb 23, 2006

Loss of volume control, vocabulary decline (as said above), and more candidly speaking are common speech effects.

Increase in libido, loss of equilbrium, and slowed reaction time are physiological effects to consider as well.

Akuma · Feb 23, 2006

Hmm, you could even make the character, if not silly, solemn through what he/she says.

A woman I know has a son that never speaks his mind. However, when he gets drunk, he seems to address many things meaningful to him and gets into some serious concepts.
So a drunken dialogue doesn't neccessarily have to be comical or intimidating.
Maybe life-changing?

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