Alcohol, and the way we drink it, or don’t drink it, or observe it, is one of the most important character traits for a writer to notice.
Is this true? For many years, as I’ve pushed through troubles caused by alcohol, been forced to get treatement for alcohol consumption, and am still reminded daily of what has happened to me because of it, I still believe it. Sure, there are other things to help outiline people, but certain traits, maybe because they are common, outline the most.
Eating, smoking, gambling, screwing, loving, caring, stealing, lying… everything outlines people ina story, but sit them down at a bar and put a drink or two in front of them, and you begin to get to know your character.
An idiot I use to hang out with use to quote his father, a long dead, once well-thought of person in our small town. “You just can’t know anyone enough to trust until you belly up to a bar with them.”
I don’t completely agree with that, but in the fifties, when it was probably first forged or taken from some other source, it was an indicator.
I spend a lot of time wondering about things like that. I have been told that all my stories are about drinking, drenched in it if you would, but of course it’s not that simple. I write what I see and what I know, and know that I have spent a lot of time with some people and hardly got to know them at all, but if you sit down and drink with them, you get some clue. Maybe it is not a true image of the person, but a clearer one than say, if you set next to them in an office for years. At least if they’re not talkers.
There are many ways to use alcohol to outline characters, or tell about real people. Alcohol often lets the guards down. Mean drunks, sloppy drunks, smoking drunks, yacking drunks, slutty drunks, etc. Also, what they drink, how they drink it, all of these are the staples and tells that come across a bar.
I bartended a lot of years, and spent many more on the other side, even as a child, it was my father that took me with him on his Saturday afternoon tavern visit. Don’t wrinkle your nose, there were some of my best memories of my father, he was what I once considered a regal drunk. Alcohol was just a prop as my Dad socialized. And I was there, privileged to be with this great guy, talking to his friends, talking to me, feeding me quarters for the machines/pool table/jukebox. Well, that’s a different topic altogether.
A person comes in, sets down at the bar, and orders Scotch on the rocks, quizzing the bartender for brands of Scotch in a plainly displayed beer and shot bar.
A man comes in the front door and then biudes his time as someone stands at the end of the bar getting a pack of cigarettes from the bartender, then takes the stool which the person had been blocking, his stool, after the space has been vacated, setting down and swinging it to and fro until he finds the right cant, just in time for the bartender to set down a short draft glass of beer and a shot of brandy.
Closing time.
Well, I think this little exercise has done it’s job. I’m going to go write some more now, stuff I’ll save.
