Okay, so, one of my works in progress is partly from the viewpoint of a character who is currently undergoing a raging bout of delayed PTSD. He's got it all--the shakes, sleep deprivation, alcohol abuse, irritability, paranoia, memory loss, and so on. He's also started hallucinating a guy whose death he accidentally caused several years ago (one of the primary reasons for the PTSD but since he's blocked out the entire incident, he has no memory of it and thinks the guy is just somebody who recently moved in across the hall from him.) Also, he's on edge because someone burglarized his apartment a few days ago.
Now, I've been envisioning this from a very visual and cinematic POV: time slips, weird cuts, wonky, hallucinogenic Steadycam work, theramins on the soundtrack, and so on. My dilemma is how to translate this into verbal terms so that the reader will think: "Okay, this is really weird for a reason," rather than, "Whoa, where the hell was the editor?!" I guess what I'm striving for is the old "unreliable narrator" thing, so my question is: has anyone here read anything similar to this, how well does it work, and do you know of any works that have used this kind of thing? Recommendations?
FWIW, the setting is the late 1940's and PTSD has yet to be diagnosed; plus, it's set in the real, mundane world so the possibility of a paranormal (or science so advanced it might as well be paranormal) reason behind the strangeness is not even a consideration. Also, this is the second in a series, so the character is already pretty well established and any deviations should raise a few red flags with the careful reader. Any thoughts?
