Scrawlings focuses on a character named Stephen Deadbeatus, an Irish youth with a penchant for being drunk and disorderly. Although this by itself does little to distinguish Stephen from his countrymen, he is shown throughout the novel to have a taste for ugly prostitutes, whom he "makes sexy time on" several times a chapter. The book is known as a "Roman building", or a book where a character gradually grows into his true self as the work progresses. It thus chronicles Stephen from his early days of pre-pubescent struggles with his sex drive and alcoholism to his early twenties, at which point he has reached the height of his shemale-shagging proficiency and decides to move to Paris to pursue hairier prostitutes.