Finding the Fun

by M. L. Buchman

I made a brief visit to another world last week—actually in several ways.

I wandered out of romance and went back to science fiction, which is very definitely another world. It is a world where setting trumps character. Even plot trumps character.

What do I mean by that? Character is always paramount, right? Of course, right! (Sorry, my Jewish side is slipping out. No, I’m not dancing Tevye’s If I Were a Rich Man right now…honest. Okay, that last sentence put it back in my head and maybe I am, just a little.) What would Luke Skywalker be without evil empires, desert moons with twin suns, droids, and… Well, you get the idea. He’d be a spoiled brat who screws up, gets his in-laws killed, and then spends most of the rest of the movie whining. Who would Ripley be without an alien birthing out of people’s chests and chasing a cat through a spaceship about to auto-destruct?

And, to my point last week, who would Mark Watney be without being the sole occupant of an entire planet? Without Mars, the Hab, and the rovers, he’d be a pretentious, self-aggrandizing, fool who can’t even get his shit together to take a regular bath. The Martian without Mars, Ripley without a dark and dangerous planet, and Luke without the Evil Empire: they would all be nothing.

So, there I was, reading The Martian by Andy Weir. (Awesome read by the way, he deserves every penny he got.) I’m having a blast. It’s filled with cool tech, good pacing, and a great voice—it’s a total voice piece because Mark is all alone on a planet for a year and a half, most of which he spends talking to himself about how smart he is to have survived the latest disaster.

Mark Watney does not change one iota. This is not a character given to growth and self-exploration. Ripley proves that she’s better with a gun than she expected—but this is not an evolving woman. And Luke, well, he goes from being a whiny kid to being a whiny adult who just got kissed by his sister. I mean how more sad sack can a guy get than the first woman he ever takes a real interest in is his closest relative?

I’m not putting any of these characters down. I love all three of them. I’m just saying that science fiction is not about character growth and deep-rooted arcs of change.

So not only was I in a different world of Mars, I was also in a different world of characterization.

Because at the far end of the spectrum? There sits romance.  Let’s see, it’s about character, character, and…let me see…character. Even the most alpha heroine, bends and turns to discover that he can’t complete the mission without her true love. Even the most beta hero discovers how he must live up to the standards of the strong woman he so wants.

Yet reading these two diametrically opposed (or so it would seem) genres, I rediscovered something that’s so easy to forget as a writer.

Reading The Martian it was obvious that on every page that Andy Weir was not having fun. Instead he was having so much fun he could hardly help himself. The excitement, the sheer joy of story radiated like a laser blast from Mark Watney’s wit, from the fussy details of how hydrazine can be broken down into water, the detailed tracking of everything from liters of oxygen to kilometers of travel per kilowatt-hour of battery storage. I’m not saying the writing was easy, I’m sure it wasn’t. 

But while the artist was laboring at his craft, you could just feel him sitting in the background and laughing all the way to the last page.

How do I know if I’m writing well? When I come out of the office and my wife asks:

“What were you chortling about today?”

“I was chortling? Doesn’t seem likely, that was one tough day of writing.”

“I could hear you right through my office door.”

Since I assume she wasn’t making it up (I find it’s best to believe my spouse when she says things. Not because it makes for better marital harmony, but rather because she has a sneaky habit of being right like 99% of the time.), I must conclude that the inner-storyteller was having a wonderful time no matter how the writer suffered.

The next day I go back and read that passage. “Hmmm,” I think to myself. “Other than all these stupid typos (for some reason I can’t put the “n’t” on couldn’t or wouldn’t or a myriad other words when I’m typing quickly), this came out better than I thought it did.”

I think one of the biggest improvements in my craft is learning that it is okay to have fun while I’m actually doing the writing. The more I remember that, the happier my readers seem to be.

Find the fun.

Best advice I’ve got.

M.L. Buchman started the first of over 50 novels and even more short stories while flying from South Korea to ride across the Australian Outback. All part of a solo around-the-world bicycle trip (a mid-life crisis on wheels) that ultimately launched his writing career.

Booklist has selected his military and firefighter series(es) as 3-time “Top 10 Romance of the Year.” NPR and Barnes & Noble have named other titles “Top 5 Romance of the Year.” In 2016 he was a finalist for RWA's RITA award.

He has flown and jumped out of airplanes, can single-hand a fifty-foot sailboat, and has designed and built two houses. In between writing, he also quilts. M.L. is constantly amazed at what can be done with a degree in geophysics. He also writes: contemporary romance, thrillers, and SF. More info at: www.mlbuchman.com.