Month: November 2021

Why is dialogue and inter-character tension so important? A look at Andy Weir’s ‘Project Hail Mary’

/ T W Iain / Leave a comment

[SPOLIER ALERT: The following might give spoilers to Project Hail Mary.]

Andy Weir made his name on the survival story The Martian. That book was impressive for a number of reasons, not least how Weir holds the reader’s attention when the majority of the time is spent with a single character.

Good stories need tension and conflict. They also need believable, interesting characters. Even in stories with external tension, much of the conflict will be inter-personal. Characters will argue. They’ll say one thing but mean another.

It’s tough to get this kind of tension with an inner monologue, so it’s no surprise that dialogue drives many stories. This is especially true with stories on the screen, despite film and TV being very visual media. A script will be predominantly dialogue.

So coming up with a riveting story when there is no dialogue is very hard. Weir pulled it off in The Martian. For his next book, Artemis, he had a cast of characters interacting, but in his latest book, Project Hail Mary, he’s returned to the lone character struggling to cope with a difficult situation.

So how does Weir keep our interest in this new book? How does he stop the challenges becoming introspective and dull?

First off is the premise. The character/narrator in Project Hail Mary is suffering from amnesia. He emerges from a coma to find himself aboard a spacecraft far from home, his two crewmates dead. He can’t remember their names. He can’t even remember his own name.

Then there’s the narrator’s voice. The action isn’t a simple description of what happens, but is filtered through the character’s personality. Through his struggles (and his internal monologue) we get to know him as he finds out who he is.

His memories return, and Weir gives us these as flashbacks. In these flashbacks we get other characters, and we also get some of that much-needed interaction. The flashbacks provide a welcome respite from the solo scenes.

[Incidentally, Weir’s use of tense is worth nothing here. The flashbacks are all written in past tense, while the space scenes are written in present tense. This could’ve been annoying, but the main character’s voice carries through, and the change of tense almost becomes invisible.]

Still, much of the time is spent alone with the main character (Ryland Grace). While the puzzles he’s forced to solve are interesting on an intellectual level, for me the book started to flag. Watching him solve problem after problem felt too distant. I started looking forward to the flashback scenes because I needed that interaction and dialogue.

And the [spoiler alert] Grace comes across an alien.

At this point, for me, the book really picked up. There’s another entity in the story now, clearly intelligent, and Grace starts to communicate with it. While the intellectual problems remain (and are compounded now, in figuring out how to communicate and then work with a very different being), there’s more interplay. Grace and Rocky (the alien) develop a means to communicate, and start to work together. They develop a rapport, start to anticipate one another. They bicker, and they work together. Now, instead of Grace talking through problems to himself, there’s a dialogue. They bounce ideas back and forth.

They’re both trying to save their respective home planets, but they’re also trying to save each other.

This is worth considering in a little more detail.

We enjoy stories with high stakes, and there’s little that tops saving the whole of humanity. But high stakes like this, while exciting, are so far outside our personal experiences that it’s hard to relate. And if we can’t relate to the problems the character(s) face, we’re outsiders, passive observers. We don’t feel connected.

To help readers connect, there has to be something more personal. This is why so many high-stakes stories also involve the hero saving a loved one. Bond has to save the day, but he also has to save the girl.

Grace, in Project Hail Mary, has little attachment emotionally to anyone back on earth. Yes, he goes on about his kids (the students he teaches), but that’s as much a justification for his existence as a personal attachment to any of them. This detachment might make him suited to the mission, but it doesn’t make him relatable.

But as he and Rocky grow closer, he finds that connection. This isn’t a romance/love story‌—‌it’s more a buddy thing‌—‌but it gives Grace (and the story) an emotional edge that we, the reader, can relate to.
And this development is shown in the interplay between characters‌—‌in the dialogue, both spoken and non-spoken.

This struck home for me when, toward the end, Grace and Rocky go their separate ways. We return to the internal stuff. I found myself alternately trudging through these pages and rushing through them, wanting‌—‌needing?‌—‌to reach a point where Grace was with others, either human or alien.

The ending highlighted this even more. Without spoiling too much, the book ends with Grace finding contentment in others. It’s a decent closing to the book. We might not be able to relate to Grace saving humanity, but we can relate to him coming through his ordeal a changed man.

This book showed me how important inter-personal conflict is in stories. It also highlighted how dialogue can help engage readers, and how tiring description and internal monologues can be, no matter how well-written the character voice.

And on a final note, I love how Weir constantly pushed himself with his books. He could have so easily written a different version of The Martian (same ideas, different planet or something.) But he didn’t. He followed it with a thriller (Artemis, which I enjoyed a lot). And although Project Hail Mary starts with a similar feel to The Martian, it is a very different book. I look forward to the next book Weir puts out. I don’t know what to expect, but I’m sure it will be well worth reading.

Show, don’t tell … unless it’s better to tell

/ T W Iain / 1 Comment

Show don’t tell. It’s a classic piece of writing advice. As Chekov (allegedly) put it:

‘Don’t tell me the moon is shining, show me the glint of light on broken glass.’

But what does ‘show don’t tell’ really mean?

At the most basic level, it means the words shouldn’t be expository. They shouldn’t tell the reader what’s happening, but should describe the effects of what’s happening. Instead of telling us a character is sad, the words should show us the pain etched on their face, their struggle in putting words together, their reluctance to take part in a conversation. Instead of telling us a character is fearful, the words should show their frantic movements and their raised heartbeat.

One of the big show don’t tell ‘errors’ is in exposition. This is ‘stuff the reader needs to know in order to understand what’s happening’. It’s background or backstory, or maybe technical details. It could be details about the world (especially in ‘other-world’ genres like fantasy and science fiction).

There’s a danger of this becoming an info-dump‌—‌a passage that only exists in order to explain stuff to the reader. It can slow down pacing, and can drag us out of the moment.

A way around this is through dialogue, especially if one character is unfamiliar with the world or the situation. Then, a different character, one who is immersed in the world or situation, can explain things to the ‘new’ character. But this still has its problems. Readers aren’t stupid‌—‌they’ll see through this ploy unless it’s done well. Why is that character explaining all about the wizards from the north while the characters are running from the goblins? Why is that mysterious shady character suddenly talking like a textbook while telling the protagonist about that super-computer the bad guys have been working on? Why are those two servants telling each other what’s going on in the stately home when they both know all this stuff anyway?

(This last example is often referred to as ‘maid-and-butler’ dialogue‌—‌‘As you know, my dear, the master is due back from his recent convalescence at the coast,’ and so on.)

Descriptions (of characters, setting or objects) can cause issues too. Rich, vivid, poetic descriptions have their place, but for many books (especially genre fiction), the story is more important than the writing. Purple prose (fancy writing) can seem out of place. So a talented writer will embed the description in the action. For instance, rather than describe a character as tall, we’ll have the character reach for an object on a high shelf. Rather than being told that a character is loud, we’ll have them dominating a conversation. Rather than painting a picture of a desert with words, we’ll have a character suffering from the dry heat.

So what are we to make of passages like this, from James Patterson?

‘Justine Smith was an elegant, serious-minded, academically brilliant brunette in her midthirties. She was a shrink by trade, a forensic profiler, and Jack Morgan’s number two at Private. Clients trusted her almost as much as they trusted Jack. They also adored her; everyone did.’
(Private, Chapter 4)

This is straight description. Patterson’s not showing us who Justine Smith is, he’s telling us.

Is this ‘wrong’? Does this make Patterson less of a writer?

Some will argue that he’s a ‘popular’ writer, not a ‘good’ writer, but he’s one of the most commercially successful writers around. That doesn’t make him a hack‌—‌it means he’s a writer who delivers what his readers want, and does so with such skill that they keep coming back for more. And, as I mentioned before, readers aren’t stupid. The average reader might not know why a book doesn’t work, but they’ll know when they’re bored, or when the story just doesn’t work.

There’s more going on here than meets the eye, clearly.

Let’s take a step back.

‘Show don’t tell’ is a classic piece of writing advice. But it’s not a rule. In writing, there are no rules, only guidelines. Even grammar and spellings are fluid. While writing guidelines can help turn a messy first draft into a finely-crafted book, they aren’t set in stone. There are times when it is ‘better’ to disregard a particular guideline.

Patterson writes fast-paced thrillers. His readers want the buzz of the journey, cutting from scene to scene, racing through the story. They want‌—‌and he delivers‌—‌stories that start fast and don’t let up.

If Patterson rigidly followed ‘show don’t tell’, he’d have to slow things down when introducing a new character such as Justine Smith. He might write a conversation between her and a colleague or friend, or include a scene showing her at work. He’d have to take his time to paint a picture of her, to show us how her clients trusted her, so show us her brilliant mind at work. He might have others comment on the elegant way she wears her clothes, have someone moaning that they could never pull those combinations off. He’d throw in comments about her brunette hair and her age. He’d have to show how everyone adores her, with at least one example of why this is the case. He’d need to show her character over a conversation, a scene, maybe more.

And instead of a short paragraph, we’d have pages or chapters introducing Justine Smith to the reader. Those readers who want a fast-paced thriller would have closed the book before the story continued.

‘Show don’t tell’ is advice, not a hard rule. It’s a tool. A writer of Patterson’s standing, with so many satisfied readers, isn’t after fancy, award-winning prose. He’s telling stories. To do this successfully, he uses the tools in his writer’s armoury as and when they’re needed.