Discussing Red Mars and my take aways

They say to write better, read more. I decided to see what writing tools I took away from that.

Hey friends! Today I wanted to try something a little different. If it’s not for you, maybe skip this one, but don’t worry it isn’t the end of fiction on here by far! I did note from the beginning that I’d love to do reviews at some point and - well - this isn’t quite a review, but it is a discussion.

How many times have popular writers, teachers, or other specialists in the field of literature said to be a good writer you have to read a lot? I think the most common quote is from Stephen King, but I’m not here to throw particular quotes at you. If you spent any time in the writing world, you’ve probably seen someone say that you need to read a lot to improve.

Well, I like to read. I don’t read a lot, but I read when I can. Most of what I read are scientific papers, but I love a good fiction piece from time to time. That’s why I wanted to try something new. How about we take the idea of reading to improve writing to heart by keeping an eye on different writer’s styles and tricks to figure out how we as writers can improve? This is purely experimental and I don’t even know if it’ll interest people but I thought it might be fun and maybe even open up some doors to discussions with others or just new critical ways to look at different forms of writing.

So, with all that being said, I’m taking a look at Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson. Red Mars is a fascinating look at the terraforming of Mars from the perspective of the first one hundred: a group of scientists who were the first to come to Mars to study the planet. The book follows a ton of fascinating scientific advancement as well as the strife that comes with the exploitation of workers shipped to the planet and the industrialization of Mars, followed by a sharp cry for independence that is compared and contrasted multiple times to the American revolution throughout the story. 

The story is fascinating, engaging, and exciting, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. Instead, I’m here to talk about what I learned from the novel. I have three key takeaways that I want to put out into the world in the name of improving as a writer: World building, perception, and perspective. Let’s hop into it!

World building

I wanted to talk about world building first because for me this was both the best and worst part of the story. The book was extremely intricate, complex, and thoughtful in how Robinson described every specific detail. Every detail given meant something even if I didn’t notice it at first (which I’ll be getting to in the perspective section). But this was a mixed bag for me personally.

I mentioned during a sci-friday post that I actually almost gave up reading the book. Part of this was because I found the world building to be too much. I almost couldn’t see the plot through the worldbuilding. I recall a point in time when a character was bemoaning her terrible luck at being stuck in a love triangle. The character the perspective was from ignored her to get back to work - work for the reader consisting of in depth explanations about how buildings were structured and how they made and laid bricks. I was flustered at that moment. I don’t really care for love triangles in fiction, but it was plot and I just wanted any plot at all. I said to a friend at one point, “I don’t care about the Martian calendar, I don’t care what brand the rovers are, I don’t care about the time of day, just give me the story please.”

Well, that was a bit dramatic, wasn’t it? What I should’ve said instead was “I’d prefer if these facets of world building were laced more thoughtfully into the story rather than just info dumped in large sections that I found rather dull.” I’ve moved on to reading Veniss Underground by Jeff Vandermeer recently and the world is much more removed from our own, and yet the building is expertly laced into the story in such a way that I can keep up even without having to fully worry about missing much of anything.

But this isn’t about Veniss Underground. Rather, it’s about a book so different that it’s better not to compare them at all. The only reason I mention it is because the intention in worldbuilding is so dramatically different which I find interesting! In fact, before reading Veniss Underground, I hadn’t really been certain of how I felt about Red Mars’ worldbuilding. Consider this, if Robinson intended to lay a sturdy foundation for us to step on so we can carry the load of a complex story. Vandermeer, on the other hand, threw globs upon globs of information in a furry, yelling, “Come on, keep up!” Personally, I prefer the latter, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t space for the former. 

The trouble though, is these stories and writers are so dramatically different from each other, and this leads to an important question: Would I truly have experienced Red Mars the way I did without Kim Stanley Robinson’s intricate and expansive worldbuilding style? I’m not so sure. I don’t think I would’ve seen things as clearly and as precisely. I’m willing to bet that although it isn’t the same, my vision of Red Mars is closer to accurate than my vision of Veniss Underground. Of course, neither personal vision will ever be exactly the same, but I think it’s important to note that with a greater foundation, I have a greater understanding and a more clear vision. 

So, here’s what I’m thinking: The more loose the world building is, the more imagination you’re letting your reader run away with. The less details, the more their mind fills in the blank. Robinson quite literally puts charts and diagrams into Red Mars that you’re expected to think about to understand what time of year it is when characters are discussing specific topics. When a character mentions later in the book that it’s been 11 Martian years, you may not know what that means unless you know that already from general knowledge or if you paid attention when it was explained earlier in the book.

I personally found the extensive worldbuilding to be exhausting and it began to feel more like homework than it did an enjoyable read and that’s okay. Others may like it much more than the fast and loose open ended way that other books such as Veniss Underground laces it into the plot. To summarize, my thoughts on this boil down to, how much of your vision do you want your readers to have? How much do we share our vision versus how much we give them the opportunity to see for themselves? I don’t think there’s a right answer to this, but maybe it comes down to the comfort of the writer and the readers who prefer one over the other.

Perception 

Perception is extremely interesting to me. Something I’ve always worried about in my own writing is that an individual character’s perspective and characterization feels unique, and I think Robinson does that quite well in a way that I think is really interesting. I want to talk about it from the perspective of how characters perceive other characters in the story. If there’s anything Robinson taught me, it’s that characters are going to perceive other characters differently. The important thing about this is that these altering perspectives should align with the perception the reader has gained from other character’s perspectives.

Let me explain:

In Red Mars the perspective switches between a multitude of characters, but all of them are from the first one hundred people on Mars. Each of them have unique personalities that capture their drives and motivations extremely well. Not only that, but the first hundred are very tight knit leading to interesting tight knit relationship dynamics. Members may know each other differently, but they still know each other well, but no two people experience a friend the same way in the real world and we should work to model that in writing as well. 

Seeing how each of these members interact with each other is fascinating because when it switches perspective, the characterization of these characters still remains intact. You don’t see an entirely different character. You see a more rounded out version of that character each time the perspective changes. Sure, Frank Chalmers is an angry man, but he’s also a lovesick, sad, politically savvy man who has lost his own identity and only finds it again at his lowest point. You may first see him as a terrible monstrous human, but the story slowly reveals just how emotionally detached he has become as you see more perspectives (including his own). As more perspectives show him in the story, you begin to see just how sad and pathetic of a character he is. Does that mean he’s a good guy now? Does that mean he’s redeemable? I’d argue no, but I never thought that was the point. For me, the point was to understand what could get someone to be the way they are.

This happens time and time again with multiple characters. As the people around them interact, they become more rounded out. More interesting. For those of us who are writers, we should learn to create such intricate dimensions in our characters. I would like to try and pursue that and I think I have a specific character within the world of Astra that I’d like to practice with. I don’t think I’ll report on how that goes, but for those who read along, maybe you’ll find out along the way.

Perspective

Lastly, I want to discuss perspective. This does sound sort of similar to perception, but I want to utilize the concept to discuss something a little bit different. It becomes abundantly clear in the story that what the narrator notices depends wholly on whose perspective the story is following. This sounds extremely obvious, but I think it is important because each character drives the narrative in a different way entirely. Part of this is because each character is dramatically different from each other.

 When the story is following Nadia, the construction focused member of the first hundred, the story focuses aggressively on building, and the details of architecture and engineering. The story gives you the details of what Martian dirt is made of. It tells you how she works, and the details of her work. But when the story follows astronaut and first man on Mars, John Boone, the story focuses on navigating the Martian landscape, the ideologies of the immigrants coming to the newly settled plant, and his own personal detective fantasy that he finds himself on the winds of. When Michel the psychiatrist is at the wheel, it’s about mental health and the struggles of trying to survive in a world that isn’t just hostile to your body but also your mind.

Details that seem insignificant to the story become significant because the character pushing the narrative along at that moment deems it so. The perspective moves with the action - though characters aren’t always at the center of the action - and shows the characters trying to survive as they both react and push the story along. It helps create greater depth around the characters and makes the story feel more alive. Without the specifics of a character’s perspective, we’d never see the puzzle of the story from a new light, and instead the characters would feel flat and lifeless. 

Of course, you don’t need to do this to make a character feel more alive, but it’s interesting to think about. Think of it like an exercise. When your character walks into a room, what do they notice? To take an example from my last serial, I think Ollen would sooner notice how to get out of the space, whereas Akashi would probably look for something to fidget with.

Ollen scanned the room, her eyes darting between the hatch in the back corner and the window on the right side of the wall. She saw a small vent as well, but that seemed unrealistic. She took the seat the interrogator commanded with apprehension.

As opposed to:

Akashi’s eyes darted back and forth, his hands opening and closing. The interrogator pointed to the chair in the center of the room and he obliged, his mind overflowing with anxiety. As he sat down he gripped the bottoms of the chair. He found a loose screw at the bottom and began to twist and untwist it absentmindedly, wishing he could just leave.

Concluding thoughts

I’ve got to say, I really enjoyed this book and the way it made me think. Not everything I’ve said here are things I personally struggle with or didn’t already know, but they are things that I felt Kim Stanley Robinson did so well, that he reminded me of just how important they are to writing a strong story. Do you absolutely need these things? I suppose not, but I think that they could lead to potentially better stories in the long run.

I really enjoyed this book. Though I had my struggles with its worldbuilding choices, I still found a lot of joy in how I experienced the story because of it. I appreciated the way the story was fleshed out, defined, and gave more dimension to their characters. Ultimately, it made me excited to delve into experimenting more with my own writing.

Red Mars was published in 1992. The book is over 30 years old now! That means giving it a review feels sort of silly. Instead, I thought discussing what I as a writer can take away from the story would be a much more interesting way to discuss it. This book already stood the test of time. Nothing positive or negative I could ever say would really matter, but that doesn’t mean that I can’t think about how such a story can help me reflect on my own work. 

I hope you enjoyed reading this little reflection piece! If you liked it, let me know and maybe I’ll write more of these as I read more! Maybe I’ll do Veniss Underground next-as of editing this, I’ve finished it so that would come sooner rather than later. Regardless, thank you for reading!

If you’ve read Red Mars, did you have any interesting takeaways? Was there anything it did that you wanted to try yourself? If you’re here primarily as a reader rather than a writer, did you enjoy Red Mars if you read it? Is this something you want to see more of, or should I stay in my fiction lane? Stay tuned next week where we… may or may not be returning to fiction depending on where the winds take us!

Thanks all!