To preface, there are many stylistic choices that define authors' writing styles. There is practically no limit as to what different authors might choose. Here are a few choices that are prevalent in Andy Weir's writing that I chose to incorporate:
Weir tends to utilize humor in order to engage his audience and inspire hope. Often he will allude to pop culture or will use curt remarks about characters’ situations. If a character barely escaped death, they might remark “I feel just like keanu dodging bullets in The Matrix" or “I feel like crying to my mom and going to sleep, but sadly my mom is a few lightyears away. At least I have a bed though. That’s always nice.” And right then the character would lose their bed. Even though the situation may be dire, humor and hope always prevail.
“I’m pretty much fucked. That’s my considered opinion. Fucked” (The Martian p. 1).
“Mark, some answers to your earlier questions: No, we will not tell our Botany Team to ‘Go fuck themselves.’ “ (The Martian p. 150)
While there are underlying plots in his books, Weir tends to break the journey into smaller bits. Even the process of, say, getting a screwdriver can become its own plot line; there are so many problems that can arise: “it’s missing, so I’ll use something else”; “it’s the wrong type of screwdriver, so now I’m (wait for it) screwed”; “it’s in another solar system, so build another one I guess?”
“I need to create calories. And I need enough to last the 1387 sols until Ares 4 arrives. If I don’t get rescued by Ares 4, I’m dead anyway. A sol is 39 minutes longer than a day, so it works out to be 1425 days. That’s my target: 1425 days of food” (The Martian p. 18).
Additionally, the problem and solution nature of Weir’s writing allows for the incorporation of scientific processes. When a character loses their screw driver the reader learns how using something else would work, how to convert one type of screw driver into another, how to build another one with the materials on hand. While a screwdriver might not be very scientific, other processes are, and by creating problems, the reader is taught to think outside the box and come up with solutions.
Everyone (at the time of writing this) is familiar with Earth and its features. The same cannot be said for space or other planets. It is easy to get used to the fact that one is on a different planet, but pointing out the details and admiring the differences every once in a while is what makes being on that planet so novel and exciting. Often, Weir will break the story for a moment just to point out the details of situation that are typically abstracted out by the story. When a character is soaring through space, Weir might write about how space looks different there rather than on Earth, because people are familiar with the view of space from Earth, and the thought that it may look different never crosses people’s minds.
“This is a strange experience. Space is black. The planet is majestic below me. Everything looks like it should when in orbit. But there’s gravity” (Project Hail Mary p. 315).
“Something bugs me about how I fell off the ladder. I replay it in my head. I can’t put my finger on it, but there’s just a …’wrongness’ to it” (Project Hail Mary p. 13).
Waking up on a cold metal floor is never fun.
And I don’t just mean because my bed is destroyed. I mean being jolted back against the wall and passing out on the ground. The explosion kinda destroyed everything; the ship, the communications room, the solar panels, and of course without a doubt, my bed. But now that I think about it I haven’t really taken a look--
Oh. Wow.
I mean, I know I’ve lived on Earth for 27 years, but wow. Was this how it was back in the days of Adam and Eve? Besides the bluish tint, it looks like a photographer’s Instagram page. I had a picture of Papris in my head (of course that being of Earth), but I never imagined that it would be so… sublime.
Being the planet most accurate to Earth’s composition that we know of, Papris should look similar to Earth, but I forget that the overpopulation, the intense miasma, the constant struggle on Earth is just a result of human evolution. This--Papris--is what Earth should be. No famine, no crime, no bacteria--wait. I kinda forgot wearing suits was protocol, and I don’t have one anymore because the wreckage looks like, well, let’s just say it looks. I suppose life will evolve in a few million years due to my mistake. Oh well.
Now that I think about it, it feels normal to breathe, like finally sleeping in a bed when you spend your life sleeping on a couch (I really miss my bed). You don’t really notice it, but thinking about it really makes you realize the difference. On that note I’m feeling a little hungry, and I suppose I haven’t really eaten since well before the landing. I guess I was too focused and scared to eat anything. I’ll go get something from the--. Why can’t I get it through my head that there’s nothing left of the ship? I hang my head in disappointment and that’s when I realize a streak of vibrancy among the blue-green grass. It’s red and it’s also on me. I’m bleeding.
Before thinking about stopping myself from panicking and hyper-ventilating, I start to panic and hyper-ventilate. No wonder I felt hungry; it looks like half of my stomach is missing! “I need Bandaids! There’s no Bandaids! Hell with the Bandaids I need stitches!” Of course, only then did the pain actually start to hit me. “Craaaaaaap.” Then everything started to go dark.
* * *
I’ve never really had a high pain tolerance. That’s what I get for doing math for fun instead of playing sports like everyone else. Looking back on the wound, I might be fine after all. I have no clue how, but the wound seems to have magically healed (throwing science out of the way to make room for magic is always a solid plan). I guess there must be something that helped heal my wound. No human can just heal from a gash like that one, or maybe I’m like a super-nerdy-super-man. A super-nerdy man. No wait that’s not what I meant. Either way, I’ll need to figure out how my wound healed. It’s not like there’s super healing bacteria that helped me. The only life here are my plant friends that I’m worried will start chanting “feed me seymour” and the bacteria I brought with me.
Before I worry about how I am alive, I need to worry about how to stay alive. So what’s on the menu you ask? Well, about that… I’m not really a cow, and I don’t really have, well, anything in terms of food so…