The Expanse and the Basics of Writing

[windjamm]

 The Expanse is so dear to me. The movement of characters through their arcs and all the places they intersect are a fascinatingly clear network of the orchestration of vitals in a novel. 

 

There are novel things in these books, portrayed in ways I find new and interesting. However, the vast majority of work that Ty Franck and Daniel Abraham do, writing together as James SA Corey, is what I consider the basic mechanics of writing. 

 

To be clear, that is not a pejorative; I am an admirer and devout student of the basics in all things. I believe that a person can pursue the basics of a craft, sport, hobby, profession and, with dilligent pursuit, achieve nigh on anything. They're the first things many of us learn and also often considered the most boring parts to elevate. 

 

In cooking, this is learning knife work by finding instruction on how to hold a blade, the best practices (keeping it sharp, the proper amount of pressure), learning different cuts and shapes and learning to gauge lengths of cut (cubed 1/4", julienned, etc) and then grabbing a bag of cheap onions or potatoes and teaching your body all the things your mind has just absorbed over and over again. It is the work of dozens of hours of refinement.

 

I did this when I was learning to cook. I do this when I start any endeavor. I never regret it. Learning the core basics of a skill is learning the skill, as far as I'm concerned. 

 

Many people in writing are caught up in the unique, in the subversive, in the genre bending, mind-breaking, defiant, unable to be categorized works that disrupt the lives of readers and turn their understanding upside down. And yes, these can be marvelous both in the sense of spectacle and the awe that they inspire. I will not stand here and say that books like House of Leaves didn't fundamentally alter my personhood. 

 

However, we must care about the works that can be defined, that can be categorized, the vast majority that fills genres merrily and proudly. 

 

I will endeavor not to spoil the Expanse here in the illustration of my point, though if you would prefer to go in without any understanding whatsoever, I do believe it's time for us to part ways for a time. 

 

The Expanse opens with a set of characters and it defines them in moments and scenes. Every book (and season) contains a central idea, something that is affecting the solar system either immediately or looming at the Kármán line (metaphorically).

 

And then I can imagine the writer's room as the two writers take those concepts and extrapolate them. It's much like tending to a bonsai tree in this respect. Certain things follow and grow. This character is someone who gets themself into the thick of things and so we can position them here, at the heart. These are people who follow for separate reasons, so they too shall be at ground zero. And what does the world think of this? Who is in power, what do they want, et cetera, et cetera. 

 

These are all basic questions you can find often in dozens, hundreds of books about writing. The Robert McKee's of the world asking, "how do they eat, drink, pray, make love?" And they are valid questions for all that they feel rote and lifeless if you stare at them as criteria and not as wire you may use to shape your work. There is very little exciting about a screwdriver unless, dear readers and writers, you must turn a screw.

 

Then comes the maintenance. Well, if that character is here, what will they want and where will they go? Well, these two characters are interested a similar goal, so we can bring them together here. What complications does that create? 

 

And this may seem redundant to talk about here. This is the stuff that books are made with, isn't it? Yes, that's true! But that's my entire point. The Expanse is a wonder of little pieces. It doesn't always come together surprisingly, but surprise isn't often the point either. We often get ourselves into positions of wanting to be unpredictable, but predictability is really just the continuation of ideas to their logical conclusions. If those ideas are sound and interesting, if the drama of this character and her goals and the way they conflict with those of people who love her and count on her is interesting, it doesn't matter if it's surprising so long as it's true and we care. 

 

That is the foundation of so much of these books and the seasons of the show. There are surprises, there are moments when the seams lock together and hide themselves. They're lovely, they're welcome, but they're served by all the other moments where we can just enjoy the people being people here. Yes, of course there's a moment where things break bad in a negotiation and of course the one who has seen it happen hundreds of times in his life is ready. 

 

It's through the dogged pursuit of those basic questions and the honest understanding of characters and what they want, what their limits are, and how those look to other people that the writers are able to hold an entire solar system aloft. The Expanse fan wiki lists 772 characters with their own pages. They separate book characters from TV characters, so we might do rough math and divide it in half for 386 characters with names across nine books. What a stunning number and it never felt to me that there were too many. Maybe I didn't remember a name here or there, but I saw how they acted, how people reacted to them and every time I went, "OH! That guy!" 

 

It's the ratatouille of books, a series focused on their impeccable knife work and discipline and insodoing it achieves characters and stories that are imprinted permanently on my memory. These people were rendered so precisely and with so much care and finesse that I think of them constantly. I think of the characters who were with me for thousands of pages. I think of the ones who weren't and whom I wished had lasted even a hundred pages more. 

 

What stunning work. Much like the iconic ship the Rocinante, you can accomplish a whole lot with a work horse. 

Comments

[mutterwingwhirr]

that's something i love about the expanse, too-- the abject humanness of the series. the questions it asks, the scenes and settings it highlights. it all comes of a desire to be the characters at this place at this time, to note what things are bodily habit for those who regularly reside in space, and have had access to technologies we cannot even fathom with such regularity that they seem commonplace, and then wonder, "what would surprise so-and-so? what kind of decision would make them feel like this?"

[windjamm]

Yeah, absolutely! I guess that's another way to put it. I think we often talk about Writing Practices as an abstracted way to consider it from behind the page, but on the other side it's humanness, it's portraying people authentically and earnestly.

And these books really excel at that. They feel so alive and the places feel so lived in.