John Scalzi might be a great writer. I wouldn’t know. People tell me Old Man’s War and Fuzzy Nation are pretty awesome. I guess I’ll just have to take their word for it, because after reading this gutter sludge, I don’t think I’ll read another book by John Scalzi again.
So let’s roll up our sleeves and dive into the tank of fecal juices that is Redshirts.
“Ensign Andrew Dahl has just been assigned to the Universal Union Capital Ship Intrepid, flagship of the Universal Union since the year 2456. It’s a prestige posting, and Andrew is even more thrilled to be assigned to the ship’s xenobiology laboratory, with the chance to serve on “Away Missions” alongside the starship’s famous senior officers.
Life couldn’t be better . . . until Andrew begins to realize that
(1) every Away Mission involves some kind of lethal confrontation with alien forces,
(2) the ship’s captain, its chief science officer, and the handsome Lieutenant Kerensky always survive these confrontations, and
(3) sadly, at least one low-ranked crew member is invariably killed.
Unsurprisingly, the savvier members belowdecks avoid Away Missions at all costs. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is . . . and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.”
Let’s take a trip down the winding road that is my mind as I read this.
Oh! A Star Trek farce by John Scalzi. I’ve heard of this guy! He’s supposed to be really good from what I hear. Blah blah blah blah blah ship Intrepid blah blah Away Missions…. Lethal confrontation with alien forces. Blah blah always survive these encounters. And… low-ranked crew member is invariably killed.
Ok. That sounds interesting.
Blah blah blah…. Then Andrew stumbles on information that completely transforms his and his colleagues’ understanding of what the starship Intrepid really is . . .
Man I could really go for some chicken strips right about now.
…and offers them a crazy, high-risk chance to save their own lives.
Boy! I really hope this isn’t a book about a bunch of characters in a TV show who suddenly become self-aware.
There are some good blurbs.
Hey, it’s only $6! Heck yes!
Guess what. Guess. Go ahead, guess. I know you can do it. Guess.
I was right.
(*Friends, family, countrymen, I am warning you now. You can not stop the wrath of nerd-Hulk. Scroll past the next paragraph to escape the rampage.*)
If I can guess the entire plot to the whole book before I’ve even opened it, YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG!!! The only reason some ****-head put crap like this through is because it’s got John freakin’ Scalzi’s name attached to it! What kind of chips and dip**** would even put his name on this! John freakin’ Scalzi! That’s who. Sweet Cheez-its on a crab-cake! Where’s my Dr. Pepper?
Ok. ALL CLEAR!
I’m done. Sorry about that. To summarize, never go with the first idea that comes to mind. Think about your ideas for a while, let them stew, and eventually you’ll come up with something that’s maybe not wholly original but far less predictable than this story turned out to be. Given that, I think we know Quick (or not so quick) Fix #1.
Quick (NOT) Fix 1: Dig a Little Deeper
Alright, I’m not sure where the whole “there are no bad ideas” schtick came from, but… Really? You’re really serious about this. Are you absolutely sure that writing a story about TV show characters becoming self-aware isn’t a bad idea?
1) It’s cliche.
2) It’s lazy.
3) It doesn’t make sense.
So we’re gonna cut this one to the nub. No more TV-show-characters crap. We’re done with it. It’s gone. Instead we’re going to stay in-world/universe.
“A few years ago, before he was in charge of the Intrepid, the captain discovered something he shouldn’t have. The Union then promoted him from redshirt to captain of his own ship. They keep sending him and his crew on dangerous missions in the hopes that they might silence him without getting their hands dirty. He keeps throwing redshirts in the line of fire to save his own skin and those of his senior officers. Then this Andrew guy shows up, AND… shenanigans ensue.”
Ok. I know we can poke holes in this, but the point is, I’d rather hear a story about that than the crap I ended up reading. Let’s take this concept a little further. I want to make everything that was written on the back cover (see above, before I started ranting) occur within the first quarter to fifth of the book. During that time we’re building setting aboard the Intrepid and in the world as a whole while providing a status quo for our characters. Andrew soon realizes something is wrong and charges the captain with gross incompetence. Andrew and his fellow redshirts take over the ship. He becomes acting captain and begins to learn the responsibilities and weight of command.
As a cool benefit to this, you can keep the captain around to act as a source of direct conflict, in a sense a Saruman to the Union’s Sauron. Also he can be a devil on Andrew’s shoulder, always questioning his judgment and feeding off his uncertainty (Gollum, as long as we’re using LOTR analogies).
Quick Fix 2: Horse Before the Cart
One of the things I’ve realized about Twilight, may it burn in hell forever, is that there is no evidence to support the backstories we’re told. There is nothing in all four books to indicate that any character is who their backstory says they are. Scalzi’s Redshirts falls to this sin as well. Basically we get a backstory to explain who a character will be before we actually know them. Huge no-no. The evidence– a character’s actions, words, and personality– must come before the backstory. To put it another way, a backstory explains why a character acts, thinks, or speaks the way they do. In Twilight, may it burn in hell forever, as in this we get a backstory without any prior evidence to corroborate it. In fact Redshirts has an entire scene in which every hero’s backstory is told before we even meet them. I believe it’s within the first ten to fifteen pages of the story. It reads like a military briefing. What the hell?! This is not character building. This is so far beyond lazy writing. It’s– It’s– *nerd-Hulk*
Gah! Son of a banana-slug eating weregoat and a tango dancing Dalek! My niece can tell better stories than this, and she’s four. What in earth, heaven, and hell makes Scalzi think that this constitutes character development?! Somebody took Stephanie Meyer’s creative writing class.
I think it’s passed now. On to number three!
Quick Fix 3: One of Us… One of Us… One of–
Let’s talk about this protagonist Scalzi’s saddled us with. Andrew. Andy. Mandy pandy Andy. Andy the pansy. Handy Andy. Okay. That’s enough of that.
Andrew joined a monastery. He spent more than a few years there as a monk before joining the Intrepid. Now when I first heard this I thought, “Oh, that’ll make for an interesting character.”
It doesn’t. He talks just like everybody else in this series. Every character’s voice sounds exactly the same. In other words if you forget which name goes with which face, you’re screwed. But lucky for you, Scalzi tags every single line of dialogue with “____ said”. No beats. No free dialogue, because every single character talks exactly like every other character. If he didn’t use “____ said”, there’s no possible way you could tell who was talking.
Alright. Challenge time.
Watch the Avengers. See? It wasn’t difficult or painful. It’s an awesome movie, right. Well maybe not “watch” per se. Play the movie with your eyes closed, either that or read the script if at all possible. Can you tell who’s talking? It’s likely. This is why I’m a devout Whedonite. All hail Lord Whedon, may he live forever.
And that’s one of the biggest problems with Redshirts. Scalzi goes so far to prove that these otherwise dispensable characters are three-dimensional that the entire book falls flat on its face when no character is distinguishable from any other be it by words or actions. They are faceless redshirts. Simply put, if Andy is a preacher, as the story claims he is, he needs to talk like a preacher. That goes for every character. They need to be affected (I hope I used it right this time.) in some way, in any way, by the backstory you’ve given them whether you decide to share that with your audience of not. And that effect needs to be apparent in the way they talk. Scalzi needs to take a page out of Joss Whedon’s, may he live forever, book.
Uno:
Don’t settle for the first idea you have. Think on it. In this case we’re going for something in-world and doing away with the TV characters come to life plot. Because, if for no other reason, it’s been played out.
Dos:
A character’s personality comes first then the backstory. I should not have to say this.
Tres:
Make the characters distinct, especially by their words. Your audience should be able to tell who is speaking without you tagging it every time.
–What really pisses me off is the soapbox John Scalzi keeps going on about. He prattles on and on about how writers are becoming lazy and simply kill off characters to raise the stakes and build tension. Really John Scalzi? Really?! WE’RE lazy? GAH!!!
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