One of my Hollywood Parables is M. Night Shamalyan. He used to mention to screenwriters, by way of inspiration, that it had taken seven drafts of Sixth Sense before he knew Bruce Willis was dead. I follow this up by pointing out that it was the last time M. Night Shamalyan was required to write seven drafts of anything, let alone anything after the seventh draft, which is why he mostly makes dreck like "The Happening" and "Lady in the Water." It also applies to Kevin Smith - once he made Dogma he no longer had to hear "no" from anyone so he surrounded himself with people who only said "yes." It took him from being the guy who kept Jason Mewes alive to being the guy who nearly died by imitating Jason Mewes.

Andy Weir released The Martian a chapter at a time after spending two years honing it. Each chapter he could see what worked and what didn't. He could see what people liked and what they hated. And he never worked that way again.

The Cold Equations is a short story about pathos that blames physics (or more specifically, engineering) for the plight of its protagonists. It is written by someone with no understanding of physics or engineeringl. Kaleidoscope is the exact same short story (5 years earlier but who's counting) that doesn't need any blame. They teach Cold Equations in English class because Kaleidoscope is too expensive to license; it's a Ray Bradbury. Ray Bradbury had the confidence to know that tragedy fucking happens you don't need to fumblefuck your way through a Rube Goldberg machine to justify it.

Andy Weir is here for the Rube Goldberg machine. What's that quote?

Despite Wright's orations to the contrary, I came to the conclusion that he was not genuinely interested in the theatre. He certainly knew next to nothing about it. Yet he loved it, as a child loves posies without knowing how to make them grow.

Andy Weir loves science like a child loves posies.