Down the well

Scalzi has a conversation with a Sameer Desai, a character who was exed out of the novel The Last Colony. Sameer was the lead character but after four chapters Scalzi pushed him down a well ...

John Scalzi: Tell the folks why you’re down there.

Sameer Desai: Hey, man, you’re the one who put me here. As far as I knew, I was doing everything right.

JS: And so you were, Sam. During those first four chapters, you were indeed doing everything right – you got yourself in trouble, you fled just ahead of some bad men, you had amusing cultural misunderstandings with your relatives, and you were appropriately confused when you found yourself hustled off to a colony. But there was one problem with you, Sam: I found that I didn’t actually like you.

SD: I figured this out when you pushed me down a well.

JS: I never said you weren’t smart. Just that I didn’t like you.

SD: But you wrote me.

JS: I know! And it was killing me! Here was this character, who I meant to be a charming, hustling rogue, and you came out… well, like a twit. An annoying, whiny twit. And the more I wrote you, the worse you got. After four chapters, you had to go.

SD: So you’re blaming me for your own deficiencies of character building. Brilliant.

Scalzi rocks at the writing game.