John Matsui asked Andy Weir:

Hi Andy, Absolutely loved the Martian. What was your inspiration was for your MC Mark Watney, a botanist of all things? Great character. Very believable and knockout details, credibility.

Andy Weir The story would be really boring if it were told in a dry omniscient form. Plus, with Mark alone on Mars, there'd be no dialog. So I went with log entries and made him a smart-ass. That make the massive amounts of exposition easy to digest.

Also, I made him very optimistic and "can-do" because the alternative would be a dark, depressing story about loneliness and hopelessness. That's just not the story I wanted to tell.

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