Writing as a LitCritter

Since one of the advocacies of the LitCritters is Speculative Fiction, we are occasionally forced to think about our poetics and how they are reflected in our body of work. Having been writing for a while now -- not as long as some other authors, but enough to get out of the "writing for writing's sake" phase -- there are some questions that buzz around in our heads when working on the latest story.

Dean's most recent core LitCritter lecture listed some of these questions. They are:

1. Why write this story?
2. Why write this type of story?
3. Why write this story now?
4. Why write this story in this way?
5. How does writing this story challenge you as a writer? How does writing this story improve you as a writer?
6. How is the completed story an expression of your poetics as a speculative fictionist? How is the completed story an expression of your poetics as a filipino?
7. Why bother?

 A lot of these questions stem from the realization that our completed stories (which will hopefully be published and hopefully be read) are the only possible physical manifestation of our writerly poetics.

Existents: Naming things

Aside from naming people, I tend to want to find slick / common use names for things in the fantasy or science fiction short stories I write.

The logic behind this is that:

• folks who have to use certain terms on a daily basis will probably find ways to shorten the names for things and still remain clear (hence acronyms and other devices);
• a different time and place will have a different set of terms and criteria for what is cool or interesting or funny or acceptable.

The former comes from my experience in the computer industry and business, while the latter comes from the subcultures of geekdom AND being from the Philippines (where people think it's funny to name your kid Edgar Allen Pe, or name a store "Cooking Ng Ina Mo").