Month: September 2007

I've been meaning to mention this for a while now, but I've managed to put it off spectacularly. Tin wrote a post on the Read or Die blog detailing the literary events booked for the rest of September. There are still quite a few exciting activities up, so do take a look! In the meantime, wow - so many new posts about Philippine spec fic! But well, we're in that phase where we could always use more, I think. Off to update the list!

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I've wanted to write a follow-up to my post, but it wasn't until I read Sean's post that the words came to me.When I was younger, I resented being told what I had to write. Come to think of it, I still do :D But after getting used to writing on demand, I've come to appreciate the need to adhere to certain conventions. If you're out to write something in particular, respect the rules and respect your audience. If you aren't out to write something in particular, then don't force the rules to conform to your output, saying your work falls under a certain category when it doesn't. Above all else, I've come to appreciate the need to take responsibility for what I write. Just to emphasize: I'm not telling anybody to write - or NOT to write - anything in particular. I'm just asking people to not call what they write "Filipino" if it so obviously isn't. ...Unless, of course, their definition of a "Filipino story" is similar to how it could be easily defined by an editor or a publisher - anything written by someone who positively identifies him/herself as a Filipino, whether or not s/he lives on Philippine soil. Then I'd rather they said that, instead of try to defend their right to write whatever they wanted. As a writer myself, I am certainly not arguing that point. To be honest, I personally don't write a lot of fiction that I'd call "Filipino." I mostly write in English, and I mostly write non-Filipino stories. Even when a story occurs to me in Filipino, I'm tempted to write it in English - and I admit, it's because my audience speaks and writes English. I estimate that 90% of the people I know online are native English speakers, and/or are multilingual or at least bilingual. When I read the work of the writers I admire online, I realize they don't write with any reference to their nationality as authors, and that lack of concern is what influences me. It's easier and more in my nature not to consider ethnicity relevant when I write. I don't apologize for that, and I don't expect anyone to. Also, I reserve the right to write in Filipino, or to write speculative fiction relevant to the Philippines, if I wish. When I write in Filipino, I have to be prepared not to be read, and that's fine - if a story comes to me as Filipino, I can't be bothered to translate it into English just for the sake of social responsibility or whatnot. However, I would be uncomfortable with anyone attaching the term "Filipino" to all the things I write, just because I am a Filipino writer. Everyone else is free to do so if they wish, of course, but I wouldn't support it. I am proud of my fellow Filipinos when they accomplish things, but if they themselves do not wish for their stories to be identified with the Filipino culture, then it's fine! I'm not invoking the age-old social realist guilt trip that says everything you do or say has to have Filipino references. But there is a need to define what Filipino speculative fiction is, and that's what I responded to. I'm not saying I don't think you are Filipino; I'm just saying I don't think your story is. I imagine publishers and writers would have their own concerns about how to label something "Filipino." As for myself, I realize that running a blog called Philippine Speculative Fiction, it may seem like I have double standards for what I would call a "Filipino spec fic." However, when I'm promoting on this blog, I mean to say "this is the fiction that Filipinos write." I don't mean to say "all this fiction is Filipino in nature." I encourage any and all fiction written by Filipinos, even those who aren't keen on identifying themselves as "Filipino writers." This is still my stance as a writer and as someone who maintains a blog about Philippine speculative fiction.

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You know what, I'm finding it interesting that this discussion is bringing some things to light. Apparently, there are some Filipino writers who believe that speculative fiction is a refuge from any sort of pressure - that speculative fiction shouldn't be restrained by sub-classifications. It just seems kind of moot to me, since most spec fic writers define their own works by genre or subgenre - saying things like "well, this is an interstitial story" or "I was shooting for a bit of detective noir relayed with a Japanese minimalistic touch."And there are those who believe that people should set aside nationality when they're writing speculative fiction. I find that especially intriguing. So does this mean you believe that the "speculative fiction" genre discourages ethnicity? Or that works that have ethnic flavor are automatically inferior to those that don't? Does including Filipino elements in a story automatically limit your imagination? Do you think "Filipino speculative fiction" is an invalid classification? Doesn't it deserve to exist? Or would you have other ways to define it? I'd like to know.

[edit: I'll be compiling other discussions on the nature of Philippine speculative fiction here. If I've missed a post, do drop me a line so I can include it. Please read and join in! Dean Alfar: Thinking Towards Philippine Speculative Fiction 1, 2, and 3 Kenneth Yu: The Continuing Conundrum Charles Tan: Does One Need to Use Filipino to Write Filipino Fiction? Banzai Cat: Of Conceits and Agendas | The Plot Thickens... Like Dinuguan Tin Mandigma: Speculating about Filipino speculative fiction] PS: Wordpress is giving me a headache whenever I edit, so I won't be updating this post with new links anymore. Kenneth has a great post compiling all the links on this subject, though. Head on over!

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I do wonder why certain people are so eager to tell the world that their work is "Filipino" in nature, just because they're Filipino. I don't think it's all that fair to say you're making a Filipino speculative story even if you're Filipino, if your story isn't about the Philippines or about Filipinos.I guess that not being of mixed blood or an international heritage, I'm in a position to see this as very black-and-white. But just this once, just for this particular issue, I don't see how that could be disadvantageous. (more…)

Mia has written an insightful essay about treating science with respect over at the Read or Die blog. If I remember correctly, Mia has substantial academic background in physics, and it's refreshing to hear someone who is both a scientist and a talented artist talking about how to present scientific concepts to laymen, with the intention of helping them become more interested in science as a whole. How one presents science in one's writing is especially interesting to me, because science fiction is quite possibly my favorite literary genre. In case I haven't mentioned it on this blog yet, science fiction has a special place in my heart, mainly because it translates hard-to-understand concepts into stories, familiar things that evoke all of emotion, curiosity and imagination. I'm not saying I am good at writing science fiction or that I aspire to become an authority in it, but I especially admire people who are able to achieve that delicate balance between pedagogy and lyricism. Just to be clear, I'm not fussy about my science fiction. I appreciate both "hard" (e.g. Isaac Asimov, Arthur Clarke, Carl Sagan) science fiction and "soft" science fiction (e.g. Ursula le Guin, Theodore Sturgeon, Frank Herbert), and I never find it easy to compare one arm of SF to the other. (Incidentally! I learned just recently that my definitions of "hard scifi" and "soft scifi" may differ from everyone else's - I grew up thinking "hard SF" is fiction that deals with cool hard technical stuff, such as medicine, astrophysics or robotics, while "soft SF" is fiction that deals with the "soft" sciences, such as linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and the like. I realized this when I was listening to Alex Osias define "hard scifi" and "soft scifi" at the LitCritters panel discussion during this year's Manila Book Fair, but I didn't have the confidence to try and discuss it with him at the time...) Whatever the definition, I've long decided that "hard" and "soft" scifi fascinate me in different ways. There really is no comparison. However, "literariness" is a constant criterion. You may have a character recite complicated formulae that read like a phone book - but if the story wrapped around this character, the way this character speaks, the drama that unfolds, are all engaging, then as far as I'm concerned, you've assured yourself an audience. I shall read your phone book, and I shall enjoy it! On the other hand, you may have a more-fantastic-than-anything futuristic setting, with highly technical notions like genetics and interspecies cell grafting haphazardly tossed about, but if I am fascinated with your central character and the world he/she/it operates in, it's not likely that I'll nitpick. I don't really see the difference between scientific academics spouting jargon about the anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background, and literary academics arguing the nature and function of postmodernism to death. Both types scare away poor timid layfolk (like myself) from liking something enough to indulge in it. Along this vein, I don't see the difference between science fiction writers who go on and on about the scientific concepts they have adopted, and non-science fiction writers who go on and on about the metaphysical value of their work, the characters' motivations, the irrelevant and extremely detailed histories of the dramatis personae, within the text! Sometimes they get away with it, but for the most part they irritate me equally. Of course, I'm not holding the academics at fault - if they are able to make the best of their education, and if they have the skill to present their ideas in an organized, scholarly fashion, I think that's admirable too. It's just - it takes talent to weave the didactism into a good story, and most times it's not even necessary. I myself am frequently tempted to go on and on about speculative concepts I find especially fascinating... but if I'm going to sound like a pompous self-important ass while doing it, rest assured I'll make a serious effort to weed out the ego from my fiction and reserve it for my blog. Unless, of course, the character I'm using as a vessel for the elaboration demands the extra infusion of ego. As Mia had said: if you've got your heart set on involving science in your text, you have to respect it. On the other hand, you also have to respect your reader. Don't treat the reader like an idiot, and don't treat your story like a soapbox. There's a time and place for all of that, if you really must do it, but it is usually NOT the text. I can understand if it's hard to strike a balance. "Hard" scifi buffs may criticize a certain story for not exploring the scientific concepts enough, while "soft" scifi buffs may criticize this same story for having a single awkward paragraph dedicated to explaining the new world's operative logic systems. But those who can find where that elusive middle ground is, I worship - because those are the writers who get me interested not only in the possibilities that they paint, but also in the many different processes by which those possibilities can be achieved. They get me interested enough in highly technical concepts to read up on them. They get me rereading their stories and feeling like my heart is being wrenched out of my thoracic cavity every time. They get me wondering.