Selonge the Writer

Currently, the focus is on Selonge Naita, a character who writes her own story in first-person.  But unlike many first-person narratives in science fiction, Selonge's story is a past-tense reflection on her past, which creates unique challenges in the writing.  She's looking back as she writes, so she already knows what's gonna happen - you'll get snippets of that as we go, places where she admits "I didn't know it then, but..."  As a writer, though, I have to withhold some key pieces of information to maintain the tension in the story.  And this makes things interesting.  Especially since Selonge uses some rather "colorful" language when she talks.  (Warning: f-word approaching!)



At the moment, I think most of the stories will be written in Selonge's voice - even those stories where she isn't present as a character.  In these stories, the machines will be providing her with information about events outside her awareness, and then asking her to write a "best guess" about what happened.  Or as Selonge would say:

They wanted me to make a story out of the data.  Machines are limited, after all - they didn't evolve the way we did.  They aren't hardwired for living and fucking.  Instead, they wanted me to be their goddamn tour guide to human psychology - as if I could go in and read the minds of people I barely knew.

I should have said no.  I should have told them it was an impossible goal, that there simply wasn't enough information to write a "true" story about all the shit that happened when I wasn't there.  But honestly, that wasn't the real reason to refuse.  No - I should have left the machines to flail on their own.  Let them muddle through this crap.  Let them figure out the human psyche.  More importantly: let them get it wrong.

But Selonge doesn't refuse.  She can't.  Despite everything, she's a writer.  The compulsion to words drives her.  And that, I'm afraid, is something I can relate to.