On fiction: the "Rendezvous with NECA" project: in the beginning there was fan fiction

So ok, I'm a Prometheus fan. It's a guilty pleasure and beyond that I make no apologies. But I do sometimes find inspiration in negative opinions of the film. By far the most inspiring was a poster going by the netname "Jules" over at RPGMP3 forum. In this thread he (I assume he) opines that if Ridley Scott wanted an original SF series about heady questions, he should have just adapted some story from Arthur C. Clarke. (He suggested Rendezvous with Rama)

Seeing that post made wheels turn in my brain. What if, I thought, I'd use those NECA action figures for Prometheus, Robot Chicken style, to do a stop motion adaptation of Clarke's Rama? Of course I'd have to squeeze the cast of the novel into something that fits on the NECA lineup, maybe make some changes to the script, but all in all it would be an interesting project.

And, let's be real, totally impossible. I do not have the time, resources, nor skill to pull something like that off. Not by a longshot. But I still thought, eh, whatever, let's pretend. Let's say I'd write a script-fic, which would be the shooting script of that impossible project. Could be done. Could be fun.

So then, (more or less) the plot of Rendezvous with Rama, with the characters from Prometheus. But as I started to think about it, the thing diverged a little. Then diverged more and more from its inspirations. And then one day I decided to join Brandon Sanderson's online writing course. One of the requirements is to write a novella- anyway, something in the 30k-50k word range. And that straw broke the camel's back: I decided to use this idea for an original fiction piece, which I'd use for the course.

Over the next couple of months I'll be blogging progress on this project, the course, the reviews I get there and over at Critique Circle. Beginning today, with basic setup (this post kinda doesn't count).

Still need a better title though.


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