Completing an old story: In Darkness, The Rose!
Posted: Sat Oct 18, 2008 9:19 am'Lo folks 
For some here, a little background is in order.
Here on the Freeware Screenshots forum, people often enjoy fleshing out their pictures with a fictional storyline and some of them are bloody damn good. Some of the best take the opposite approach - writing the story and taking the pictures to illustrate.
Two years ago; I thought I would as well. I began what started as a simple little story but - since stories have a life all their own - this one grew beyond my control; evolving rapidly into a full-blown novella; far more complex than any other writing I've done. It stretched my writing abilities to the max. Note - my 'official' writing is entirely non-fiction; information texts, articles and the like. While not being my first foray into science fiction; this is the first one I can consider successful.
The story was called 'In Darkness, The Rose' and as the title suggest, it's pretty dark.
Set in the medium-to-far future; in recounts the tale of a freighter crew being hired for a mercy mission; and the events which follow.
The ship used is a Firefly; from the magnificent television series, but it's neither set in the Firefly universe nor contains any of the characters. I used the ship before I'd ever seen Firefly or Serenity; I was chief test pilot for the Orbiter Firefly cargo project and fell in love with the ungainly-looking machine. I wrote the story; and after watching the series and film was astonished at how similar some aspects of the storyline are. It seems that the shape of the vessel alone conjures up some pretty specific ideas - much like the venerable Millenium Falcon does. It's a ship whose design clearly indicates its purpose within the arc of the story.
At any rate; the story was never finished. Right at the climax; I had a terrible real-life experience which dropped me off the Internet completely - and I never got it back until last month.
To say I was astonished upon getting my E-mail back would be an understatement - in the two years I was gone I'd recieved no less than three hundred (and change) E-mails, IM's and other requests for the rest of the story from all over the Internet - apparently a lot of people had linked to it. I promised, upon return to SimV, that I'd finish it when I got the chance.
Well; part of the problem is that the original story was buried - long gone. I'd never be able to write it all out again, to say nothing of retaking and editing all the pictures.
Or so I thought. I started digging; trying to see if I could find the original story. After a great deal of searching, a few hours ago I found it on an Orbiter fan's blog; along with URLs - the old ones no longer worked.
The odd thing is that even considering all the bad things that have happened to me in the past couple of years, never finishing the story really bugged me. I don't like leaving a job undone, and it rankled that I never managed to write the last couple of chapters - that's all that was left. Now that I have the opportunity, I intend to correct that.
So here it is again; since so many people asked. And THIS time, it's (almost) finished.
For some here, a little background is in order.
Here on the Freeware Screenshots forum, people often enjoy fleshing out their pictures with a fictional storyline and some of them are bloody damn good. Some of the best take the opposite approach - writing the story and taking the pictures to illustrate.
Two years ago; I thought I would as well. I began what started as a simple little story but - since stories have a life all their own - this one grew beyond my control; evolving rapidly into a full-blown novella; far more complex than any other writing I've done. It stretched my writing abilities to the max. Note - my 'official' writing is entirely non-fiction; information texts, articles and the like. While not being my first foray into science fiction; this is the first one I can consider successful.
The story was called 'In Darkness, The Rose' and as the title suggest, it's pretty dark.
Set in the medium-to-far future; in recounts the tale of a freighter crew being hired for a mercy mission; and the events which follow.
The ship used is a Firefly; from the magnificent television series, but it's neither set in the Firefly universe nor contains any of the characters. I used the ship before I'd ever seen Firefly or Serenity; I was chief test pilot for the Orbiter Firefly cargo project and fell in love with the ungainly-looking machine. I wrote the story; and after watching the series and film was astonished at how similar some aspects of the storyline are. It seems that the shape of the vessel alone conjures up some pretty specific ideas - much like the venerable Millenium Falcon does. It's a ship whose design clearly indicates its purpose within the arc of the story.
At any rate; the story was never finished. Right at the climax; I had a terrible real-life experience which dropped me off the Internet completely - and I never got it back until last month.
To say I was astonished upon getting my E-mail back would be an understatement - in the two years I was gone I'd recieved no less than three hundred (and change) E-mails, IM's and other requests for the rest of the story from all over the Internet - apparently a lot of people had linked to it. I promised, upon return to SimV, that I'd finish it when I got the chance.
Well; part of the problem is that the original story was buried - long gone. I'd never be able to write it all out again, to say nothing of retaking and editing all the pictures.
Or so I thought. I started digging; trying to see if I could find the original story. After a great deal of searching, a few hours ago I found it on an Orbiter fan's blog; along with URLs - the old ones no longer worked.
The odd thing is that even considering all the bad things that have happened to me in the past couple of years, never finishing the story really bugged me. I don't like leaving a job undone, and it rankled that I never managed to write the last couple of chapters - that's all that was left. Now that I have the opportunity, I intend to correct that.
So here it is again; since so many people asked. And THIS time, it's (almost) finished.
