Story Every Day – Day 12
In my second semester of college, I took an International Human Rights class. That was a huge mistake, as I was in way over my head. But I liked the teacher, and really learned a lot throughout the course. Something we talked about quite a bit were NGOs, Non Governmental Organizations. These are the people who go in and actually get things done when some disaster strikes a country or something. One particular set of NGOs we looked at were human rights groups that embed someone in a fascist state with a likely political target. The idea is that having a foreign observer there, preferably with a camera, will be enough to deter the authorities from disappearing the target. I’m totally blanking on the names of these organizations at the moment.
This always seemed like a concept rife with story ideas. Why hasn’t anyone ever made a movie about this? So it’s always been an idea hanging out at the back of my mind. Of course, I’m an completely unqualified to write it using any sort of real places/politics, so I put it in space. Luckily, I think science fiction is versatile enough to handle it. No aliens, though, I would want to keep this as grounded and gritty as possible.
I really like this beginning, so I hope to expand this at some point. Just over 500 words. Continue reading
