Waterclap

"Waterclap" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. The story was written at the request of a movie company and was intended to serve as the basis of a film treatment. The author did not want to do the story, and only met with the studio representative as a favor to his publisher, which had already accepted an advance payment for it. When the representative outlined the plot and characters, Asimov knew he could not write such a story, but did not want to refuse at a dinner the film studio was paying for. The draft he wrote did not follow the requested approach. The story was rejected by the studio, and the advance returned at Asimov's request. A later draft was published in the April 1970 issue of If and was reprinted in the 1976 collection The Bicentennial Man and Other Stories.