(no subject)

What follows after the cut-tag is a sample of my writing. But first, the story of it's creation and an explanation.

When the D20 Star Wars RPG was released by Wizards of the Coast, they came up with a clever ad campaign: Most had a picture from Episode 1 (there were several of these), with a circle around a background character with a line heading from it to the phrase "What's this guy's story?" Another had a picture of the shuttle Tydirium sitting in an Imperial docking bay surrounded by Stormtroopers. The caption read "Before Han and Chewbacca could fly it, someone had to steal it."

Another gimmick they came up with, related to that, was the "What's this guy's story?" fiction contest. They posted four photos from the ad campaign, with a person circled in each one. Contestants were to pick a picture and then write a 500 word story about that person and send it in.

I couldn't resist, I picked one -- a picture from the scene in the Senate chambers on Coruscant, with the circled character so small you couldn't even actually see him/her/it. I wrote it in about an hour, editted it and futzed with it to stay within the 500 word limit, and sent it off -- and it was never seen again.

See, Wizards never actually did anything with the stories, and the contest just disappeared. No one has won, the contest page was never updated, and queries to the WoTC offices resulted in echoing silence. It's been two years.

So, since it will never have a chance of winning now, I present you with the story that has no title:

( A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away . . . )