Fiction Contest Coming soon, now here is some advice...

Hello players of Heroes Rising. You may not know this, but outside of this game I am a bestselling author of Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and even Superhero fiction. (Yes, books, not comic books.) I have been writing books since the ninth grade which is....a lot of years. I have been professionally published since 2008 and have many books out and more coming. (In fact, at this very moment I am finalizing edits for my next release due this Christmas and am working on writing another novel to add to my growing pile of to-be-published works...my publisher has his hands full with me.)

This is not said to boast about my fantastic, glorious accomplishments and awards and ...ahem...what was I saying? Right, this isn't about what I have done, but to offer advice. Coming soon, very soon in fact, will be the announcement of the next fiction contest. I loved the last one, lots of imagination. I want to help the players who might want to write a short fiction for the contest but might feel unworthy. Here is the short answer, you are not unworthy. All fiction counts. You don't have to be a bestselling author, game designer, or a journalist, you simply need the desire to write a story and that is all. That is all any writer ever started with. Tell me your story.

Now, here are some helpful tips that might provide aid. This advice isn't about how to win the contest; this is just help for writing from a long time writer.

• Some players feel that they can't do this because they can't write a good story. Don't fret about that, just sit down and write. Some of the best entries I read were no longer than two paragraphs and they weren't exactly Charles Dickens, but I loved their story nonetheless. So, here is the advice I probably say the most to amateurs authors at book signings; sit, stay, write. Put your words down on paper, or computer, or even typewriter. It doesn't have to be golden prose the first time you write it, but it does have to be written.                                                               
• I have had at least two players contact me and ask about editing concerns. They are afraid to enter because they are worried that their writing will have errors in it. Again, not a concern. Unless the errors are so bad that I cannot tell what is written, which did not happen during the last contest, errors are okay. However, if you really want a little extra help, try Grammarly.com It is a basic tool that you can use the free part of it to help with a little editing. You don't need to pay for it, though you can if you really want to but I'd recommend against that personally.                 
• Writing short fiction is fun and sometimes challenging. One element that came up in a lot of the entries last time was "continuation". The stories were merely continuations of the already posted bio-fan fictions written by the players. This isn't wrong and they were great. However, for new contributors and even some of the previous contributors, isolate the short fiction so that it reads alone. Use your character and go ahead and give a link to the bio you wrote on the forum so people can read about their past. However, write with the idea that the story you are writing has it's starting place right there at the beginning, not in a previous chapter. End the story with a conclusion, not with the idea that more needs to be read to finish. Keep your entry in a bubble. I want to say that if you choose to use the continuation idea for your story it won't change how I grade the story for the contest, it can be just as awesome. But, consider this suggestion.               
• Bonus Advice: A common element of good short fiction across most genre starts with the action. You don't need to give me the backstory of every character, build the world, and describe all that lead up to the moment, start with the action. Jump right to the action and let the story flow from there. Think of Star Wars: A New Hope. The movie starts with a huge starship trying to blow the crap out of a small starship. We get a little info from the crawl, but we don't know much and are thrust right into the thick of it. For these stories, the crawl would just explain the world of Heroes Rising, which we already know, so start with the two fighting starships and let the story tell itself from there.                                                                                                                                                                                                                
• Final point: This is to have fun. The prizes are cool, the event exciting, but the point is to have fun. That is the point of this whole game. I want you to participate, be a part of the group, tell your stories, read other stories, cheer each other on. If you see someones story that is simply amazing, tell them. We are all winners in this...some will win a little more, but the fact is no one really loses. 

I hope this helped you to decide to enter this contest and perhaps even write more after it to add to the fiction forum. I look forward to the entries of this contest and am excited to announce it this coming Monday.