Aviseras
01-05-2011, 07:43 PM
Status: Currently Still Drafting and adding content. Lots of useful info here already if you're looking for help.
How to Create a Hero Guide that Players Will Read and Use
Overview:
The purpose of this guide is to help you create a useful Hero guide. There is a lot more to it than just writing. Once you understand the fundamentals, all it takes is time and effort. This is a relatively long guide, so reading it in parts may aid understanding.
This guide is aimed at newer writers, but experienced writers will find useful bits as well. A lot of the elements are for guides in general, but I will go into specifics for Hero guides. Enjoy!
Table of Contents (The Steps)
1X. Brainstorm
2X. Draft
3X. Review & Edit
4X. Format & Publish
5X. Maintain & Promote
6X. Summary
1X. Brainstorm
"I want to create a Hero guide! Where do I start?"
Before you start creating your guide, you need to answer the follow questions:
1. Why are you creating this guide?
Are you really interested in a new hero, but there are no guides out? Do you love a certain hero and feel you could create an improved or unique guide compared to what exists? Have you written a lot about a certain Hero in the forums and want to put it all together for the community? Whatever the case, the most important thing is that you WANT to write the guide. If you aren't genuinely interested in what you're doing, it will show in the end product.
2. Who are you creating this guide for? (Who is your target audience?)
Are you creating a high-level, competitive guide? Do you want to create a pub-stomp guide for 1400-1600 games? What players will find this useful and actually use it? If you don't first decide who your audience is, you probably won't have an audience when you're done.
3. How much do you honestly know about HoN and this Hero?
Are you an expert? Are you informed? Are you clueless? You need to be very honest with yourself here. If you're just writing a fun guide aimed at low ranked players, then go ahead and get started! However, anything more and you'll probably need to do some research. If you don't know the answer, FIND IT!
Although answering these questions is the fastest part of guide creation, it is also one of the most important. Write your answers down and keep them nearby!
I also highly recommend reading through some premium guides for other Heroes and bookmarking ones you liked for content or presentation. You can reference these later if you're ever stuck.
2X. Draft
"I know why I'm creating this guide. I know my target audience. I have done a lot of research and plan on doing more while writing. What now?"
Make an Outline! Here are some key elements your Hero guide should have:
A Title
General Hero Information
Target Audience
Patch Version that your Guide is up to date for
Skills Information + Skillbuild
Item Build
Tips and Tricks
Allies (for comboing)
Enemies (watch out for these guys!)
(Optional)Item Justifications/Bad Item Explanations
(Optional)Replays
(Optional)Revision History
(Optional)Frequently Asked Questions
Staying organized will save you a lot of time and energy!
Outline done? Start writing your content. Don't try to make it perfect the first time, just start writing. Have fun with it! You can jump around between sections and leave yourself notes for when you come back later. Don't worry about length. If you end up with a five page long draft, that is completely OK.
3X. Review & Edit
"I finished writing my Draft! This is really long though... nobody would have the time to read all this. What now?"
Now, you edit. Take your time. Take at least a couple of days. I'll share with you my personal method for editing:
First, I read through the Draft to refresh my memory. Then, I go through sentence by sentence and ask myself the following questions:
"Does this add something new to the guide?"
"Does the guide NEED this?"
If NO for either, I delete it.
For the sentences left, I rewrite them as short as possible while still being clear. Try to cut the length of your guide in half each time you edit. Eventually, you'll end up with something still very YOU, but way shorter.
4X. Format & Publish
"I have a super concise and sexy Hero guide! It's just a bunch of text sitting on my computer though. What now?"
Formatting is arguably the hardest and longest part, but extremely important. You will probably revisit this step the most since, unlike your written content, there is no "simple" answer. The following are not steps, but instead components of Formatting for the HoN forums.
1. Gather your Images!
Your guide needs lots of pictures. Meaningful pictures, but lots of them. The Hero Portrait, Skill Icons, Item Icons, Diagrams, etc are all very important for making your guide attractive and useful. Go through your sections and ask, "Would a picture here be useful and add to the user's experience?" If so, get a picture!
2. Format your Text!
When making a Forum post, you'll see the option "Go Advanced." Inside this new view, you'll find a huge number of options and tools for adjusting links, images, text color, text size, and much much more. All these tools are the subject of another guide entirely, but a lot of it is very similar to Microsoft Word. Put the content you want changed in between the two bracketed commands. You can put multiple bracket effects on a line of text and even insert them mid sentence like this.
3. Shape your Shape!
This comes down to taste. Some people like having everything flush left. I like mixing up centers with lefts. Whatever the case, make sure everything is spaced and lined up in a natural and easy to read manner.
Once everything is to your liking, post your guide!
5X. Maintain & Promote
"I posted my guide! What now?"
A lot of people make the mistake of creating a guide and then.... nothing. To have a successful guide you need to promote and maintain it.
Maintain
If you really care about your guide, make sure to update it for every patch version that comes out. Even if there were no changes to your hero in the most recent patch, just puting "Updated for __" will let players know that you're giving them up-to-date information. Do not lie about how current your guide is, as this is a great way to get it removed from the forums altogether. Respond to questions you get in a timely fashion, and be sure to thank people if they help you out!
Promote
Although you'll get a certain amount of natural traffic from players just browsing the "Guides" section, you'll get a lot more views and feedback if you start promoting your Guide. I highly recommend putting a link to your guide in your own signature and then start getting active on the forums. DO NOT SPAM. Instead, here are some ideas of ways to contribute to the community AND efficiently promote your guide at the same time:
Get involved with your Hero's Balance Discussion thread
Reply to people in Training Grounds
Give feedback on other Guides
Post some good Replays in the Replay section
You don't need to tell anyone to check out your Guide since every contributing post will end with a "Click here for my guide to ____" in your signature!
6X. Summary
Write a guide for something you are very interested in and have/will find the best information for. Work in small parts and look to consistently improve your guide, even once it's published. Stay active and you'll receive a lot of new ideas and thanks from other players. Now, get writing!
How to Create a Hero Guide that Players Will Read and Use
Overview:
The purpose of this guide is to help you create a useful Hero guide. There is a lot more to it than just writing. Once you understand the fundamentals, all it takes is time and effort. This is a relatively long guide, so reading it in parts may aid understanding.
This guide is aimed at newer writers, but experienced writers will find useful bits as well. A lot of the elements are for guides in general, but I will go into specifics for Hero guides. Enjoy!
Table of Contents (The Steps)
1X. Brainstorm
2X. Draft
3X. Review & Edit
4X. Format & Publish
5X. Maintain & Promote
6X. Summary
1X. Brainstorm
"I want to create a Hero guide! Where do I start?"
Before you start creating your guide, you need to answer the follow questions:
1. Why are you creating this guide?
Are you really interested in a new hero, but there are no guides out? Do you love a certain hero and feel you could create an improved or unique guide compared to what exists? Have you written a lot about a certain Hero in the forums and want to put it all together for the community? Whatever the case, the most important thing is that you WANT to write the guide. If you aren't genuinely interested in what you're doing, it will show in the end product.
2. Who are you creating this guide for? (Who is your target audience?)
Are you creating a high-level, competitive guide? Do you want to create a pub-stomp guide for 1400-1600 games? What players will find this useful and actually use it? If you don't first decide who your audience is, you probably won't have an audience when you're done.
3. How much do you honestly know about HoN and this Hero?
Are you an expert? Are you informed? Are you clueless? You need to be very honest with yourself here. If you're just writing a fun guide aimed at low ranked players, then go ahead and get started! However, anything more and you'll probably need to do some research. If you don't know the answer, FIND IT!
Although answering these questions is the fastest part of guide creation, it is also one of the most important. Write your answers down and keep them nearby!
I also highly recommend reading through some premium guides for other Heroes and bookmarking ones you liked for content or presentation. You can reference these later if you're ever stuck.
2X. Draft
"I know why I'm creating this guide. I know my target audience. I have done a lot of research and plan on doing more while writing. What now?"
Make an Outline! Here are some key elements your Hero guide should have:
A Title
General Hero Information
Target Audience
Patch Version that your Guide is up to date for
Skills Information + Skillbuild
Item Build
Tips and Tricks
Allies (for comboing)
Enemies (watch out for these guys!)
(Optional)Item Justifications/Bad Item Explanations
(Optional)Replays
(Optional)Revision History
(Optional)Frequently Asked Questions
Staying organized will save you a lot of time and energy!
Outline done? Start writing your content. Don't try to make it perfect the first time, just start writing. Have fun with it! You can jump around between sections and leave yourself notes for when you come back later. Don't worry about length. If you end up with a five page long draft, that is completely OK.
3X. Review & Edit
"I finished writing my Draft! This is really long though... nobody would have the time to read all this. What now?"
Now, you edit. Take your time. Take at least a couple of days. I'll share with you my personal method for editing:
First, I read through the Draft to refresh my memory. Then, I go through sentence by sentence and ask myself the following questions:
"Does this add something new to the guide?"
"Does the guide NEED this?"
If NO for either, I delete it.
For the sentences left, I rewrite them as short as possible while still being clear. Try to cut the length of your guide in half each time you edit. Eventually, you'll end up with something still very YOU, but way shorter.
4X. Format & Publish
"I have a super concise and sexy Hero guide! It's just a bunch of text sitting on my computer though. What now?"
Formatting is arguably the hardest and longest part, but extremely important. You will probably revisit this step the most since, unlike your written content, there is no "simple" answer. The following are not steps, but instead components of Formatting for the HoN forums.
1. Gather your Images!
Your guide needs lots of pictures. Meaningful pictures, but lots of them. The Hero Portrait, Skill Icons, Item Icons, Diagrams, etc are all very important for making your guide attractive and useful. Go through your sections and ask, "Would a picture here be useful and add to the user's experience?" If so, get a picture!
2. Format your Text!
When making a Forum post, you'll see the option "Go Advanced." Inside this new view, you'll find a huge number of options and tools for adjusting links, images, text color, text size, and much much more. All these tools are the subject of another guide entirely, but a lot of it is very similar to Microsoft Word. Put the content you want changed in between the two bracketed commands. You can put multiple bracket effects on a line of text and even insert them mid sentence like this.
3. Shape your Shape!
This comes down to taste. Some people like having everything flush left. I like mixing up centers with lefts. Whatever the case, make sure everything is spaced and lined up in a natural and easy to read manner.
Once everything is to your liking, post your guide!
5X. Maintain & Promote
"I posted my guide! What now?"
A lot of people make the mistake of creating a guide and then.... nothing. To have a successful guide you need to promote and maintain it.
Maintain
If you really care about your guide, make sure to update it for every patch version that comes out. Even if there were no changes to your hero in the most recent patch, just puting "Updated for __" will let players know that you're giving them up-to-date information. Do not lie about how current your guide is, as this is a great way to get it removed from the forums altogether. Respond to questions you get in a timely fashion, and be sure to thank people if they help you out!
Promote
Although you'll get a certain amount of natural traffic from players just browsing the "Guides" section, you'll get a lot more views and feedback if you start promoting your Guide. I highly recommend putting a link to your guide in your own signature and then start getting active on the forums. DO NOT SPAM. Instead, here are some ideas of ways to contribute to the community AND efficiently promote your guide at the same time:
Get involved with your Hero's Balance Discussion thread
Reply to people in Training Grounds
Give feedback on other Guides
Post some good Replays in the Replay section
You don't need to tell anyone to check out your Guide since every contributing post will end with a "Click here for my guide to ____" in your signature!
6X. Summary
Write a guide for something you are very interested in and have/will find the best information for. Work in small parts and look to consistently improve your guide, even once it's published. Stay active and you'll receive a lot of new ideas and thanks from other players. Now, get writing!