Royal Enfield wants you to rescue its comic book hero

Royal Enfield rider is in danger; can you save him?

Royal Enfield's website recently sent the Bullet to war in a comic-page style graphic novel featuring a brave young lieutenant in the Indian Army. In the latest installment he rides his Royal Enfield into danger. Bullets fly.

Now Royal Enfield has to get its hero and his motorcycle out of trouble. And they want you to do it.

The website announces an "Exciting Contest" in which you are challenged to write the final chapter of the lieutenant's ride. Will he go down fighting?

Of course not: he'll get away, thanks to the Bullet, and warn his comrades of the enemy's approach. Or, at least, that is the ending I suggested when I entered the contest.

Years ago, as an editor of a tiny newspaper in Illinois, I let a staff member write a fictional adventure story, which appeared in installments. Finally, he admitted to me that he had gotten the characters into a situation from which he could not extract them alive. The only solution I could come up with was to run a contest, asking readers what should happen next.

Royal Enfield has done a far better job than we did of setting up an adventure. Here's your chance to be creative.