You see that man? Go on, take him all in. That's Chris Laverty, that is, and he's one of us. Well, at least he's one of us for now – there's quite the chance he'll eff off and work for Empire before too long.

Anyone who reads Empire magazine – and really, if you don't you're missing out on a treat – will be aware of the Empire Thunderdome competition, where a group of aspiring film writers take part in various film-writery tasks and get slowly whittled down to one eventual winner. Yeah, just like X Factor – only without Kate Thornton squinting at an autocue like your granny trying to read a big print Mills & Boon novel in the dark. Anyway, our very own Chris Laverty – he of the wonderful weekly Creased Or Folded feature – is in the final ten of Empire Thunderdome, and boy oh boy does he ever need your help.

If you've read the new issue of Empire, you'll have read the fruits of Thunderdomers' first task – a review of their favourite film from 1999. We're not going to spoil the surprise too much by telling you what film Chris wrote about, but suffice to say his review is brilliant and the reviews of the other nine slow-witted Thunderdome hopefuls – who all look a bit odd and probably smell – are crap. He's even given himself the nickname The Heckler, too, as a mark of respect to the website that literally gave birth to him. What a bloody marvel.

Tomorrow you'll get to read the first of hopefully many Chris Laverty Empire Thunderdome Diaries, but for now we need you to visit the Empire Thunderdome page and click Vote Chris as many times as you can. If you do this, Chris will cruise through to next month's task and on to eventual Empire Thunderdome victory, you'll get the satisfaction of knowing you've helped a good writer with his career and we get to stop answering our phone in the voice of a confused Mexican on the off-chance that it's Laverty asking for money. Everyone's a winner.

Got that? Vote Chris. Vote Chris. Vote. Chris. Chris. OK?

Vote for Chris at the Empire Thunderdome page now