But the two biggest things I'd want people to know about match writing is attention to detail and to not be a slave to page count. On Crash 50, Felicia Hart was repeatedly called "Jessica" and even spoke and was labeled as such. Jessica is Shawn Hart's middle name...So that's an error. When Bloodhunt was leaving the ring, he was led away by "Miss America" a stage name that had been dropped forever ago and she was know as Emily for the tail end of Bloodhunt's NFW run and his pop ups whenever after that...So that irked me...
Page count doesn't really matter a whole hell of a lot, if you can tell a story in 20 pages for a main event that's fine, you don't need to go beyond that, hell if you think you can tell the story in 15 pages, do that. Don't think that you NEED to add more to the situation than is required. Putting to many pages on a match can make it intimidating to read, look you know the lazy scum who read cards are gonna scroll to the bottom to see who won or lost 90% of the time, then if they feel like it they'll go back and read the whole thing to find out how things got to where they were at the end. If you have a giant wall of text waiting for them, they might not be so eager to take the journey.
If a match has a finish that's not in doubt you really have no need to break your back on it. Whoever wrote the Roberts/First Cyber Title match in A1E is a sicko, 10 pages of a really solid match, that's a lot of effort for a match where one party no Rp'ed and the other party, being a total prick, stacked the guy twice...(Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with some people? Get a life.) and the biggest thing for me in the match was that Muse didn't accompany First to the ring. So I was like "No Muse?! Bah!" and then got a long, long match, and won it, but I mean, I knew I was going to win, Brunk knew he was going to lose, there was no drama, if someone felt the need to protect Roberts with a long match, then protect him with a flash pin or something, I'm not proud, I don't need to win a title via devastating clean win, I'll take it any way I can.
In closing on the whole Roberts/First thing, a 4-5 page match with Muse in First's corner would have made me way happier than a ten page Museless match.
The reverse of all this I felt with the P6B itself, I thought it was paced perfectly, written out well with all the proper details and what have you, it was very tight, in that it didn't drag, the action flowed very well, that was a excellent read of a match.
All of that being said, maybe I should have posted this blog after the voting deadline in A1E, sorry Cross and Mr. Entertainment.
I thought I wrote a good War Games match in EPW, and of course, I missed a detail somebody wanted written into the match, and well it sucks that the match let them down because that didn't happen, it's these kind of things that bug me as a writer, so I'll try to do better with that down the line, since I know how details being missed in my matches annoys me.
Just try to get a feel for the characters you're writing, read the bios and know what's up, and tell the story you feel needs to be told in that match, but don't force it, don't try to make it longer than it has to be because you feel like it won't be epic enough, there is a reason Strawsma is Strawsma and well, don't try what he does at home. Map your match out, guess about how many pages you want to make it, figure out your finish, and work towards it, as you do, fill in the details and the story of the match, get to the payoff organically, not with endless near falls and build up for the sake of build up.
I agree. Personally, I love writing matches. I don't need to get worked up to write .. I just enjoy writing them.
ReplyDeleteI feel you on the "picked up.. hooked" thing ... sometimes I find myself trying to think of different ways to say "scooped up off the mat" or whatnot.
I can understand disappointment when your character is involved, and I agree that reading the bio is very important. Not just the move set .. but the entire thing. I was thoroughly impressed when Billy wrote an Edmunds match because he nailed him in how Edmunds would have acted.
I've been guilty of completely botching angles myself .. and I feel awful when I do.
For the first two or three years of New ERA, I wrote almost every match myself.. I didn't trust people with the announcers.. or other people's characters .. or how it would work in the grand scheme of things.. after the past few months I wanted to reign in control again so that when there's a problem its my own doing. Its why I wrote Destrucity II myself.
But eh, I love matchwriting... I very rarely find it to be a drag.. although there ARE some characters that sometimes takes a few shots before I can get going with.