It has been a while since I’ve been able to rant about a random subject within the realm of e-fedding. Now, I have a lot of wonderful topics I could address, but it seems that many people would like to me to discuss arguably one of the most difficult things in e-fedding, especially today. So without further ado….this is the Cynical View on….
Dun da-da-DAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!
FORMATTING!
*hears crickets chirping*
Okay, it’s character development. Bad humour aside, this is arguably one of the most difficult, but also, sadly one of the easiest to hide if need be. A lot of the reason why it is so difficult is because of how it has been defined and how it often is viewed. Many people can write a solid promo and that’s all well and good. Where it becomes difficult is to have a character that makes that promo unique.
“Whoa! Wait! Character to make promo unique. Don’t I need to show how Mr. Jiggles does grocery shopping? Perhaps going for a bikini wax? I hear everyone is waiting for a perfect Homes for Habitat roleplay!”
And herein lays the problem….actually two problems. So let me quickly debunk two myths.
1) Most people make a character and then give me a cookie-cutter promo or match relevance. A character is only important if it actually translates to a unique quality in your “on-screen persona.” Think about this for a minute. One of the biggest issues in e-fedding is whether “character development” pieces can be used in promos. Personally, I fall on the side that it’s lazy to do so (Not necessarily wrong. Just lazy as it’s usually a bastion for people who can’t think of much else). But with that said, character development should translate to the character you want to have propagated on the shows but also your promos. It is what makes you unique. It establishes your worldview, how you respond, etc. Most people separate their character development from their promos and this is fine. However, effective character development should see similarities carry across this divide.
2) Character development should NOT be driven by the story. It should be driven by [insert anticipation and impending shock here] the CHARACTER. This is amazing how many people really fail to grasp this. I have a lot of people in the last seven years come up to me and say “I’m going to just start a new character. I don’t like the story I came up for him.” I normally shake my head and just respond with “whatever.” You’re essentially just doing yourself no favours. You wasted your time. You got yourself frustrated. And you have to start over. Focus on the character, not the story.
Building on this second point, let’s just consider this for a moment and I’ll try to help illustrate my point with one of my characters:
But first, I will establish the point further. Most people focus on a story. This is fine and many roleplayers in SCW now and in the past have come up with fantastic backstories that do very much improve their character and add something to them, along with translating to significant success in terms of their win-loss record. But many of these same roleplayers have lulls where their roleplays are solid, but not great. They fail to continue on the same path. Often stories have a beginning and end and few roleplays line up several backstories over time. They often plan roleplay to roleplay, ride the story out as long as they can before bringing it to an end, hopefully, at a big match. Afterward, they may luck out and have a great idea, or they may not know where to go, stumble for a bit and fail to capitalize on their momentum.
Furthermore, the other problem of focusing on a story is rather simple. A lot of people come up with a great idea for the story (Mr. Jiggles is going to win the lottery! Woo! He’ll then blow it on strippers and get involved with the mob! Excellent! I can see the E-fed Oscar now!) But then, they may have a bad week, they may not feel the story after a few weeks or they may just realize they had only a basic idea and really can’t come up with much else to keep the story going and keep its quality up. Your frustration goes up and you need to either force yourself to take a break to “recharge” or, you give up for a little while, hoping for anticipation, you no-show, you may even no longer care to roleplay for a bit. And trust me, no one likes to force a roleplay, myself included.
And this is where one I remind the world that people should write for themselves first and foremost. They should enjoy what they write. Yeah, it may lead to a bit less success, but you can always work with what you enjoy.
But along with this, I come back to my main point. Focus your character development on YOUR character. By focusing on the story, things can fall flat or be forced. But also, you often write to keep the story moving forward. As such, things can get a bit blocky and unnatural (Think of bad dialogue. Oftentimes this is as a result of trying to make sure your story continues instead of realizing that you’re butchering characters around your main character). But if you focus on developing your characters, two things are allowed to happen:
1) You’ll naturally focus on how your character acts and responds. You’ll get into his mindset and be able to write more effectively.
2) Usually things have more mileage. You’ll find out that you can have one scene drive your entire roleplay and be enough. If you have a conversation, for example, you can get a lot out of how your character responds to whoever he or she is talking to. If something happens, his reaction can be a powerful and effective way to do things. Plus, if you focus on your character, you can take very simple ideas (meeting friends, going out to dinner, going on a date) and make it something unique and you really always have material, even on an off-week and get something out of it.
This second point is important, but generally, character development is only effective if I either learn or re-learn something about your character. Show development. It doesn’t mean you have to show something new all the time, but 1) Your character should be a main focus in some way (direct or indirect) and 2) I should get an idea of who they are and how they act. How they interact with things is an easy way to do this.
The other reason I also suggest that you focus on character is because you can show an evolution of the character over time, but also, you can avoid becoming clichéd. For example, most heels in SCW right now are arrogant heels at the base of it all. Then, they’re either over-confident narcissists or brawlers who like to cause pain (usually have a dark side to them too). But what differentiates them is how their character has evolved. They may be a cliché at their base form, but the layers on top make them unique.
Now, as promised, I’ll discuss an example of this, focusing on my first character, CHBK.
CHBK started quite simply as a Shawn Michaels rip-off (Based on him in 1997) and it was just that alter-ego I hoped to espouse. There was little to him. No family. I didn’t even reveal the age (My first feds never asked for birthdates.) He was an arrogant heel to the most basic level and a bit of a degenerate. Cliche.
Generally, as time went on, by end of my first six months in e-fedding, I established two new things.
1) His age: Since I never revealed it, I was blessed with a bit of flexibility. But I noticed in the majority of roleplays against him, people referred to him as an “old man” and that he should step aside (nevermind the fact that the fed was just starting and there was no age on him!). But I decided instead of just turning it around on them, I figured I’d use it. I then made him 40 years old. Over time, I added that he had won several World Championships and had been active since the early 1980s and was a Canadian legend. All of this came from what I saw other people using against me and over time, I added and added as time went on.
2) His scheming nature: You’ll hear me refer to him as the Master of Mind Games. This was something I HEAVILY focused on early on while establishing this. I had him show himself to be quite intelligent (reading physics and history books in his roleplays) and being a university graduate. I then used this and heavily infused his promos with a lot of focus on getting into the head of his opponents. As time has continued, I’ve made this into one of the hallmarks of the character. He can always outthink his opponents. As he’s gotten older, I’ve changed this to show, he can outthink every opponent, especially with his experience advantage (He’s the only person over 40 on the roster, for example, and this usually is the case in every fed he’s been in). It’s something that again adds some uniqueness. But it was just a basic idea and I slowly emphasized it more and more.
After the first year, I finally revealed his family, largely as a result of one of his tag partners mentioning meeting with his wife (nevermind that I had never mentioned her, nor the fact that he had kids). I decided to run with it and had him be happily married, with two children, both of whom he had issues with, which not only added extra dimensions for storylines, but his reactions, allowed me to explore times where the often cool and confident CHBK could become emotional.
Now, this is just one example. I now can have a simple dialogue among his family and friends and while it may not be stunning, many have said it’s incredibly effective. I know the characters well. I’ve established them all and with some simple dialogue, they all have distinct characters, actions and reactions, but CHBK is always at the center of them and how he responds allows the reader to get a sense for how he thinks. In my case, a lot of his hallmarks and uniqueness came from me taking advantage of what someone else did and running with it. Inspiration and ideas come from a lot of places. Take it and run and make it your own. Make the character unique, but also one you enjoy writing.
Now this is only an intro in many ways and it’s not general. Another fed owner may disagree with some of these statements. And I’ll note, this definitely won’t necessarily get you wins. This is more a way to get the most mileage out of the character and help you enjoy writing them. Character development is something a lot of people struggle with. But if you can create a solid character by focusing on that character and then translate that into something that makes them unique (which translates further into that character being shown in the promos), you give yourself a great chance for success.
At some point, I’ll look at effective heels and faces in this realm, along with using dialogue effectively, but until then, this is a small taste to hopefully help you out.