Some General Riley Feedback

[LΞCAVALIΞR]

Hey all.

I usually don't ask for feedback. But, I was curious about how people view the Riley character and the RP's. I haven't RP'ed as a true face in maybe 6 to 7 years. 

Any feedback would appreciated. 

Thank you.

[Deleted]

I just finished reading your offering and I have to say that it was damn well written. I think Riley tends to come off as slightly scatter-brained, but I'm not sure if that's how you intended it to read or not. My only issue was with your proof-reading, as I loved everything else about your rp. A few things read off to me, and having to go back and re-read them seemed to kill the flow of it slightly. For example:

That night I face Sean Sands, a man that I have a lot of respect for.

He’s only been in the Business for a couple of years, but he’s done more in that shirt time than most people do in 10 years.

These were both sentences in your first paragraph. That night you faced Sean Sands and he's done more in that short amount of time. Two stupid letters completely made me reread each sentence and killed your flow. It's not my job to nitpick an rp, and no one is perfect, but just another read over out loud could really help your flow in my opinion.

As always, it is just an opinion, so what the fuck do I really know?

Mad kudos bro. I think it's hard as shit to play a face, which is why I play a face now. I think there are far too many heels in this game because face's are hard to keep interesting. Keep on keepin' on.

[Deleted]

You seem to be one of many people who use a certain writing device...

Is it annoying? Fairly. Should you stop doing it? Not necessarily. Does it involve answering the question you've just asked? Yes it does.

Were those loses tough? Sure. But were they necessary; were they vital to grow in this Business? Of course they were.

They were tough losses, but they were necessary; they were vital to my growth and development as a person, as a professional wrestler. The lessons I learned from them etc...

Sidenote: proof read more thoroughly. You're notoriously bad for the little errors and when continuity is worth 20% of your grade you suffer more than most people.

Quickly, the compose themselves and become serious.

After four of five boots to the knee,

I watch a bit helplessly as she fall face-first on the mat.

“No apologizes love,” he says

Jimmy, the fact of the matter is you aren’t the best pound for pound roster, not in the world...Hell, not even here in FGA.

So if Jimmy intends to beat me, if he still wants to walk out the champion―the he better kill me.

See, little errors littered throughout.

But the question thing is mainly to do with repetition. And if you do it too often then it can also take away from the rp. If you change you the style of your writing to avoid that clunky device, then you might find your writing flows better in the future.

As for Riley training his girlfriend...well Josh totally stole your thunder on this story arc

It's a nice throwback to your earlier story arcs; it builds up Riley as both a man and a wrestler without seeming like fluff or filer. The work on developing Zoey to a point beyond one dimensional background character is also welcome.

The promo...

Holy Random Capitalisation, Batman! Genres of music do not require capitals letters, of this I'm almost certain.

Your self restraint when making music jokes about Jimmy Page and not referencing Led Zeppelin is admirable.

No doubt you're one of the best at promos in FGA; the fact you do them as a face and usually maintain that face persona without drifting too far into asshole territory is also commendable. You don't run down your opponent to the point where nobody wants to to see the match, or they don't want to see Jimmy Page vs. Riley Owens. You do everything you need to. I've seen the scores of your rps these last few shows, and you're consistently scoring high so don't change what you're doing.

But the things I've mentioned above are possibly dragging you down.

[LΞCAVALIΞR]

Thanks Ben, I appreciate it.

Believe it or not I do edit/proof-read for about 30 minutes before posting. But, I try and do better. Thanks for the constructive criticism. 

[LΞCAVALIΞR]

Any feedback would be welcome. 

This week I tried to focus more on story; those long, 2.5k shoots are starting to become taxing. Therefore, I'm doing my best to do a good shoot without killing myself...

Any thoughts?

[Vinny]

Fucking fuck everything, man. I was about 2000 words into feedback for your RP and hit the backspace button outside of the textbox and blew it all to hell. Fuck this fucking day right in its fucking face.

Sigh. I will try to give you an abridged version once I collect myself. Fuck.

[LΞCAVALIΞR]

Jan 15, 2015 14:38:03 GMT -5 Vinny said:

Fucking fuck everything, man. I was about 2000 words into feedback for your RP and hit the backspace button outside of the textbox and blew it all to hell. Fuck this fucking day right in its fucking face.

Sigh. I will try to give you an abridged version once I collect myself. Fuck.

That kinda day for you too huh?

Take your time, I'll wait. I've always wanted one of your critiques, regular or abridged.

[Vinny]

Okay. So I'm going to have to do a lot of this from memory. I'm sorry you're not getting the full review I put all that fucking time into, but I can't go back and re-analyze everything again. I just can't. The good news for you is that it stripped out a lot of my pedantic nonsense. 

1. Typos. Man, they are everywhere. I know Benny busted your balls on this on a previous feedback post, but seriously. I hate proof-reading (which is obvious in my RPs) but you really need to do it.
2. Zoey's Journal entry is solid. It does a good job of establishing the relationship between Zoey and Riley, as well as Riley's state of mind. I absolutely loathe this type of character development, but that's personal preference and for what it is, it's good.
3. You're killing me with making a journal entry a lead-in to a flashback. Absolutely killing me.
4. Chekhov's Gun: Chekhov's gun is a dramatic principle that requires every element in a narrative to be necessary and irreplaceable, and that everything else be removed. E.G. If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it's not going to be fired, it shouldn't be hanging there. Riley's dark side, his ability to just go-off on someone when provoked never gets "fired." You hung it on the wall but never pulled the trigger. I get that you're trying to establish backstory/character development, but I find this kind of stuff clumsy. It feels wedged in. If you're going to do a flashback as a lead-in to a promo, it absolutely needs to be directly relevant to the promo.
5. Chekhov's gun #2: the shrieking cat. I hate cats. Make like Schrödinger and stick that cat in a box where I never see/hear from it again. 
6. Description: I'm sure you've heard "show, don't tell" a million times, but I want to hammer these points home. "Medium sized" pillar... medium sized compared to what? Is it wider than Riley? Medium sized is a useless descriptor because it lacks context. Similarly saying it is "6 pm" serves you absolutely zero benefit. What I gathered from the following sentences is that you're describing the sunset. Then describe the sunset, let my brain do the heavy-lifting and figure out "oh shit, it's sunset." Unless the specific time serves a purpose, don't use it.
   
7. Camera Work: I hate, hate, hate, hate, hate this stuff. Again, personal preference but I will bring it up every time until I have cleansed it from e-wrestling. Are you a writer or a director? Are you trying to tell me a story or how to block a scene? Back to my previous point, let my imagination do the heavy lifting for you. Let my imagination decided when to zoom in and out or switch perspectives. Your job, as a writer, is to lead me there. Don't move a camera around, move my imagination around. Forcing yourself out of using "scene" and "camera" will improve your writing so much because it forces your brain to think in new ways. 
8. "He pauses, almost as if he expected someone to answer. When no answer is presented, however, he begins again." -- Back to show, don't tell. This description comes off as absurdist. You set it up that it's ridiculous for Riley to expect a response, and then you make it seem like he legitimately waiting for one anyway. What I think you're driving at is the specific look that he's giving. A mixture of confusion and defeatism; there is no easy answer to "Who am I?" Are his shoulders slumped? Are his eyes begging for an answer he knows isn't coming?
9. Blocking and typos. So this is where those typos and the way you space your paragraphs becomes an issue. When Riley reveals what the piece of fabric is - or rather what it is meant to represent - I thought it was a typo: "No, this is the proverbial “cape” that Chandler Scott shouts about like a kid with Tourette [sic] syndrome." I thought it wasn't the proverbial cape. Part of that is because I'm now conditioned to typos in your writing and part is because you break every 1-2 sentences into its own paragraph. This destroys any continuity or uniformity of thought in Riley's speech. It makes him seem scatter-brained. I hate to use myself as an example because it's self-serving and arrogant, but it's one thing I do really well: look at the pacing and spacing in the Malcolm Drake RPs. Look at how the paragraphs are linked, where and why they break, and make special note of the one sentence ones. Those carry extra weight because of their isolation. You lose that here because almost every sentence you have is isolated.
10. Man Divided: This is some of my favorite psychological territory to play in with characters. This failed hero stuff, this Owens "The Man" v. Owens "The Wrestler" all dovetails nicely. All superheroes have their alter-egos and that's where so much of comic books spend their time exploring the dichotomy within a person who can be both Peter Parker and Spiderman (for example). 
11. Unfortunately, you almost immediately undercut this by having Owens "The Wrestler" spring onto the scene without any transition. Suddenly Owens goes from a mopey bastard looking at a sunset alone on a roof, to a confident guy cutting down his opponent's promo skills. It's abrupt and jarring, not in a good way. I recommend taking a look at what Aidan Collins did in his RP this week and notice how he transitions in and out of character. 
12. The first 2/3rds of your promo are fluff. Sorry if that's too blunt, but you spend the first third talking about how you're not going to talk up the match (which is ironic, and again not in a good way), and then you spend the next third pontificating on how Chandler and Tony are going to cut their promos. Instead of doing this, which does nothing to put you over... beat them to the punch. Again to use me as an example, I knew Aidan was going to talk about Infinite Empire and put his group over. I knew it without reading his RP and I spent the majority of my time tearing them down. It's referred to as "poisoning the well," if I say all this before he gets a chance to put them over it undercuts anything he has to say about it. Effectively poisoning the well before he can drink from it. 
13. The last third is okay. It really seems like you ran out of steam. It seems like you dumped a lot of effort into the journal and the flashback and when the promo came, Riley just kind of goes through the motions. "Fuck you, fuck you, I don't know you, you're cool, you're cool." 
14. I hate ragging on this promo so much, because it's not bad. But you're going to get nothing out of me blowing you (except, you know, the blowjob itself). And, honestly, I'm probably not telling you anything you didn't already know. Even the ending suggests you knew you were losing steam. 

Closing Thoughts and Advice
Find a writer you like - can be e-wrestling or someone who actually know what they're doing, like a real author - and really analyze what they've written. Don't even bother too much with the content, but look at how they structure their paragraphs, how they describe their scene, what they think is important and what isn't. Looks for themes and try playing with those; they can really make your whole RP seem like one cohesive piece. Benny is really good at that (and really good at using flashbacks, too, if you're going to continue with those). 

Get rid of the camera, at least for one RP, and give yourself some extra time to work on that RP. Because it is going to be a LOT harder to write, but it will make you a better writer and storyteller. Cameras are a crutch.

Another trick that goes along with the themes I mentioned above is setting. Why is Riley on a roof? Why is he in Miami? Why... for a promo that talk about a man divided against himself... isn't he in front of a mirror? Or the reflection pool in front of the Washington Monument? Or on a Civil War battlefield? See where I'm going with this?

I usually close with "memento mori" so I don't really have a good ending, but keep on keeping on.

[LΞCAVALIΞR]

I proof read the RP three different times :/

But I appreciate everything. My goal in coming to FGA was never to win titles in such, it was to become better as an efedder.

I thought I was making progress thus far, but after your review and Ben's I'm not sure anymore.

[Deleted]

Jan 15, 2015 17:51:32 GMT -5 LΞCAVALIΞR said:

I proof read the RP three different times :/

But I appreciate everything. My goal in coming to FGA was never to win titles in such, it was to become better as an efedder.

I thought I was making progress thus far, but after your review and Ben's I'm not sure anymore.

You're progressing nicely, don't you dare grow discouraged from feedback.

[Vinny]

Jan 15, 2015 18:11:29 GMT -5 @blaineharrison said:

You're progressing nicely, don't you dare grow discouraged from feedback.

This, a thousand times this. I'm a sociopath so my feedback tends to be pretty blunt; please don't assume that because I focus on the negative that it wasn't good.

[Ashley Sands]

The journal entry was a very solid piece and the best part of this one to me. The flashback was ok and did a good job of showing how open Riley is to working with guys but can have a temper if he's pushed too far.  I liked bits of the promo. Like the throwing of the "cape" and flipping the script to the viewer a bit. The kind of attitude of "I'm not going to do what people except from me" and going away from what he scripted for the promo was a good touch to me.

Typos, they were there.  One thing I've found is that I'm a horrible judge of my own work and don't see obvious problems like typos.  My suggestion is to hook up with someone you trust and see if they're open to proofing your stuff to get those extra set of eyes on it.  It's what I do.  The flashback bit... it's a flashback but it references events that are very much in the present. Adding some type of time/date stamping for sections like that might be a good idea to avoid confusion.  I don't like the "camera turns this way and you see this" approach but that's more of a personal peeve of mine. It's why I take the approach during camera promos of bringing the reader in to Ash's perspective and what she's thinking at the time.  Bring the reader into the piece rather than keep them at a distance.

Believe it or not, there's a lot of progression going on there.  Keep going at it what you've been doing.