SAJ Forth
Wade Wilson
Jamaican WCF Crazy!
Half Man-Half Amazing
Posts: 27,214
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Post by SAJ Forth on Jun 24, 2010 14:06:52 GMT -5
This thread has gotten a little loopy
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Post by angryauthor on Jun 24, 2010 18:28:58 GMT -5
This thread has gotten a little loopy You mean I shouldn't go ahead with my "What If...David Lynch was the director of RAW" idea?
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Post by chunkylover53 on Jun 24, 2010 18:42:03 GMT -5
What if Miss Elizabeth rejected Randy Savage's proposal to marry him.
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mlsq42
Trap-Jaw
Someone online thinks I can't wrestle?
Posts: 310
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Post by mlsq42 on Jun 24, 2010 21:27:12 GMT -5
What if Miss Elizabeth rejected Randy Savage's proposal to marry him. And she married Honky Instead! And then he revealed himself as the Higher Power and then using soundwaves from the bullhorn fed through a vuvuzela turned Hogan into a Zombie that Savage had to murder at Summerslam in the Match from Hell... Brilliant!
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Post by simongr81 on Jun 24, 2010 23:06:38 GMT -5
Back to "reality", Neil's full "Sting wins clean" story is now up. I found it as a whole an enjoyable read. Not sure whether I'll do my own take or not. Time will tell. My part 1 should be up soon. In the mean time... whoever can post first the only wrestler to be in all four of my stories gets an advanced look at all six parts ! And those few I've sent story 4 too, feel free to PM, email whatever, but let the contest to those who have not gotten a look. Thanks ! And 1 guess only please.
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Post by angryauthor on Jun 25, 2010 1:58:39 GMT -5
What if Miss Elizabeth rejected Randy Savage's proposal to marry him. And she married Honky Instead! And then he revealed himself as the Higher Power and then using soundwaves from the bullhorn fed through a vuvuzela turned Hogan into a Zombie that Savage had to murder at Summerslam in the Match from Hell... Brilliant! ;D
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Post by Alexander The So-so on Jun 26, 2010 23:47:00 GMT -5
I got done reading the Starrcade storyline. Pretty well done, Neil. That event truly should've been the nWo's Waterloo, and you made that happen in a convincing manner, with everyone's egos finally tearing the group apart. I guess my only concern with the storyline is the ending; the nWo may be dissolved, but having Lex Luger and Sting still end up fighting so bitterly, ending with the former being thrown off a scaffold, seems a little too pyrrhic. With all the hell the nWo had caused WCW over the past couple of years, I would've thought that a full-blown triumph where the bad guys are vanquished and the scars mend once and for all would be more satisfying to the fans (as a devoted fan during that era, I know it would've satisfied me). And it also would've been interesting to find out where all the nWo members would go from there.
Nonetheless, overall, solid work.
Also, for another idea:
What if...Ricky Steamboat never recovered from the DDT on the concrete in 1986?
EDIT: I forgot to mention: Sting clinging for dear life off the side of the rafters? Brrr. That's a little extreme. What happened with Owen already makes it a little hard to re-watch the scenes where Sting came down from the rafters. Just imagining that actually playing out makes my heart race.
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Post by angryauthor on Jun 27, 2010 13:15:40 GMT -5
I guess my only concern with the storyline is the ending; the nWo may be dissolved, but having Lex Luger and Sting still end up fighting so bitterly, ending with the former being thrown off a scaffold, seems a little too pyrrhic. With all the hell the nWo had caused WCW over the past couple of years, I would've thought that a full-blown triumph where the bad guys are vanquished and the scars mend once and for all would be more satisfying to the fans (as a devoted fan during that era, I know it would've satisfied me). That was originally going to be the plan, with the story running to a complete rout of the nWo headed by Sting. But I got thinking about Sting's position, and it didn't make sense for the character in my head. It also actually fed story idea wise into something I'm doing with the ECW story I'm writing now. I also feel it makes the Sting character more interesting, a return to the WCW fold makes him just another guy. Also: I hate happy endings. And it also would've been interesting to find out where all the nWo members would go from there. ewrwc.proboards.com/index.cgi will eventually deliver answers EDIT: I forgot to mention: Sting clinging for dear life off the side of the rafters? Brrr. That's a little extreme. What happened with Owen already makes it a little hard to re-watch the scenes where Sting came down from the rafters. Just imagining that actually playing out makes my heart race. Christ, I hadn't even thought of that. In story the Owen thing wouldn't have happened at this point yet, so I guess WCW would have gone ahead with it without fear of Bret rightfully kicking up shit, but the Owen thought hadn't crossed my mind. Probably because I'm dumb.
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mrjl
Fry's dog Seymour
Posts: 20,319
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Post by mrjl on Jun 27, 2010 13:59:11 GMT -5
I guess my only concern with the storyline is the ending; the nWo may be dissolved, but having Lex Luger and Sting still end up fighting so bitterly, ending with the former being thrown off a scaffold, seems a little too pyrrhic. With all the hell the nWo had caused WCW over the past couple of years, I would've thought that a full-blown triumph where the bad guys are vanquished and the scars mend once and for all would be more satisfying to the fans (as a devoted fan during that era, I know it would've satisfied me). That was originally going to be the plan, with the story running to a complete rout of the nWo headed by Sting. But I got thinking about Sting's position, and it didn't make sense for the character in my head. It also actually fed story idea wise into something I'm doing with the ECW story I'm writing now. I also feel it makes the Sting character more interesting, a return to the WCW fold makes him just another guy. Also: I hate happy endings. And you're rebooking wrestling? WHere most often the big complaint is basically boils down to it didn't have a happy enough ending? I wasn't impressed with the ending. There was no real closure to the nWo storyline. It looks like a variation of the Wolfpac split will happen but nWo Hollywood would still have a major numbers advantage and Sting is distracted.
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Post by angryauthor on Jun 27, 2010 14:52:52 GMT -5
And you're rebooking wrestling? WHere most often the big complaint is basically boils down to it didn't have a happy enough ending? My goal is to tell an interesting story, not a happy one. My complaints with the booking of the things I've rebooked stand as 1) Angle shouldn't have beaten Joe at that point. Joe should have stayed undefeated up until his title run. As such, the story runs up until a Joe win. This is easily the most traditional happy ending story, but if you look at the side plot with Sting and Raven, ending with the implication of Sting succumbing to his darker nature, the ending's not as clean cut as a happy one. 2) I actually have no complaints with the nWo story as it happened. It was brilliant and groundbreaking. I really just wanted to write a morality tale within wrestling about paranoia. The ending with Arn Anderson is very unhappy though, and I stick by that as my best writing in or out of RTB. 3) The Sting/Hogan thing I actually wrote because I was aware it was something that should have been done differently. The story was very by the books, and I don't really think much of my work on that. But I would have found Sting just returning to fold severely anticlimatic. The happy ending is STing beating HOgan clean, and the nWo falling apart, but with a cost to Sting, and to WCW, as the flock is set to take over.
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Post by simongr81 on Jun 27, 2010 15:17:44 GMT -5
Christ, I hadn't even thought of that. In story the Owen thing wouldn't have happened at this point yet, so I guess WCW would have gone ahead with it without fear of Bret rightfully kicking up s***, but the Owen thought hadn't crossed my mind. Probably because I'm dumb. Neil, considering WCW had Chris Canyon thrown off a triple deck cage in the same city and arena (Kemper Arena in Kansas City, MO) less than one year after the Owen incident, you can be forgiven for a scaffold match 11 years later. I didn't have a scaffold match in my Flair-Dusty story even though they happened at that time. Nothing to do with Owen, just a ladder match is a much better format. Jim Cornette suffered a permanent injury on a scaffold stunt. The last one WCW did was between PN News and Bobby Eaton vs. Terry Taylor and Steve Austin in 1991, and it was turned into a "capture the flag match" (with no announcment it would have that rule change).
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Brain Of F'n J
Hank Scorpio
Not that cool enough to have one of these....wait.
We Discodians must stick apart.
Posts: 6,890
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Post by Brain Of F'n J on Jun 27, 2010 16:10:14 GMT -5
And you're rebooking wrestling? WHere most often the big complaint is basically boils down to it didn't have a happy enough ending? My goal is to tell an interesting story, not a happy one. And as editor, I applaud this. As many times as I used happy endings, sometimes, a darker or more open ending is just what the story demands. You go where the story takes you. Jed Shaffer ~Imagine my Funk/Dreamer story with a happy ending ... eek.
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Post by angryauthor on Jun 27, 2010 17:23:39 GMT -5
My goal is to tell an interesting story, not a happy one. And as editor, I applaud this. As many times as I used happy endings, sometimes, a darker or more open ending is just what the story demands. You go where the story takes you. Thank you for the support. I figure happy endings are for rom-coms. While I might write a wrestling rom-com for an April Fool's sometime, until then, I'll stick to doing my best to tell interesting stories.
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mrjl
Fry's dog Seymour
Posts: 20,319
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Post by mrjl on Jun 27, 2010 17:56:18 GMT -5
My goal is to tell an interesting story, not a happy one. And as editor, I applaud this. As many times as I used happy endings, sometimes, a darker or more open ending is just what the story demands. You go where the story takes you. Jed Shaffer ~Imagine my Funk/Dreamer story with a happy ending ... eek. I find a sad ending to be far more closed off than a happy one. A wrestling is generally one long unending story. Sometimes they start completely fresh sure, but a lot of the time they attempt a segway to the next storyline.
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Post by angryauthor on Jun 27, 2010 18:19:05 GMT -5
I find a sad ending to be far more closed off than a happy one. A wrestling is generally one long unending story. Sometimes they start completely fresh sure, but a lot of the time they attempt a segway to the next storyline. For me, a story is about conflict. A true happy ending resolves all conflict. While this is great for a one-shot, it causes a problem if you want to tell more stories using the same characters (as you would with wrestling), as you have to artificially create new conflict. This, in a nutshell, is why Disney sequels (even to classics like Beauty and The Beast or Peter Pan) suck beyond belief. Being part of the Disney renaissance, they all included completely happy endings. Which was great for one film to watch as a kid, but as far as non-shitty sequels go, you're shooting yourself in the foot. It'd be easy to view wrestling as a series of sequels using a similar cast of characters to the last story, and if you keep giving everyone a happy ending, in other words an ending that resolves conflict (through violence in the medium of wrestling), you have to artificially produce conflict, and it all starts to feel forced. If however, you leave enough seeds of conflict that you can by no means call it a happy ending, you have a foundation on which to build your next story. To look at something that managed to tell five exceptional stories with a very similar cast of characters between the five, look at The Wire. Each season resolved the main conflict of that season, but it left enough conflict unresolved, enough questions unanswered that there was room to build on for later seasons. If you also look at the direction characters take, the characters themselves by no means get a happy ending, which is great, because we tune in next season because we want things to go right for them. This is essentially the secret of great booking, in my amateur opinion. You take a character that fans have attachment to, and you place obstacles in their way, and put them in turbulent situations, and never really let up, and if you do it right, the fans tune in next week, to see their heroes come through okay. Look at the Daniel Bryan situation at present. Do you honestly think there would be so much buzz around him if he hadn't been fired under those circumstances? This is the main basis of the "work" theory about this firing which was popular in the early days after his firing, that it was a work to generate interest. Interest is generated because a man may have lost his job under unfair circumstances, and this man was a person people had an attachment to. This generated interest around DBD both as a character and as a person playing that character, and regardless of work or shoot, did a great deal for interest in him, while being by no means a happy ending. This is just a recent example of why I'll always stick to my guns on endings that leave matters unresolved being much more interesting than a completely happy, and therefore resolved ending, for the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraphs. Okay, to do this by looking at my writing, which is what this criticism stemmed from. Story 1 - Sting's unhappy ending with Raven creates the potential for a new side to the Sting character, which generates a lot of places to go from here. Joe vs Angle is still unsettled, and now there's a title on the line, making it mean that much more. The ending to the nWo story set up Savage vs Sting as a later program, Benoit vs Malenko and Benoit vs Flair both as later programs. With Hogan's idealism destroyed, it created interesting places for his character to go, and with the truth behind the no third man revealed, there was the question of what revenge WCW would wreak on Hall and Nash. With the third story, it gave the question of what Sting was going to do next. Sure, he's the champion now, but he's made his life about that title, so when he drops it, with all his ties severed, how will he adjust to this? Bret's set himself up as a top guy now, is he going to go after Sting? What's more, not only will this widening rift in the nWo create a lot of storylines, but the injection of The FLock into this creates a lot more storylines. It was certainly my intention to make none of these completely closed endings, and with more than one of them, I originally had plans to make it run longer than it did in the final draft.
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mlsq42
Trap-Jaw
Someone online thinks I can't wrestle?
Posts: 310
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Post by mlsq42 on Jun 27, 2010 22:16:45 GMT -5
Hey, even Wrestlemania has unanswered questions coming out of it.
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Post by Alexander The So-so on Jun 27, 2010 22:18:59 GMT -5
I understand what you're saying. And at the end of the day, I still remember that these are stories, written for fun. For example, I enjoyed Jed's Hulk Hogan selling out to Dibiase story as a standalone story, even though I think it would've absolutely killed the Hulk Hogan character had it actually played out in real life. I guess I'm just emotionally involved, as a fan who really wanted the nWo to be blown apart and Sting to save the day for us all. Oh, and I seem to be full of storyline ideas today! Five more have come to mind: What if...Miss Elizabeth actually had left Randy Savage for Hulk Hogan? (new twist on the Mega Powers blowup which I thought might be intriguing) What if...the transformer had blown and cut the PPV feed right in the middle of Barely Legal? What if...Scott Hall and Kevin Nash had jumped back to the WWF with Sean Waltman in 1998? What if...Jake Roberts hadn't taken the Honky Tonk Man guitar shot? What if...the Hulk Hogan vs. Jake Roberts feud had gone through?
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SAJ Forth
Wade Wilson
Jamaican WCF Crazy!
Half Man-Half Amazing
Posts: 27,214
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Post by SAJ Forth on Jul 1, 2010 15:27:03 GMT -5
What if...Miss Elizabeth actually had left Randy Savage for Hulk Hogan? (new twist on the Mega Powers blowup which I thought might be intriguing) As in behind the scenes? maybe his divorce would've been less painful, but also it would prevent any jokes about his son in the most retconning way possible. What if...Scott Hall and Kevin Nash had jumped back to the WWF with Sean Waltman in 1998? It seems like it would be a big loss of major stars for WCW, but with a major figure in backstage politics gone, it would be fun to watch it play out.
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Post by Alexander The So-so on Jul 1, 2010 15:41:58 GMT -5
What if...Miss Elizabeth actually had left Randy Savage for Hulk Hogan? (new twist on the Mega Powers blowup which I thought might be intriguing) As in behind the scenes? maybe his divorce would've been less painful, but also it would prevent any jokes about his son in the most retconning way possible. No, I meant kayfabe-wise. "Actually," as in the Macho Man's jealous suspicions actually turned out to be justified, and there was something between Hulk and Elizabeth, which adds a whole new love triangle twist on the Mega Powers explosion angle. Or if could be that Savage being jealous and possessive are what alienate Elizabeth in the first place, which pushes her toward Hogan.
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Post by angryauthor on Jul 1, 2010 17:44:38 GMT -5
As in behind the scenes? maybe his divorce would've been less painful, but also it would prevent any jokes about his son in the most retconning way possible. No, I meant kayfabe-wise. "Actually," as in the Macho Man's jealous suspicions actually turned out to be justified, and there was something between Hulk and Elizabeth, which adds a whole new love triangle twist on the Mega Powers explosion angle. Or if could be that Savage being jealous and possessive are what alienate Elizabeth in the first place, which pushes her toward Hogan. Could be a fun storyline. Start with Hogan starting to look a little duplicitous, slow turning him. Hogan gets mega-heat for a while, while Savage gets more over as a face through sympathy. Eventually, double turn them down the road, with Savage becoming obsessive over it, trying desperately to get her back, which slow turns him back heel, and slow turns Hogan back to his face role. The storyline would have to run well over a year, and I just don't have the patience for it, but yeah, it could be good. Early line blurring of face/heel
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