Breaking Down Storytelling, or at least how I Break it Down

I would like to preface this whole discussion with an honest admission: It’s entirely possible that I have zero idea what I am talking about, and that the things that I am about to elucidate on only relate to ME and MY personal preferences in the art of storytelling.

To me storytelling refers to all forms of media. Public Speaking. Books. TV. Film. Music. Political discourse. Theatre and of course, Pro Wrestling. Any time you are presenting an idea or a premise to an audience of any size you engaging in the art of story telling.

The trap I’ve often fallen into with my stories (more specifically early on, thankfully less so now) came from misunderstanding the difference between Plot and Story.

If you watch a lot of movies and start getting into the weeds of how they’re created or learn a little bit about the behind the scenes nature of editing and the like, it’s usually easy to find areas where the action doesn’t line up. Or the characters are disjointed, some things that get set up are disregarded or a scene comes along the way just takes you out of what you’re watching. Inevitably the person in this position considers these moments as being “Plot holes”.

Now, sometimes they are indeed just that. A hole in the plot that defies the premise of what you’re engaging with. If you’re someone who’s not only a consumer of media but someone who wishes to create their own, it is perfectly natural to focus on your plot obsessively. Leaning into a paralysis by analysis whereby you become fixated upon the minutae of your story. Who does what and when? Where is the MacGuffin set up? How does that twist? Does the action beat work in a way that doesn’t break the laws of physics? We’ve started a timer, we’d better make sure that the action on screen lines up with the countdown, right?

All of these are good things to be worried about and I’m not trying to dismiss them. However when you focus on these types of details too much what you’re missing out on is often the reason why most people consume entertainment in the first place.

They want to be told a Story about people they can relate to.

If you’ve done your job properly and created characters in situations that your audience can picture themselves in where there is conflict, drama and believable emotion this easily glosses over most technical issues or “plot holes” for the audience. Because they want that hook, that emotion, that grit.

It shouldn’t matter if you’re having a financial dispute over the price of coaxium hyperfuel that you can only mine in the bowels of the Kessel Spice Mines. If you get there with characters you believe in and enjoy then you should be happily along for the ride.

Obviously, it’s also easy to fall into the trap in the other direction too. If you focus too much on the story of the characters without taking into consideration their world around them it’s easy to come up with a hodge-podge of disconnected ideas that ultimately leave people feeling unsatisfied.

In the end storytelling comes down to having a clear vision of what you’re trying to say in any given moment. And more importantly it means being able to adjust and be flexible when along the as you’re developing / breaking your story down you stumble across new elements or ideas that could enhance the tale you’re trying to tell. Sometimes this happens organically. In the world of pro wrestling or weekly syndicated TV you can often gauge the audience’s reaction to what is happening. If you’re perceptive and willing to roll with their wave of enthusiasm you can find a way to enrich their viewing experience by leaning into characters or scenarios they’re reacting to. Not all at once of course, don’t let your audience tell your story for you. But don’t ignore them either. If people are sitting on their hands and not caring that tells you everything you need to know and you need to re-evaluate if you’re actually creating a story for them or for you.

Now, as a caveat I would like to digress into the world of prose and long form novel writing. While obviously every author in the world would love to have the success of a JK Rowling, Stephen King, Lee Child and many others it is important to realize one thing (from my perspective.) In no other form of media is it more apparent when an author is pandering to an audience and being inauthentic than it is within a novel.

With Film / TV / Live events a bit of pandering is perfectly fine. You’re looking for that immediate engagement and wanting that response. And you need it in order to keep the people coming back on a regular basis. That form of entertainment is very much in the “Churn and Burn” vein.

With a novel it has to come from somewhere else with a bit more soul. This doesn’t mean that everything has to be drab, dreary or even deep. But it should at least be evolved in some way where you can bite into your characters and their world and feel it. In no other medium does your story exist more fully than within your audiences’ own imagination and all you have for them are the words on the page for them to experience. So if you’re not giving those words your best effort it’ll come across flat to your readers. Sure, it doesn’t mean you can’t write on a deadline, and no dear readers this isn’t me making an excuse for why I take so long between novels to get a finished product together. But in more visual mediums you can fake it a bit with the writing, make the words super economical and then relying on the other artists you’re working with to help tell your story. In fact, that’s the only way movies / TV / Theatre succeed. In a group setting.

So with that out of the way I think the most important idea I can impart to any other storytellers is to make sure no matter what kind of tale you care to tell, make absolutely certain that the characters all face Consequences for their Actions.

Good, bad, apocalyptic or whatever. Everything they do must come with a cost. If you’re telling a fantasy tale where wizards can conjure up anything out of thin air with no seeming effort you’re shorting the audiences’ ability to connect to that wizard. If you’re bad ass action heroine is able to ninja kick her way through a plethora of fools without breaking a sweat or even getting out of breath, you are robbing the audience the opportunity to feel her pain or stress in that moment of triumph.

Consequences are the key to any good story. For your protagonists, antagonists, bit players, coffee shop attendants… whatever. The more you add consequences to your characters the more it helps to ground whatever is going on to your audience in a way that they can understand. Because we live in the real world, and nothing is easy when you get right down to it.

With consequences your characters echo with your audience and they engage with your story.

And that’s the whole idea, right?

AK

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Defining Success Pt 2 – AKA “The Wrestler”

Much like the previous post, props to Ed, Ron and Producer Bill for putting the bee in my bonnet to want to talk about this concept a bit. If you’re not already listening to “The Greatest Pod” for free wherever you get your podcasts you’re missing out on some fun, nerdy and insightful conversations.

So going, back – on their last Patreon Exclusive podcast the boys went on for a while talking about the challenges they’ve faced trying to break it into the entertainment industry in Los Angeles. Specifically as comedians, writers and TV producers. Not just the obstacles put in front of them by other people and by the natural gatekeepery way the industry works, but by their own personal attitudes and approaches and perceptions.

So setting the Wayback Machine all the way to Sept 1995 for a minute I remember the first time I set foot in a professional wrestling ring. I’ve spoken about that “first day” and the process of training before so I won’t rehash it here – that’s not what the topic at hand is. However I do want to take a bit to reflect on how I was treated and more importantly the way I treated myself at that time (and in many ways still to this day.)

In Sept of 1995 I was 330lbs and hadn’t been doing anything seriously athletic in ... well ... ever. I dropped out of Gym in Grade 11 as soon as that was an option for me. I was on the school curling team – because, Canada – and that was about it. At that time I was barely surviving in First Year University and going through a lot of the disillusionment that many kids that age experience once they are removed from the safety net of public education and thrown headfirst into the Post Secondary Education for Profit world where nobody gives a good God Damn about you so long as you get your tuition payments in on time and make sure to buy the professors textbook only available in the University Bookstore for the low-low price of Go Fuck Yourself.

So when friends of mine heard about the local group of Indy Wrestlers were open to bringing new people in my attitude towards the whole thing was a resounding “Yeah, sure I’ll check it out.”

Yes, huge wrestling fan as a kid. My dad slung beers in the Winnipeg Arena back when the late Nick Bockwinkle was the greatest wrestler alive. I watched all the WrestleMania’s, got caught up on the NWA whenever it came on the free cable tryouts. I turned my GI Joes and Star Wars figures into wrestlers and booked events in the tiny hand made ring Dad made for us out of wood and twine. I booked angles and shows in my bedroom, complete with entrance music and me doing the Play by Play and ring announcing while putting poor toys through their paces. I had a poster of The Rockers in my bedroom (much to my mother’s concern) and was able to converse with the more hard nosed and sporty dudes in school about who the best wrestlers were even though we had nothing else in common.

All this to say, I loved wrestling. But never in a million years did I think that this was something I could do.

To say I was a soft boy would be accurate. While I didn’t get beat up a lot, I certainly got beat up enough. My feelings were on my sleeve, I was openly nerdy, always speaking up in class and got good grades. I might as well have had a sign on my back during the 80s that read “Easy Target.”

So the very concept of a dude like me getting into a world filled with grown men who came from questionable backgrounds, making questionable life choices, who enjoyed hard drinking, gruff actions in a carnival lifestyle … well, it didn’t seem like a fit.

Plus, the wrestling practices were brutal. In 1995 the motto was still “nobody gets in who can’t take the abuse.” And I took a lot of it. Looking back I wonder if it was as bad as I remember and frankly it’s so long ago now it’s difficult to be sure.

But I remember how I felt.

Worthless.

Like I couldn’t do it.

In fairness at the time I felt like I couldn’t do anything. I was months away from being kicked out of University. The girl I was crushing on was about to break my heart and I felt horribly guilty every time I went home to my parents, knowing how hard they’d worked to put money away for my education that I was blowing.

Everyone told me that I was making a mess of my life. Friends told me not to waste my time with wrestling. My dad shook his head in disgust when he discovered what I’d been up to that I kept coming home limping or with new welts and bruises. One of the guys I was training with even told me candidly “You don’t think we’re really gonna be successful at this, do you?”

And truthfully I didn’t.

For many years I would show up at local events, wade through dumb little ego fights and petty politics for the chance to lace up my used combat boots, throw on my cobbled together gear for the chance to take a beating for the dozens in attendance in the hopes of taking away enough money to grab a snack and bus fare home.

So why did I keep this up?

Well, wrestling may not have been my first love. But it was the first thing I felt that loved me back.

Okay, it was a tough love. And a tad abusive at times.

Then I started noticing things.

People in attendance started responding not only to my matches but to me.

While not an Adonis I was certainly becoming fitter with every week of action. As such, my confidence began to grow.

With said confidence, the slings and arrows of the more caustic and arrogant class of wrestler stopped hurting as much. My emotional callous had grown to the point where I could take more things on the chin and keep going without chewing my own liver about it.

I started making contacts with other wrestlers outside of Winnipeg. This was still the late 90s so let’s not get crazy here, but the realization that I was beginning to build a reputation was interesting and rewarding.

Plus I got better at talking to ladies. So… You know.

Of my initial class of wrestlers I am the only one still active. And I have been for 25 years. By most people’s accounting my career would be called a complete waste of time if they only looked as deeply as my bank account – which no, you can’t do that. Don’t ask.

However there’s more to a person’s life and career than that. Especially in professional wrestling.

There are the moments that resonate in your soul that will live with you forever.

-          The Selkirk Winter Carnival in 1997, tagging in the Main Event in front of 500 screaming kids and their families against a couple of real bruising fellows. And knowing with absolute certainty that for the first time in my life I was not only having a good match, I was having a great match that the crowd was 100% invested in

-          Being an extra for the WWE for the final sold out live events to take place at the legendary Winnipeg Arena months before it was torn down

-          Wrestling on traditional PPV for a (failed) start up company

-          Multiple trips to Japan

-          Matches with legends of the sport

-          Having friends and (yes I’ll say it) fans all over the world who have seen my stuff or interacted with me online

-          Being a member of the Cauliflower Alley Club and being recognized by the Legends who paved the way when I am able to go to the conventions.

Any one of these instances would’ve blown the mind of the fat, pimply 18 year old kid who got his ass kicked the very first time he walked into a ring. And these are just the tip of the iceberg. While I’ve lost count I’m well over 1500 matches by now. Matches in Canada, the USA and Japan. I’ve travelled 1000’s of Kilometres and tried to put smiles on faces everywhere that I’ve gone. Reminding myself of this every now and then is a good thing. Because having the privilege to continue to perform and scrap and entertain is just that.  A privilege.

Every time I get asked to wrestle is in and of itself a success.

And I’m not done yet.

AK

Support your favourite Wrestler today by visiting Pro Wrestling Tees and browse to your hearts content. Just, while you’re there, consider looking at my site first willya? I mean, emotional success is fulfilling but a few sheckles here and there help keep the roof over my kids’ head. J

 

Defining Success Pt 1 – AKA “The Author Origins”

 

First, a shout out to my boys Ed, Ron and Producer Bill for the inspiration to do this post / essay / rambling string of words. On their latest Patreon Only Podcast episode of “The Greatest Pod” (subscribe fools, support good people!) they took some time to express not only their frustrations with succeeding in the entertainment industry, but the pitfalls, challenges, own goals and more that they’ve experienced along the way.

And it got me thinking (a dangerous pastime I know) about my life experiences. How I’ve personally moved the goal posts on how I’ve defined success or failure in my own life and career. What I want out of life going forward. And most importantly, what I want to be spending my time and energy on now that I’m officially into my dreaded “middle age.”

In my office at home there is a file folder tucked away. In this folder are the block letter scribblings of a 20 year old me, frantically jotted down while he was supposed to be working on his actual job trying to convince people to switch long distance providers in a too bright cubicle farm. These scribblings laid out a plan for 9 fantasy novels (3 sets of trilogies!) that I firmly believed would change my life and make my dreams come true. I believed this because I had accomplished a monumental feat, completing an actual manuscript. Yes, my skinny fat and hyper nerdy ass had written almost 150K words and put them in some semblance of order. Initially this had been inspired by a wicked DnD Campaign (though in truth it was an unrequited love letter to a young lady who would ultimately break my heart – twice) and I was firm in my belief that any road to success in my future was going to be paved by my imagination and willingness to put words to word processor.

Then came trying to submit it to Publishers. And let me tell you, if you think that this is difficult in 2021 when there are agents and editors on Twitter ASKING you to pitch to them you have ZERO idea what it was like back in 1996. When Windows 95 was only a thing you had if you had money and email was in its very infancy.

Plus. I live in Winnipeg. Publishing houses here are awesome but by their very nature incredibly small presses.

Regardless, I went to the library. Took out a book on “submitting your manuscript” and put together 5 packages for major publishers. Because, I didn’t want to limit myself to only 1 offer naturally.

I’m sure I don’t need to tell you what happened next.

No, I don’t have any of my rejections letters. Because the 2 I received back came easily 6 months later and the others never bothered to respond.

Frankly I don’t blame them. My manuscript was bloated, huge and pretty much a vanity project. The kind where I tried to write the wrongs (perceived or validated) in my life. Where I wanted to live out a fantasy that made up for the struggles that I was certain only I was dealing with. Financially, personally and otherwise.

Failure is a tough pill to swallow. Especially when you believed in your heart that you are destined for greater things.

There are still 2 computer paper printed copies of that original manuscript in existence. One of them sits in the drawer with that “9 Book Outline” I mentioned earlier. The other is on the bookshelf of the heart breaking girl in question (yes, we got over each other and remain dear friends to this day.)

That original manuscript sat in desk drawers or in storage totes and on an ancient floppy disk drive until 2012.

That was the year I learned about modern self publishing.

Unlike the method peddled prior to the advent of eBooks where the upfront cost was prohibitive and every aspect of the financing, marketing and distribution of your words rested solely upon the writer – eBook self publishing was much easier on the pocketbook. As such, the competition in the field is disgusting, and like most aspects of the internet is overfilled with hacks, smut and hastily thrown together schlock disguised as “art.”

With that said there is also great work out there. Very personal and well written work that clearly means a lot to the artist. The kind of work that would be terrifying to commit to writing and infinitely scarier to put out into the world for scrutiny and derision.

It completely removed the gatekeepers of the publishing world. It made it possible for a guy like me to live his dream.

The first thing I ever published was a gothic Vampire novella I wrote initially as a character examination from my brief foray into LARPing. It’s rough but dark and available to this day if anyone is interested. And while it scared me to put it into the universe it inspired me to do more.

So I wrote “Cowboy Ending.” A more personal tale derived in part from my real life experiences, struggles and fantasies. A book inspired by the artists who inspire me set in an Urban Fantasy version of my home city. And while it took a bit to gain traction, and I still had to invest in things like a proper Cover Artist and a bit of online marketing – the feedback has been incredibly rewarding.

Which was when I did the scariest thing I’ve ever done creatively. I opened that drawer in my office. Dusted off the frayed binder holding my precious manuscript together and found a computer that would still read the disk drives from the late 90s so I wouldn’t have to rewrite it all from scratch.

While “The Book of Korum” is still a beast, clocking in at over 120K words, it’s definitely more streamlined than the hatchet job a 20 year old kid managed to cobble together. I still have the idea of maybe going back to that world and those characters one day, but life is busy and I have other goals and ideas too.

Regardless, that “failed” piece of art I created in my youth has now been downloaded well over 1,000 times by readers. Lots of freebies and giveaways for sure, but it’s probably bought me lunch a few times over the years. However none of that shit matters because the success comes in the doing.

Do the Work. Because that’s the only thing you can control.

When you do the work to the best of your abilities you will know it. The accomplishment of the work is its own reward. It is its own success.

That feeling is what sustains me and what drives me when I want to give it all up. Stop building spec scripts, stop going to the gym and working out for wrestling or building new layouts for future books / stories / projects.

Because while my work isn’t making me rich enough to pay my mortgage, it makes me rich enough to feel great when I see smiles on people’s faces when they take a chance on my words.

And frankly, that’s really the only reason to do anything.

(However, scoring a contract with DelRey Publishing complete with TV / Film options would be outstanding. So if you’re looking for things to option from independent authors please hit up the DMs willya?)

AK

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