The AWF Style Guide for Matches & Segments

[Seth Dillinger]

So... you wanna help us out?

GREAT! THANK YOU! WE WORSHIP AT THE GROUND YOU WALK ON!

The AWF admin team always welcomes writing help and encourages people to submit segments for shows.

You know what the most time consuming part of putting a show together is? It's not the match writing. It's not the graphics. (Okay, sometimes it's the graphics, but for the most part that part is FUN.) It's actually the formatting. Having to pour over every single segment and match submitted and remove formatting, add color, add codes, etc. to try to make it all in line with the rest of the show can sometimes get DRAINING, and it's usually the reason why shows may go up late.

So... here! We're going to put together your primer for writing for AWF shows to make your life (and ours) easier in the future.

---

Writing AWF Matches

1. Use ALL CAPS and separate lines to count out referee actions/counts. Spell out the numbers, don't use the actual number itself.
   Examples:
   
   

   Fox drops and covers again...

   
   

   ONE!
   

   
   

   TWO!
   

   
   

   TH... Jennings kicks out. Fox is up on his feet straight away and throws a couple of kicks at the prone Chairwoman like the scavenger he is.

   
   

   Another quesiton from the referee. Another no from Fox. But this time Fox rolls to the same side, taking Jennings with him again and he reaches out his arm and just, JUUUUUUST, reaches the bottom rope.

   
   

   ONE!
   

   
   

   TWO!
   

   
   

   THREE!
   

   
   

   FOUR!
   

   
   

   FI..... Jennings breaks the hold.

   
   
2. Use present tense to describe action.
   Seth Dillinger "reaches out for the ropes". Not Seth Dillinger "reached out for the ropes".
   
   
3. Use CAPS LOCK sparingly to sell big moments.
   Imagine your caps lock key is your MARK OUT key. When big moments happen in matches and you can feel the play-by-play announcer in your head yelling and freaking out... use that. But don't overdo it. It's like salt in a recipe -- just the right amount really elevates the flavor, too much and you'll be on a diuretic to filter all the excess water out of your system.
   
   
4. Use commentary to break up the action while adding some validity to characters.
   In AWF style, commentary shouldn't be constantly present. They should pop in to add some perspective to the match every so often. I like to use them as paragraph breaks in the action. In the meantime, you can use your narration of the match and descriptors to sell the style. You can read more about our commentators here, but Cassius Romano is our fundamentalist heel play-by-play guy, and Tommy Taylor is our excitable and green-around-the-ears face commentator. Commentary should be written as Name: Commentary. The semicolon is also colored along with the name. No quotation marks around commentary, no line breaks between commentary lines. Also... use post-match commentary! Summarize what we just saw, put competitors over, and tease what's to come! See example:
   
   

   Taylor: Well, that poses a difficult question for Daktoa Jennings.

   Romano: Cute, Taylor. Real cute.
   

   Jessie Love:
   [font color="#e61919"]Jessie Love:[/font]
   
   
   Romano:
   [font color="#f8f804"]Romano:[/font]
   
   
   Taylor:
   [font color="#52f804"]Taylor:[/font]
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. We're open to special finishes, so long as the match tells a story.
   When you're assigned a match, after judging completes, the judges will tell you who wins, who loses, and who eats the pin (if applicable). We will usually provide some general guidelines. For example, if the RPing was very competitive, we might tell you to keep it close and make everyone look good. If one person blew everyone away, we'll tell you to make them look like a star. In any case, you're the writer. Feel free to come up with spots and write them in. The most important thing is we want each match in AWF to tell a story to give people RP fuel and feud momentum if they so choose to capitalize. If you have ideas for your match, talk to an admin.
   
   
6. When putting in match entrances, please review them and tweak for accuracy/flow!
   The best example I have is that most of our wrestlers write their entrances for a typical stadium/arena show. What if we're having a show at the beach? What if there's no crowd? Pay attention to the environment we're in, and feel free to edit entrances as needed to fit the flow and environment of the show!

These are the "must knows" for writing matches for AWF. If you'd like to learn more, our friendly neighborhood Teeps (the best match writer I know) put together some tips and tricks for how to make your matches top quality. You can read his helpful guide here.

---

AWF Segment Style Guide

We know everyone has different preferences in RPs, and that's beautiful. We love seeing all sorts of different colors and styles on display. However, to keep our shows feeling cohesive, we ask that any segments you submit follow these guidelines. If you get pre-approval to submit a segment without formatting, or think special formatting is required to get the point across, you can talk to an admin. But if you submit a segment with no styling at all, it may get cut on the show if the admins don't have time to re-code everybody's segment! Follow the guide below. I've included an example as well for what it would look like.

1. Narration and description should be in default plain text.
   Simple. No italics. No fancy brackets. No fancy colors. Just write your description with the forum software's default style.
   
   
2. Dialogue should be marked by your wrestler's last name (or single name), with a semicolon, colored to your character's color code.
   If you are using a character in your segment and don't know their color code, you can probably find that here! If someone's color code isn't listed there, please notify an admin and we will add it.
   
   
3. Dialogue that follows should be in plain text as well.
   Keep it basic! Same as narration, simple white text. Just put a line break in between lines of dialogue and also between dialogue/narration.
   
   
4. Collaborate!
   All segments are welcome. We love to see promo-style shoots backstage, but poke around. Use other people. Ask around. Random interactions with people are half the fun of backstage segments
   
   
   
   

   Backstage, Seth Dillinger and Ryan Young are standing in the hallway, discussing their upcoming match. It's at this point that Bloodied Fox walks by, side-by-side with his boyfriend, Brendan. Bloodied Fox is in his ring gear, because his match is up next. The couple walk past the team of Dillinger and Young. Dillinger stops mid-sentence from his discussion with Young and calls out.
   
   Seth: Hey, Fox!
   
   Bloodied Fox and Brendan both stop and turn back to face Seth.
   
   Seth: Kick some ass out there, yeah?
   
   Fox nods to Seth in acknowledgement.
   
   Ryan: The fuck was that?
   
   Seth turns back to Ryan.
   
   Seth: What?
   
   Ryan rolls his eyes.
   
   Ryan: I'm focused on our match, and you're busy wishing our potential OPPONENTS good luck.
   
   Seth shrugs.
   
   Seth: I dunno, man. Just hope he does well. Not sure about you, but when we win this damn thing, I wanna be able to say we fought against the best.
   
   Ryan raises an eyebrow at Seth as they return to hushed whispers, discussing their match strategy.