Wrestling – Peter M. Ball

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

Watch This: Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling

I watch a fair bit of pro-wrestling. Partially because I’m a fan and partially because it’s an extraordinarily complex sequential narrative with decades of continuity, and I like figuring out what I can learn from it as a writer. If you’ve got twenty minutes to spare, Max Landis does a phenomenal job of explaining the appeal of wrestling – and why it’s narratives are so complex – by parodying two decades of the career of pro-wrestler HHH. I’m not the greatest fan of Landis – Chronicle bored the pants of me – but he gets this one thousand percent right. Wrestling fans should watch it for the parody elements. Non-wrestling fans should watch it ’cause it says something powerful about character, evolution, and story.

PeterMBall 19/03/2015

Writing Advice - Business & the Writing Life

Great Writing Advice Learned from Pro-Wrestling, Part One

Unless you’re a wrestling fan, you’ve probably never heard of Al Snow. He was a wrestler, and a damn good one, and he’s spent years behind the scenes training new wrestlers and talking about wrestling and generally holding forth on the state of the industry. Basically, Al Snow is a smart wrestler whose fond of a good rant, and as a fan of wrestling in general I’m okay with paying twenty bucks for an entire DVD full of his rantings. Some of his rants about wrestling contain remarkably good advice about writing. For starters, Al Snow never lets you loose sight of the fact that wrestling is a business. It may be fake – it’s always been fake – but the wrestlers job is to get in there and put on a match that allows fans to suspend their disbelief and buy into the illusion that it’s real. This is no different to fiction, at all, and it’s one of

PeterMBall 08/06/2012

Conspicuous Acts of Cultural Consumption

The Final Stage of the Long Goodbye

I put in my notice at the dreaded dayjob today. In eight days time, I shall be free. Free I tell you! I mean, sure, there’s a new dayjob coming, but I’m fairly sure I wont actually dread this one. # I’m still spending time away from the computer (and the house) in an effort to force myself to a) write, and b) mark assignments for the not-so-dreaded-and-sadly-almost-done dayjob. My absence from the internets will continue apace for another week, but to keep you amused here’s a grab-bag of stuff to go look at. First, Christa Faust’s Hoodtown has just been made available on Kindle. I picked up a copy of this book several years ago and it immediately became one of *those* books. You know, one of the ones you adore with a fierce and hardcore love that makes you skittish about recommending it to anyone, because if they don’t love it you can no longer respect them as

PeterMBall 09/06/2011

Works in Progress

Today

I’ve done a short guest-post over at Lee Battersby’s blog to kick off a short retrospective about Clarion South 2007. I talk a little bit about what makes clarion great and a lot about the influence one of my classmates had on the first draft of what would eventually become Horn (formerly known around these parts as the untitled Unicorn novella). Go check it out, if you’re so inclined. The rest of the day was pretty busy, by my standards. A trip to the Gold Coast to discuss a subject I start co-teaching in a couple of weeks, a brief fight with the university library about fines for books I’ve already paid fines on, and a trip out to the movies to see The Wrestler. The latter really deserves a post all on its own, since it’s a solid and enjoyable movie (and I say that rarely), but suffice to say that I’d recommend it. Micky Rourke is as good as you’ve

PeterMBall 28/01/2009

Tag: Wrestling

Watch This: Wrestling Isn’t Wrestling

Great Writing Advice Learned from Pro-Wrestling, Part One

The Final Stage of the Long Goodbye

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