From the second day of my writing retreat, I have taken the opening to my novel and, thinking on the theme of discourse communities (see, for example, Quack This Way by DFW and Bryan A. Garner), I have ramped up the amount of pro-wrestling insider language, and taken out any narrative guidance through this terminology. I want to explore the friction between a character attempting to gain access to the discourse community of pro-wrestling insiders via a performance of knowledge, while, at the same time, the reader is potentially excluded via their lack of access to this knowledge.
Enjoy!
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Let me sell this.
You know Hera Psych from her tragic death in 2019, at the age of forty-two. You likely know of her death due to her brief run on reality TV in 2018. And she was famous enough to appear on reality TV because of the disastrous accident she suffered live on terrestrial TV’s first airing of British wrestling in thirty-two years, performing as Victoria Atlanta.
I first met Hera or Atlanta, born Jackie Parnaby, on Monday 20 October 1994 in Joe’s Gym, Lincoln, UK. Even if I hadn’t spent the next twenty or so years alongside her, I wouldn’t have forgotten an introduction like that. See, that morning, she didn’t just interrupt my workout. She fixed my eyes and delivered a promo, “Now, come on, don’t work me, it’s you isn’t it? Greek Alpha, right? I’ve heard the boys talking about you. I was ringside last night. You’re getting over as a babyface, some creative spots. Mind, Wondrous Wallace and his cheap heat, hell of a worker, hell of a bumper, hell of a heel, right? He made you in there. You should tell him to grow his hair out though; I could see from the third row when he told you to go home. He came up with that finish didn’t he? Yeah, I don’t know, you’re popping most of the crowd, but me? You’re just not popping me.”
How did this mark have access to all this protected, sacred knowledge? Kayfabe – our insider code to keep the pre-determined nature of pro-wrestling a secret. And Jackie had zero regard for it. Zero respect for the Business.
She was eighteen, six foot, wearing a black t-shirt with the sleeves cut off above jeans heavily worn at the knees. Her hair was dyed jet-black – black as a booker’s heart.
I wanted to tell her to do one, but I couldn’t. She was right, I was getting over pretty good as a babyface, and I was duty-bound to perform as one both in and out the ring. To no-sell her bullshit.
She picked up the Carver book I’d brought with me to read between reps, sneered, then tossed it back to the sticky floor. In return, I smiled. “Not a fan of dirty realism then?”
She repeated the terms ‘babyface’, ‘work’ and ‘getting over’, and when I said I wasn’t sure what she was talking about, her green eyes shone.
Yes, this was a type of game, but she wasn’t supposed to know that.
Credit: WWE
Work Shoot Confessional 
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