Lumen Gray wrote:

Some really great points and advice here. I know I am new here but I really want to try and be original and I think some of the advice here will definitely help me do that.

I think my first big worry was "People write essays for most of their promos" but these comments have made me feel a little less intimidated by the amount some people seem to write

Many thanks

I'm a 4x world champion and 90% of my promos stop at around 750 words. You really don't have to say a lot. My motto has always been say what you need to say and move on. The only time my promos go longer than that are for big matches or I've got a good promo war going on with someone.

-Continuity: not just in character, but also in story building.  I can read a promo and tell when someone's read their opponent and tries to build a bridge between them to make their match mean something, picking away at the words of their opponent like a word rubic's cube puzzle to turn everything back on the opponent.  I can also tell when someone's got their own little tangent in mind before seeing what the opponent has to say to or about them.  Attentiveness is a big deal to me.  Read your opponent's profile, familiarize yourself with what they're doing within the promotion's confines and find their weak point, because in one way or another, everyone can be made into a hypocrite, a liar, or simply delusional.  If they can't, and you're a heel especially, find a way to smear their strengths.  Every good bad guy has a mass of logic backing up their madness, with only the madness poking holes in their version of the truth, and every good guy can see the web of lies encompassing the forest of truth that a villain can set up.  Either that, or they can overcome insecurities, but I'm sort of getting off base.  My biggest weakness in EAW is that I'm very casual with it and I don't keep up with everyone and everything. Younger me would've, but old crotchity me doesn't have the patience or time to do so, but I still try and do my homework by reading past promos and the profiles of my opponent to understand who they are, what they're going through, and what weaknesses I can exploit or attack and build a good dialogue out of between myself and the opponent.

-Collusion: I think gelling into the same mindset of your competitor gives you a definite advantage and, again, allows you to build something bigger than just a match between you and competitor x.  It can build a history, a feud, or an alliance down the road if the story you're telling is one of mutual respect.  Three of my favorite feuds in e-fedding have been against GI Styles, Lochy McKenzie, and Jamie O'Hara, and I pretty much jabber jawed my way into all of them until I got their attention and we collectively got the GM's attention (except GI.  He still refutes Tony Rolland's love/hate 'history', which has made our 'feud' more of a running joke than a feud).  Get on the same page as your combatant and build something between the two of you, even if there's nothing there but a match initially.  

-Motivation: Never go into a promo 'just' to promo.  Don't make promoing a chore.  Have a message, have a thought process, come into it with bullet points of what you want to talk about, where you want to take your character, and what's at stake.  I do a lot of my promos in a steady stream of consciousness when it comes to dialogue because most of my characters live in my brain and say shit from time-to-time to get my attention and keep me interested in what I'm doing with them, and that usually leads me into what Foley called 'promo land'.  I brainstorm off of one hot lightening bolt of genius that can either be a concept, a situation, or a simple sentence of dialogue and see where it takes me.  When I like one of the forks in my stream of consciousness, I start to write, following it, maybe intertwining some of the other thoughts in as well, but I never go into a promo just to promo.  I go in to show off the shiny new toy that my brain produced and do my damnedest to surround it with other shiny brain toys.

-Character development: Know your character, how they think, what they'd say, what they wouldn't say, how they'd talk, etc. etc.

Character development is such a big must in everything that a promoer does. You can't just pump out an insult laden promo without some way of looking back and seeing what you've done for your character with it. Conversely you can't totally focus on yourself while doing the promo, since you at some point need to remember that you are facing an opponent.

When I faced Dynamo I was so shocked when I read his first promo to me, noting that he admitted that he was afraid of me. This was a stark contrast to the 20 or so other promos I had read that had everyone say they weren't scared of me. It made it more fun to try to promo back, and though the show didn't reflect it, it was something that me and him worked on for a long time.

One of the other big things that I think promos neglect now is that, in an actual pro wrestling event, the matches and promos are designed to not only make you look good but make your opponent look good. A promo in an e fed should reflect that. I'm not saying make your opponent sound like jesus incarnate, but build up the excitement for the match in your promo, make it sound worthwhile to watch. Put story into every word. 

Not sure, this may fall on deaf ears from me, but the idea of repetition is both a good and bad thing. Mine seem to follow the same lines, but I try to put in a little difference as much as I can. I have to work on improving. I guess the best thing I can say is...don't aim for perfection. Aim for evolution. Perfection means lack of growth, and in this business, as well as life, growth means better things in your future. Perfection is stagnation and leads to nothing but misery. Aim for evolution, knowing that you'll get better.

Was poking around and thought I'd add my two cents.

Something I have learned from conversing with real life wrestlers and people in the business is that you should never try to bury your opponent in a promo. Partly because it makes you look like an asshole but mainly because it makes yourself look weak. If you spend a week building up to a match and you keep calling your opponent a worthless jobber then it's not going to mean much if you beat them and if they beat you you're going to look really stupid.

This applies a bit more to real life wrestling because promos are mean't to hype up a match and draw in an audience but it affects e-fedding too, because it's really hard to bounce back from a loss to someone who you put so much effort into making look weak.

I got a couple of things I 'spose. 

First, I love a good theme to a promo. Take Paul Heyman's "yeah but..." Promo. I love a promo that takes something simple like the term "yeah but..." and using it to build Lesnar and Goldberg up and then flip it to drive Goldberg down.  I love when a promo, much like a story, can open and close nicely. In a story, if you introduce a hammer in the first act, it needs to come in handy at the third act and its a tool I love using and love reading in promos. It stops the promo from being as formulaic and paces it out as well. Good insults and argument points are nice but there is nothing more satisfying then reading something that can deliver those things while taking you from point A to point B seamlessly and wrapping it all up. 

Things that have already been said, are Character development, consistency, continuity

so I guess if I were to say anything else I'd say a good promo will have good arguments, good insults, and attacks that either make sense for your character, or make sense in the feud. But a great promo takes the three C's that have already been said, and creates a journey out of it that you want to finish.

Also, don't blow your wad on your first promo against somebody. 
Save your ammo, and don't be so afraid of the counter promo by trying to fill every hole and argument. If you've got things to say, make em count, and spell them out. A list   isn't as effective as a full picture. Take your time to make your point. Don't draw it out and be repetitive, but deliver your point and then get ready to counter your opponent and drop your next one.