Summer Baseball Movies: America’s Passtime on film (and they could improve your writing, too)
My family loves baseball. Well, hubby and I do. That’s a big part of why we ended up together. He used to catch for me when I wanted extra practice and couldn’t meet up with one of my team catchers. And trust me, catching for any pitcher at our level was not for the faint of heart. He was the sexiest thing I’d ever laid eyes on back there behind the plate with his mask on. Yummmm… Could handle anything I could dish out (I’m fanning myself just thinking about it). Half my team was in love with him, plus he came to every game, even away tournaments to support me. And that’s before we even got engaged. Sigh. Is that romantic or what? Just wait until you hear how he proposed (later post).
Now that we’re married with kids, we’re slowly brainwashing our two boys into thinking baseball is the best sport ever. Even if they don’t see it quite yet, I know they’ll come around.
I love ball. I love watching it, I love playing it (just the odd slo-pitch game now) and I love coaching it. Long, hot summer days bring back a million memories for me, having spent countless hours sweating away at practices and tournaments all over North America. The earthy scent of freshly cut grass and the tang of sunscreen instantly transports me back to my ball-playing days (I feel so old saying that!). It makes me think of all the friends I’ve made from the sport I love. I even got an amazing sister-in-law out of the deal (waving madly to Kara!). I feel truly blessed at the ways softball has enriched my life.
It’s no surprise that I have my favorite baseball movies, like Bull Durham (all-time fave, especially when Crash tells the batter what pitch is coming to teach his rookie pitcher a lesson. Pitchers can be such head cases :)) and A League of Their Own. I actually met some of the women who played in the All American Baseball League (during and after WWII), at a B.C. Sports Hall of Fame induction dinner. That was back in 1993. Man, does time fly or what?
A lot of bad memories from that year, the worst one being from the end of the season. It took two gruelling years of tryouts to make that team (including several fast-pitch equivalents of Hell Week), but the coaches did choose me for the final roster. I was the starting pitcher for game one, and on the last play of the game I tagged a runner at third base and dislocated my pitching hand ring finger. But hey, at least the runner was out. Injuries hurt less when you get the out. That’s the main thing. We mercied the other team 10-0 and finished in five innings. I got the win and a shut-out in the opening game, but that darned finger…
I didn’t dare say anything to the coaching staff. I’d worked too long and too hard to be sidelined by a stupid injury I was sure I could suffer through. So I clenched my jaw and pulled the finger into place to reduce the dislocation, hoping no one would ever know what had happened. But within a few hours the thing quickly turned purple and blue, and was so swollen I couldn’t move it. Not good. So much for going under the radar. My catcher saw it later that night and tattled on me. I got sent to the medical tent for x-rays and some anti-inflammatories. Long story short? That game was the only action I saw for the tournament. Five whopping innings, after two and a half years of blood and sweat making the squad. I was devastated. We came in third, much to our disappointment. But even though the memories are bittersweet, I wouldn’t trade them. My love of the game was as strong as ever.
Anyway, A League of Their Own always takes me back to that memory because we watched it on the team bus on the way to the Canada Games. Then as I said, I met a few of the actual players at the induction dinner. Hands down one of my favorite movies. Great plot and interesting characters. Tom Hanks’ character reminded me very much of one of my favorite coaches, only my coach wasn’t a drinker. He was every bit as gruff and surly, though. We’re good friends now, but when I played for him he once told me “I’m not here as your friend. If you want a friend, go buy an f—ing dog.” True story. But I digress.
The Rookie‘s also good, a true story about a middle-aged high-school teacher who goes back and tries out for the big leagues, and winds up making it. We watched it the other night, and the scene where Dennis Quaid calls home from a phone booth to tell his young son he’d made the Majors… Well, we’ve seen it a few times, and I always watch my husband’s face when that scene comes along. He didn’t disappoint me. He always gets all choked up at that scene. How can I not love a guy like that?
My eldest loves Field of Dreams (whose author also lives in my town, White Rock), but let’s not forget The Natural , For Love of the Game (also has a great romance plot), or Eight Men Out. Those are my favorites.
Okay, there’s a point to this, I swear. As a writer, watching movies like those are great tools to learn plot, pacing, setting, dialogue and characterization. Since I’ve been writing, I can’t simply watch a movie for pure entertainment anymore. I’m constantly watching to see how the writers and directors pull all the elements of the stories together. Just like when I read a book. I notice sentence construction and seem to pick out word echoes (a little pet peeve that bugs me if an author does it too much in a book). I note how a character speaks and how the pacing is developing, how the story threads are woven and joined together.
See? It’s entertainment and education all at the same time. What more could you want? Next time you’re watching a movie, pay attention to the details of the storytelling craft involved. You’ll be even more impressed.
More plotting techniques
In my efforts to lay out the story for my next novel, I’ve been researching various plotting techniques used by other writers. I figure there has to be a better way than what I’m doing. As stated in a previous entry, I am not a pantser, at least not until the final stages of drafting. In fact, the thought of starting a novel without knowing where I’m going next is enough to make my eye twitch. To me, that’s like hopping in a car and driving off into the sunset without any desination in mind. Just take off and go until you run out of gas. Not the way I like to travel! I like the MapQuest way, where you have a clear beginning and end destination in mind, then you find the most direct route there and prebook your hotel before you even think about packing. For me, writing a book is a lot like that.
Since this is the fifth and final book in this series, I already know all my characters inside and out. Bonus for me, right? Yeah, but they’ve also been through so much already that I have to be careful to put them into new and even more perilous situations to keep my storyline fresh and interesting. After looking around at various methods online I’ve decided I already use a combination of the most popular, and that’s worked fine up until now, with one major exception.
Drum roll…
The sagging middle. All writers out there know exactly what I’m talking about. Oh, the horror! You’ve got your incredible beginning, the blackest moment known to the literary world and the most astounding conclusion for the book all figured out, and then–
You have no idea how to fill in the middle. I mean, like, none. Man, that sucks.
Classically, this is where all writers struggle. They start out strong out of the gate, then fall halfway to the finish line. Some struggle to their feet and carry on even though each step is painful and grueling, but some give up and lay there until someone brings a stretcher to drag them off the track because the finish line is too damn far away. Unreachable. And while they’re being hauled away they wonder, “Why did I ever think I could write a novel?”.
Sometimes a writer will question their ability to make the story work long enough to reach the finish they’d been so excited about initially. If this describes your situation, take heart! You can fix it. The answer that works for me? More plotting. Now, to find a system that works and appeals to you.
There’s the famous Snowflake method, by Randy Ingermanson. He starts with a high concept pitch, where the story is boiled down into one tight sentence. That’s your starting point. He then expands on this to add the high plot points, and then branches into character development where the author explores the goals, motivations and conflicts facing each major character. It’s all very neat and scientific, but a whole lot of work!
Personally, I want something short and concrete before I start the first draft. I like to write out everything important in a pretty notebook I buy for each book I’m working on. At night I keep it next to my bed in case I wake up with something brilliant in mind (at least, it seems brilliant to me at that time of the morning), and I carry it in my purse in case inspiration strikes while I’m out doing errands. I do a character sketch outlining background, goals, motivation and conflicts for each major POV character. I don’t go into so much detail for the minor characters, but feel free if it helps you get to know them better. Try an interview if this is too sterile for you. Find out what makes them tick, their darkest secrets, what habits they have, etc.
Once that’s done, I already know what each major character wants, why they want it, and why they can’t have it (goal, motivation and conflict–cool, huh?). By the way, conflict drives the plot. No conflict, no novel. Readers don’t want to be bored, and neither do agents and editors. So whatever twists and turns your storyline takes from page one to The End, you’d better have unresolved conflict along the way. And lots of it.
Begin with an opening that introduces the major conflict for at least one of your major characters. If you can make it matter to more than one, so much the better. Then you need to figure out the major crisis points in the book, and how you want things to wind up. Once all that’s done, you have the most critical parts of the book laid out already. Now, all you have to do is flesh out the scenes in between to fill in the blanks. Easy, right?
Not so much. There’s still that darned saggy baggy middle to contend with. Trust me, it can stop a writer dead in their tracks and keep them mired down for weeks. Months, even. Not good! So, back to the drawing board. Tackle it on your own if you want, but don’t feel bad if you need help. Talk to someone in your writing group. Find a critique partner. Bug your spouse, or your mom, or your best friend, and get some ideas going.
Try to identify why you’ve stalled and why the middle is so lacklustre. I bet you’ll find there’s not enough conflict going on at that point. So? Make something exciting happen. Introduce another subplot. Throw in a twist, or even two or three. Do something! Once you do, the story will begin to flow again. Really, I swear! And always remember you can change it later if something even better comes to mind. Just make sure that whatever conflicts you have, don’t resolve them too soon or it could be a really short book. Us authors still have that pesky thing called a word count hanging over our heads.
With all this in mind, I wanted to see if there was a boiled down, nitty-gritty kind of plotting system out there. Like magic, I stumbled across a concise story line layout designed by Lynn Viehl.
Wow! How come I didn’t think of this? She lays everything out in an organized way that really appeals to my Capricorn, control freak nature, and streamlines my process. I daresay it will even help me stave off that dreaded sagging middle. Hallelujah! I’m revved and ready to rock.
So now you have a few other ideas to kick around when you’re in the early stages of tackling a novel. I hope at least one will be of help to you. To all you pantsers out there, my hat is off to you. I will never understand how you guys can create a novel out of thin air, but that’s just me. To each their own, I guess.
Happy plotting!