People who know me well – or who have followed this blog from its beginning – know that baseball is my favorite sport. It is the only sport I played in an organized league. Given the choice between free playoff football tickets or free regular-season baseball tickets, I'd take the passes to the baseball game. I have enjoyed writing about many different sports during my journalism career, but baseball was always the sport I looked forward to most.
The first ideas for The Pride of Central came into my mind during a baseball tournament I was covering in 2008. However, despite my affinity for the sport, there was no reason that I had to make my story about a baseball team.
Yes, it does help to write about what you know, and I do know a lot about baseball. But there was another thing to consider before I actually started typing up my manuscript in 2016. Did baseball fit the theme of my story?
If you ever get a chance to hear an author (or screenwriter) discuss their creative process, you will find that often stories go through what appear to be radical changes. Sometimes its about which characters live or die, or if the team you are following wins the championship game or loses it, or which guy gets the girl. But other times, the changes have more to do with the setting of the story.
The original idea was that the main character would be a salesman. In the final story, he is a preacher. The first draft had the family living in Paris. The published novel takes place in India. The first screenplay took place during the Civil War. The actual film is set in the Great Depression.
Why the changes? There could be many reasons, but one is that sometimes that original character/locale/setting is not appropriate for the theme the writer wants. The author's theme was easier to convey through a public speaker than a business man. The writer's ideas were better expressed in Southeastern Asian culture than European culture. The screenwriter's points could be more clearly stated in a story of financial hardship than in a time of violent conflict.
There are many themes in The Pride of Central I wanted to express. Would a baseball team be able to convey them? Even if I stayed within the realm of sports, would football, basketball or soccer have been a better setting?
Fortunately, in my case, baseball was the ideal sport. That is because baseball has a play named after one of the themes in my story.
The sacrifice.
For those unfamiliar with baseball, a sacrifice bunt occurs when a batter deliberately allows himself to be thrown out for the purpose of allowing his teammates to move closer to scoring a run. It is an important but rarely celebrated part of the game. Stories about who leads the league in home runs appear all the time. The top players in batting average, doubles, triples and RBIs are easy to find in an internet search. But the top players at sacrificing themselves? That would take more digging to find.
The theme of sacrificing, both being the person making the sacrifice and the person being sacrificed for, would be important for my characters. Do other sports have themes of sacrifices? Yes. The football player making a block so his teammate can run father down the field. The basketball player who sets a pick so a teammate can get an open shot. But neither of them are actually called a “sacrifice”. It was like baseball was designed for the story I was creating.
Once upon a time, the title of my manuscript was A Perfect Sacrifice. I decided that title was a little over the top. But as a theme showing how the baseball players were sacrificing for each other, and how others outside of the team were sacrificing for them, it was a perfect match for my storyline.
Your story may not be about sacrifice, and it may not need a setting with any sport at all. But I hope you can find that ideal connection that allows you to develop both your plot and your theme all at the same time.
Next week: A Teammate and an Individual
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