I'm 2/3 done writing the Little Sparks book. Feedback?

[JoeG]

Over the past two months I have been doing my best to turn the decade-long Sparksdale thread into what is essentially an online book. Well, it's not really a book - it's a series of blog posts organized like a book, with each post being one school year for Little Sparks:

One Player's Journey from Little League to College Baseball

I found the Sparksdale thread very informative and inspiring when I read it 4 months ago, and it's why I became an active member here. Yesterday I published part 7 of this 11 (or 12?) part series. I could use some feedback as parts 6 and 7 cover freshman and sophomore high school baseball for Little Sparks, which is beyond my experience. My son is currently a 12u and I did not play high school baseball, so I'd love to have some other eyes on especially the high school and college parts. I wouldn't mind feedback on earlier parts as well.

To catch up those of you who didn't notice my small post about this to the Sparksdale thread:

In January/February, I prepared a very rough draft that ran through Little Sparks' junior year. I contacted Sparksdale in February and asked him if it would be okay for me to retell the story, using the forum thread as source material. Sparksdale was very supportive and encouraged me to go ahead with the project. Moderators mudvnine and Cannonball also provided words of encouragement.

I learned a lot from the Sparksdale thread and wanted to rework the material and the lessons I learned into a more accessible form that people with little baseball experience could easily digest. As someone who knew hardly anything about the baseball experience when my son first started 8 years ago, I would have loved to have read through something like this.

My rate of publishing has slowed down, and will likely slow down further as I'm increasingly having to look things up I don't know much about, double and triple check forum posts to make sure I fully understand all the different points of view, etc.

When I was telling a friend about this project yesterday, they said it reminded them of how Weir's book"The Martian" came about (it eventually became a very successful film). In a talk Weir gave about the project, Weir indicated that it was a group effort. After each chapter was released online, he got feedback from readers who knew a lot about the subject material, and he made many corrections based on that feedback.

I would love to hear specific feedback if anyone thinks I'm missing important parts of the story, especially parts that help people understand what it takes and what the process is like to advance from little league, to travel ball, to middle school, to high school, and finally to college.

If you want to provide feedback but not in reply to this message, I'm happy to receive feedback as a PM or as a comment at my blog. Whatever works.

Thanks in advance!

And thanks to Sparkdale, the moderators, and all the other forum members who contributed to making the Sparksdale thread one of the most amazing forum threads I've ever come across.

[Viking0]

I have read a few of the blog posts. First of all, you are a good writer. There is good thought put into your posts. Also, I think you balance the detail you are giving out, along with the number of quotes. I haven't read it all through, but will make an effort to read a blog a day, and get back. I have read the entire thread by sparks btw, but it has been two years.

Most interesting thing that jogged my memory is the size of 'leo' in 7th grade. He is the same size as my middle kid, almost exactly. And yes, he is average in general, but one of the smallest on the field.

[JoeG]

I have read a few of the blog posts. First of all, you are a good writer. There is good thought put into your posts. Also, I think you balance the detail you are giving out, along with the number of quotes. I haven't read it all through, but will make an effort to read a blog a day, and get back. I have read the entire thread by sparks btw, but it has been two years.

Most interesting thing that jogged my memory is the size of 'leo' in 7th grade. He is the same size as my middle kid, almost exactly. And yes, he is average in general, but one of the smallest on the field.

For those who don't yet know, "Leo" is what I call Little Sparks, and "Wayne" is what I call the grandfather.

Thanks Viking0 for your initial comments, and for your effort to try to read through all the posts over the next week. I'll be very curious to hear what you have to say about parts 6 and 7 when you get there.

Leo's height/weight is something that I certainly noticed as well - my son is about 3 inches shorter and much skinnier than Leo at every age Leo's height/weight is mentioned, and does not have Leo's height/weight combo (which seems consistent with a muscled athlete).

My son is usually the shortest player on every team that has players his age, yet typically has about 2-4 teammates at about Leo's height/weight as well (and the rest are bigger). I found that pretty interesting - that Leo's size was considered small in Alabama yet is only a hair below average among rec ball and AA (and weaker AAA) travel ball teams around here.

Several of the top players I have seen around my parts are consistent with Leo's height/weight profile, maybe an inch or two taller.

[pthawaii]

Hey Joe, I'm giving it a read, lots of work you put into this! I keep having little thoughts here or there and I feel like I owe it to you to share, feel free to take it or ignore my feedback. It will be in multiple posts as I'm forgetting my feedback as I read on so I'm going to come here and provide feedback here as I read along. First, I like the pacing and how you gave it broken into years. The start is good, I was drawn in and wanted to read on. Time is limited so I'm going to focus on things u might (or not), want to change or address. First, if I recall correctly, the lead in is, did you ever wonder what it would take to go from LL to collage baseball? Maybe this is addressed later, however as I read the first 4 parts I was left wondering about that question throughout the story. For me, having been drawn in by that premise, I wanted to hear more about practice in the back yard. What did he do in more details than throw and hit off a tee. Or if thats all he did then state that. You state a couple of times, practice paid off,..... What practice? Was throwing and hitting off a tee it or is there more to tell? Another general observation is that you story is a bit more sterile than the thread, I'd like to see a little more of the drama and emotional content that the original thread had. I'm not a writer so I'm not sure how to achieve that, just my gut feeling reading it. There is a section where you mention they lost a game because of bad calls. If there isn't more to that story I'd cut it. The story before that was good about the catcher being tossed. Here is the section I'm referring to.

However, Leo’s team did lose against a team later that month when the umpire called very different strike zones depending on which team was batting. Hmmmm . . .

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[pthawaii]

For the section below, could you hold off on where their team ended the season to later? It was slightly confusing to me that in the first paragraph you mentioned them beating the number 1 team then later talked about playing the undefeated number 1 team. I think I figured it out but it might be easier to just hold off on that statement and go right into the story of them #2 playing the number 1 team etc.

So yes, Leo’s 8th grade team played very well. Leo’s team finished the season with a 25-5 record, ranked #2 in the state. They even beat the top-ranked team once. 25 wins was a school record for a single season.

Expectations are high when your team is great. Leo had a very intense experience when his team played the #1 ranked team, the only team in the state with an undefeated record. Leo’s #2 ranked team had managed to go most of the season without playing the undefeated team. With less than a week remaining in the season, these top 2 teams played a double header.

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[pthawaii]

I might even just delete this, not sure it's value added to Leo's story.

They even beat the top-ranked team once.

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[pthawaii]

Quoting post 550 was nice. Feeds into your original lead in of what will it take to go from LL to...

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[pthawaii]

As I continued to read on, I kept feeling like something was missing and then it came to me. The sparks thread is compelling just as much or even more so because of the OPs journey and evolution. Your story is focused on Leo, which is the obvious main character but it misses on the crazy journey sparks took, which for me was a big draw of the original thread. Again, no idea how to incorporate that raw emotional content without it seeming critical or confusing. Just my 2 cents!

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[JoeG]

Hey Joe, I'm giving it a read, lots of work you put into this! I keep having little thoughts here or there and I feel like I owe it to you to share, feel free to take it or ignore my feedback. It will be in multiple posts as I'm forgetting my feedback as I read on so I'm going to come here and provide feedback here as I read along. First, I like the pacing and how you gave it broken into years. The start is good, I was drawn in and wanted to read on. Time is limited so I'm going to focus on things u might (or not), want to change or address. First, if I recall correctly, the lead in is, did you ever wonder what it would take to go from LL to collage baseball? Maybe this is addressed later, however as I read the first 4 parts I was left wondering about that question throughout the story. For me, having been drawn in by that premise, I wanted to hear more about practice in the back yard. What did he do in more details than throw and hit off a tee. Or if thats all he did then state that. You state a couple of times, practice paid off,..... What practice? Was throwing and hitting off a tee it or is there more to tell? Another general observation is that you story is a bit more sterile than the thread, I'd like to see a little more of the drama and emotional content that the original thread had. I'm not a writer so I'm not sure how to achieve that, just my gut feeling reading it. There is a section where you mention they lost a game because of bad calls. If there isn't more to that story I'd cut it. The story before that was good about the catcher being tossed. Here is the section I'm referring to.

However, Leo’s team did lose against a team later that month when the umpire called very different strike zones depending on which team was batting. Hmmmm . . .

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Really appreciate the detailed feedback! I will be thinking about it and will reply to some of your points (some of which I agree with wholeheartedly) on Monday. This weekend is too jam packed with baseball activity for me to be able to thoughtfully respond to your valuable feedback.

Thanks!


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[JoeG]

As I continued to read on, I kept feeling like something was missing and then it came to me. The sparks thread is compelling just as much or even more so because of the OPs journey and evolution. Your story is focused on Leo, which is the obvious main character but it misses on the crazy journey sparks took, which for me was a big draw of the original thread. Again, no idea how to incorporate that raw emotional content without it seeming critical or confusing. Just my 2 cents!

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pthawaii -

I'm going to restate your feedback into several points and then share my thoughts on each:

1) The opening premise: What does it take to make it from Little League to college baseball? - doesn't seem emphasized enough throughout the story. I appreciate and agree with your feedback. I definitely do want this to be the main angle to the story as it's the thing that I personally found of most value. I'll be making changes. In many cases I think minor tweaks will better tie in to the overall title and this opening premise. I wish I could provide a great deal more detail of exactly what Leo did in his practice time. Unfortunately, the source material (Sparkdale's posts) does not often go into much detail. Those rare occasions where it did I pounced on it - for example when he practices the catcher position because the team didn't have a good catcher, then followed up with the DVD for catching instruction. However - it's not just about how you practice. It's about grades, showcases, 90 MPH for pitchers, etc. as well as just advancing from one level to the next. I do discuss these things a great deal starting in part 6. I think where you are right is that I didn't tie in to the main point enough in parts 2 through 4, and maybe even part 5 as well, even though in many cases I was (in my head at least) purporsely including material that I thought supported the main premise. I'll let you know when I'm done all my little tweaks in this regard.

2) Comes across as a little sterile compared to the original forum posts, and often missing out on the strong emotions. This ties in with (3) below - but let me first focus on the drama piece. First off - I am not actually a story writer. Virtually everything I have ever written is either fact, or opinion supported by many facts (reviews, comparisons, how-to, etc.) So I am inexperienced and learning when it comes to story telling. But I think you are right - there are some places where I miss, and I appreciate the couple of specific misses you pointed out, which I can either revise for better effect (the game vs. the best two team in the state - reordering some of the material) or cut out altogether (i.e. crooked umpire story). I remember specifically recognizing when I was writing both of these sections that something seemed a little off in the drama/intensity so it's interesting that you agreed with my own initial intuition on it. Guess I should better follow my intuition.

I do wonder if part 7 will be your favorite - because I did bring in much more of the drama and emotional intensity in that specific part. If you really like that part, then I can think about how I could apply similar techniques to other parts.

3) The story focuses on Leo, while the forum is more about Wayne and his emotional roller coaster journey. By ignoring much of Wayne's emotional roller coaster, the story loses much of its intensity and drama. I am still thinking about what I want to do with this feedback. I do recognize what you're saying and it makes total sense. But at the same time, I made a deliberate choice when I started to more focus on Leo and that initial premise of "what does it take to make it from little league to college baseball?" Part 7 is much more in line with what you're suggesting, and I think it came out pretty well (did it?). But at the same time, if I put a lot more emphasis on the emotional ups and downs Sparksdale goes through the entire series, it would be a lot longer, and the educational aspects would be diluted.

In my mind, there is a huge educational value of this story for those (such as myself) who have never experienced high school athletics or had a child who has. So I am really trying hard to keep the educational piece at the forefront (which is why I take long asides to explain what travel ball is, how college scholarships work, what showcases are, etc.), but at the same time not make them so long and factual that it makes the story too boring. It may be that I need to make it all a little longer, a little more dramatic, to better sustain reader interest. However, I don't want to make it 2-3x as long, with the emotional roller coaster taking over as being the main point as opposed to the educational piece.

Still thinking about this #3 piece - and it will help my thinking further when I hear your and other reader reactions to part 7, where I think I really did pull in the drama and emotional roller coaster into the story more.

Thanks again for your help - I'll be getting to work now on a number of minor revisions related to points (1) and (2) above.

[JoeG]

Hey Joe, I'm giving it a read, lots of work you put into this! I keep having little thoughts here or there and I feel like I owe it to you to share, feel free to take it or ignore my feedback. It will be in multiple posts as I'm forgetting my feedback as I read on so I'm going to come here and provide feedback here as I read along. First, I like the pacing and how you gave it broken into years. The start is good, I was drawn in and wanted to read on. Time is limited so I'm going to focus on things u might (or not), want to change or address. First, if I recall correctly, the lead in is, did you ever wonder what it would take to go from LL to collage baseball? Maybe this is addressed later, however as I read the first 4 parts I was left wondering about that question throughout the story. For me, having been drawn in by that premise, I wanted to hear more about practice in the back yard. What did he do in more details than throw and hit off a tee. Or if thats all he did then state that. You state a couple of times, practice paid off,..... What practice? Was throwing and hitting off a tee it or is there more to tell? Another general observation is that you story is a bit more sterile than the thread, I'd like to see a little more of the drama and emotional content that the original thread had. I'm not a writer so I'm not sure how to achieve that, just my gut feeling reading it. There is a section where you mention they lost a game because of bad calls. If there isn't more to that story I'd cut it. The story before that was good about the catcher being tossed. Here is the section I'm referring to.

However, Leo’s team did lose against a team later that month when the umpire called very different strike zones depending on which team was batting. Hmmmm . . .

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There are many different little things to contribute to Leo being able to play baseball all the way through college. So, as a specific example of me better tying in to this theme:

Existing:

Soon after Leo joined his local Little League, he was hooked. Wayne had fun with it too as he coached Leo's teams and observed Leo's rapid progress.

Add following sentence:

Leo loved baseball and clearly had some talent, which were to be 2 key ingredients to Leo's baseball success to come.


I can sprinkle little tie-in sentences like this all throughout the story, connected with events like winning a local contest, being able to hang with older players, joining first travel ball team, the importance/helpfulness of multiple sports, etc. To me, it is a succession of these little things (combined with an occasional big thing like trying out for the middle school team) that help build up the picture of what it takes to make it all the way through college. I didn't often make that explicit, but I can with these little tie-in sentences.

Does that make sense?

[flyingmachine3]

Great effort Joe and this thread is the reason I even took a look at the big Little League thread. All I know is it was incredible to not know the outcome of the level of play that he eventually found while reading. Good luck and look forward to seeing what your finished product looks like.

[JoeG]

Great effort Joe and this thread is the reason I even took a look at the big Little League thread. All I know is it was incredible to not know the outcome of the level of play that he eventually found while reading. Good luck and look forward to seeing what your finished product looks like.

That's amazing that you didn't know about the thread during your 3 years of participation. I think for quite a few people here (including me for sure!), that thread is the highlight of the board. Maybe there's a better possible title for the thread than "Little League?" After all, posts 424 and later out of 1900 are after his youth baseball days.

And your comment makes me wonder if the title of my blog series takes away too much of the anticipation of how far the young ballplayer will get.

When I first read through the 1900 post series, at some point the posts started bogging down in a lot of back and forth (it might have been somewhere between post 300 and 400?), so I decided to skip to near to the end as I really wanted to know what happened. Then I went back and finished reading the rest.

[flyingmachine3]

That's amazing that you didn't know about the thread during your 3 years of participation. I think for quite a few people here (including me for sure!), that thread is the highlight of the board. Maybe there's a better possible title for the thread than "Little League?" After all, posts 424 and later out of 1900 are after his youth baseball days.

And your comment makes me wonder if the title of my blog series takes away too much of the anticipation of how far the young ballplayer will get.

When I first read through the 1900 post series, at some point the posts started bogging down in a lot of back and forth (it might have been somewhere between post 300 and 400?), so I decided to skip to near to the end as I really wanted to know what happened. Then I went back and finished reading the rest.

Seriously, I just assumed it was some thread about the official Little League organization.

I can't be the only one that hasn't bothered to dig into it.

I would suggest a modification to the original thread title:

Little League (A Players Journey)

[JoeG]

As I continued to read on, I kept feeling like something was missing and then it came to me. The sparks thread is compelling just as much or even more so because of the OPs journey and evolution. Your story is focused on Leo, which is the obvious main character but it misses on the crazy journey sparks took, which for me was a big draw of the original thread. Again, no idea how to incorporate that raw emotional content without it seeming critical or confusing. Just my 2 cents!

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As a result of your feedback, I've made 22 edits throughout the 7 posts, with most of them in the first two posts. Most of these edits reiterate the main theme (little league to college - what does it take?), tying the story back to that theme.

I re-framed the introduction slightly to make clear that I shifted the emphasis from Wayne's journey in the forums to being more about Leo than Wayne in the way I retell it. As you say, it probably reduces the drama and emotional impact of the story. It's possible that over time I'll figure out ways to liven it up a little more, perhaps with a few more choice quotes. But I still want to keep the main focus on Leo and "what it takes to make it all the way from Little League to College" - with a lot of educational tidbits thrown in.

I am still very curious to hear your take on the sophomore year when you get to it. That is the only one that is more about Wayne than Leo and includes a lot of the intense emotions Wayne had around the JV vs varsity drama.

Thanks again for your insightful and specific feedback. Very helpful!