A Night at the Ballpark
Imagine you’re back in 5th grade. You’ve been at baseball/softball practice all night, and coach promised you could have a hitting contest at the end of practice. You line up with the other kids, but you’re last in line. Not where you wanted to be. Your mom is usually pretty ready to leave once practice is over.
Crack! The first kid hits a low-flying ball to left field, and it rolls to a stop in the grass.
You look over at your mom. She is talking to some of the other parents near the dugout.
Yes. Mom loves to talk. We’re good.
The kids in front of you hit a few decent balls, the best one rolling five feet short of the center field fence. That’s going to be hard to beat.
When it’s your turn, you glance over at your mom. She gives you a thumbs up. You hone your focus, swing hard, and launch one that falls ten feet short of the ball in center field.
Dang.
As you pack up your stuff, you notice a couple dads walking toward home plate. One of the dads picks up a bat and asks the coach to throw him a ball. The coach laughs and lobs one over. Dad 1 gets a good hit, but it’s low and runs into the fence. Dad 2 steps up. With his stout frame, he seems like someone who could launch a proper home run. But he swings too hard, loses his balance, and ends up in the dirt.
Just then, you hear a familiar laugh. It’s your mom. Dad 2 shouts back at her while dusting himself off. “Like you could do any better!”
To your surprise, your mom puts down her purse and walks over to home plate. Your heart drops. You’ve never seen your mom so much as throw a crumpled paper into the trash can. Can she hit a ball?
You look down and brace for the worst. The loudest “crack” of the night echoes through the park. You look up to see your mom’s ball flying high toward left field. It has no issue clearing the fence.
No one speaks. She drops the bat, picks up her purse, and tells you it’s time to go. And as casually as she walked up to the plate, she strolls over to the car.
When Characters Act Out of Character
Having a character act out of character is a great way to add depth to a story. Here are two ways you might do that.
Secret Reveal: To you and anyone who didn’t know your mom, her crushing a ball over the fence was completely out of character, which makes for quite the story. Until she tells you about her years playing college softball on the way home. One way to make a character more dynamic and interesting is to reveal something that seems out of character, until you reveal it’s actually very much in character.
No Explanation: To make a character more authentically human, you could have them do something out of character with no certain explanation. Surely you have done something that doesn’t align with who you are or how you normally act. Humans are not perfectly curated characters who only do what is expected. The story can then dive deeper and navigate the character’s inner thoughts about why they did what they did and what it means about who they are.
Sentence of the Week
I’ve been reading a really great book about what we can learn from plants. The author has an inspiring way with words.
Sometimes I wish I could photosynthesize so that just by being, just by shimmering at the meadow's edge or floating lazily on a pond, I could be doing the work of the world while standing silent in the sun.
—Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
Thanks for reading,
Braden
The way you described character building was so clear and simple, yet so vital. I enjoyed the entire post.
Enjoyed the whole experience...need you to be a ghost editor for Papa's Letters