Lauren Barkley’s story is about the high school baseball player from a small town (Rochester) who has dreams and aspirations a lot bigger than milking cows. He wants to leave his family and the small town behind to go play baseball but his parents strongly disagree. He ends up deciding to just up and leave and get out of the town to attempt to make his dream come true. He goes off and has an “audition” (I think the right word would be “try-out”) for a professional team where he strikes out three times. He ends up flying back home deciding that his dream was immature and that he wanted to be a small town family man just like his father told him he would be. As he walked back inside his father and mother were surprised and happy to see him. It ends with his father handing him an envelope with $1000 and a note saying, “play ball.”
I think you did a great job of setting up a good setting and believable characters. However, I do think your story has been told before. I feel like you need to add an unexpected twist or just elaborate on setting and details. I wanted more descriptions of milking the cows and how the baseball gloves smelled like leather and how the plane and new town maybe seemed too strong and bright and shiny. Doing so would add a sense of tension and contrast that I think is needed past his conflict with his parents. I also would like to understand why his dad gave him the money and the note. Pardon my pun but it seemed way out of left field. Why did his dad do that? What did he end up doing? I want to know if he played ball again or milked cows.
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