For the Labyrinth exchange #160, no. 1 of 3
I’m not sure I understand the dynamics of the relationship between Erin and Tara’s parents – is she unhappy with their (over) concern for her? They seem like nice people, based on the short description provided.

The Erin that Kyle is coming to know is very different from the Erin that is presented to the rest of the world in general. Is she a people person or lone wolf? Is she predictable as Tseng says, or petulant, as her behavior sometimes indicates? Nobody seems to know the ‘real’ Erin so far. Maybe Tseng has come the closest – he certainly sounded the most confident describing her to Kyle in the earlier chapter.

Anyway, yay, Erin and Kyle finally spend quality time together without a whole lot of tension in the air or interfering people around. I wonder if for them it’s a case of opposites attract or birds of a feather flock together. Seems more likely the latter, based on this chapter. Anyway the important thing is that the attraction is apparent.

There’s not a whole lot I could say about this chapter as far as I can see, I’ve read over it four times now, and just a couple things stick out. In the dialogue in the first scene you should give a name to the sporting goods store, if there’s more than one batting cages it’d sound more natural with a name. The other part I want to bring up concerns character logic. Your character Erin moved to a new city and buys a house without having a job? It just doesn't seem probable, I’m sure people move to new cities without having a job but buying a house in a new area seems slightly improbable given the circumstances. Other than those aspects it seems pretty solid. Keep it up, hope to see more.

Opening: I liked how it immediately started with "Strike!" in reference to your title and the male character's backstory. It's casual, and it makes everything all the more realistic.
Dialogue: It flowed well, for the most part. I recommend switching the places of "You know the procedure, the standard." because he asked what they were doing, so the conversational partner would most likely have replied with an answer ('the standard') before the explanation ('the procedure')
Technique: It's a great story, but you could use better word choices. For instance, 'he winds up and releases,' I would recommend making it more specific, such as 'he draws his arm back...'
Grammar/spelling: It's nearly perfect, as far as I can see. I still recommend a change on word choices, though.

Great job! Keep writing!

I'm not one for romance, but this first chapter has fast flowing form, the conversation seems real and enjoyable. The discriptions you put down are my favorite parts of what i have read, especially the opening paragraphs. Very good job.

Nice, believable situations in this chapter. The feel of the Ellicot City even is authentic though not overly weighted with description.

like this:
""Hey," Kyle greets with a smile he reserved for the media, making his way over. Robert is beside himself with joy, a gaping grin on his acne-covered face, but is able to carry out the duties he seems to have been assigned."

am confused here:
""Seven years," Erin nods, this time with a hint of a smile on her lips." Does she mean the child is 7 years old? Or has been playing for 7 years?

okay, I get it:
""Twelve. She's got talent, so it's a pity she didn't get good coaching until three years ago."" I still would add a phrase to the quote above like, 'She's been playing for seven years," Erin nods, this time with a hint of a smile on her lips.' Just a suggestion.

Overall, I like this chapter and the easy way Kyle is starting to feel around Erin. I don;t quite get his attraction to her though. He keeps describing her as NOT particularly pretty and 'plain'. I would think about giving your readers an idea of what IS particularly attractive about her. Just she seem 'different'? Does she smell good? Does she remind him of someone? You know, just because someone isn;t 'conventionally pretty' doesn;t mean they can't be pretty, if not beautiful in their own specific idiosyncratic way… Just saying. I mean, this is a romance, right? A little bit more romancey stuff would heat things up and make this more compelling.

Best.

Claremonty

For the Labyrinth Review Exchange, post #389, no. 3 of 3.

I generally like the chapters without much sports action better than the ones with. Yes, I am totally not sporty. I just like romance stories. I don’t know that that implies for this story, but I’m sure I’m the odd one out among all those readers who like it! So anyway, it’s great that Kyle and Erin are moving forward yet another step – that totally agrees with my romance-buff side.

On the language side, I would like to suggest the following edits:
-the colours OF WHICH Kyle can’t make out
-a ‘viola’ is a muscial instrument, I think what you want is ‘Voila’, unless of course you are purposely trying to show that the twelve-year old was trying to use a big word and got it wrong.
-‘the plastic but catching blue’ : seems to have some words missing
-I use the spelling ‘gauge’ not ‘gage’ but maybe that’s a UK/US difference

For the Labyrinth Review Exchange, post #389, no. 2 of 3.

I’m beginning to think that if I played baseball or at least understood how the game works, I’d enjoy the story more. I seem to spend rather a lot of time with a puzzled ‘I wonder what that was about’ look on my face except when Erin and Kyle are interacting with each other. That probably means I should just go read something that I understand, but I don’t want to give up just like that.

I quite like Tseng and how he seems to be genuinely interested in getting Kyle and Erin together. I don’t know what his motives are for doing so, but at the speed Kyle is moving himself, I think Tseng is a necessity or the romance will NEVER get going. One thing I notice is that Tseng’s English seems to have improved rather dramatically from the chapter where he was first introduced, and as far as I can tell, not that much time has passed in between then and now. I mean, I got the idea that he was barely functioning in the language from that first part, but here he is giving lovelife strategy coaching to Kyle. That’s cute too, BTW. So anyway, the guy sure picked up the language fast!

For the Labyrinth Review Exchange, post #389, no. 1 of 3.

I like the horseplay between Kyle and Erin, though I can’t help feeling that it reads more like a bromance at the moment than a romance. That’s because Erin seems to be able to interact genuinely with Kyle only on the field, and that too when she’s acting like a guy. Well at least they like each other, which is a step in the right direction.

I also wonder if Erin is perhaps using Kyle in a subtle way to up the cred of her team? I got that impression from the way she talks about him to Drew. That would be rather manipulative of her. On a related note, it's quite surprising how you don't discuss feelings very much in this supposed romance, because aren't romances supposed to be all about feelings? Granted, this is from Kyle's POV mostly and he's a guy and guys don't do emo things, but still... a little exploration of his feelings won't hurt, I think.

I like the images in the opening:
"He winds up, and releases, throwing his body weight into the step and the throw, the ball spinning upon the seams, leaving roughly from his fingertips as a curveball." You do a great job of portraying the kinetic qualities of baseball there.

"The vibrating buzz of his phone shakes him out of his musings as he crosses his way through the dark, empty parking lot, illuminated slightly under the glow of the streetlights." Some extra words in there. You might want to cut out 'his way through', and just leave 'as he crosses the dark, empty parking lot.'

I like the dialogue between Meghan and Kyle"
""Yeah, I guess. Anything in particular that I need to do there?" Kyle has done this before, but it has become more of a habit to ask after four years in the MLB." I wonder about their relationship. :)

Think you have a little tense error here:
"and there usually weren't many cameras." should be 'and usually there aren't many cameras'.

like this:
"It briefly reminds him of a pitcher warily watching a runner at first base from his peripheral vision." Nice weaving the overarching theme of baseball into that.

"He turns and fists his gear from the trunk of his car before making his way into his house." Fists?

Nice start.

Claremonty

Review 10 Rule debt (I'm just keeping this to keep track of where I last stopped/for the mods, in case they want to check things out :3 )

So I'll be honest - as someone who had to speed-read through this, I found the details to be a bit overwhelming. I had to speed-read through this, as I have other things to do today. Anyhow, I think you should *lighten* up your prose a bit. It's not an issue when I have time, but I think your prose feels heavy due to the syntax. I'd recommend varying your sentence structure every now and then, just so your writing doesn't feel that heavy. i don't think even think it's the heavy focus on sports anymore, it's just really just how a lot of the paragraphs just get a bit bogged down by description or introspection. But maybe I'm only noticing today because I'm really busy (you see, my reading experience also depends on how much time I have, so don't see this as anything I'm hugely bothered about).

Apart from this, I like the dialogue and character interactions. I feel that Erin has become far more approachable, and I'm wondering what her story is. She is so distant on the one hand, but she clearly loosens up once she's doing sports. I like how she's so engaged in her team, and Tara's career.

I don't know a lot about sports, but I appreciate the extra info you give us - how hard it is to keep dedicated and how important teamwork truly is. I think that's a good insight one can apply to other aspect life as well? Haha, I'm just saying that I can appreciate this story without being a major sports fan.

For the RG EF
I like the so-far unseen side of Erin that you present here - so she CAN be a normal happy human being after all. It's good - otherwise it'd be hard to understand what Kyle sees in her. This chapter is a bit heavy on the baseball jargon - I confess, the descriptions of the exercises sailed over my head, so to speak. I found the part on 'all these what ifs - and wow... etc' a little disconnected. The wow part sounds like a remark an observer would make out loud rather than something he would think. Finally, I'm not sure what you mean by 'complains soothingly mentioning shortcuts'.

For the RG EF

Everyone BUT Kyle and Erin seem to think that they are made for each other and they should hurry up and jump into each other's arms. I find that rather funny, but not in a bad way. I also like how you show Kyle's essentially introvert nature by having his sister find out about Erin from a blog rather than from his own mouth. In the paragraph beginning Kyle wakes up, there's mention of sunlight, '10 a.m.' and 'in the morning'. Any one of these three is sufficient to show the time frame.

A quick note regarding the writing. I've noticed that a *lot* of sentences start with conjunctions (and/but/or/so). In general it's best to avoid starting sentences with conjunctions, but a lot of times in the story these sentences should be connected to the previous sentence, whether by comma/semicolon/etc. The reason I bring it up now is because in the 13th paragraph you start two consecutive sentences with "But", which made the reading very jilted.

In regards to description/details, I like how you go into the sensory details of the game (and what attracts Kyle), but I find a lot of times this sort of description gets lumped together, instead of spaced out throughout the chapter. I think touching on sensory now and then outside of the focused sentences would help balance that aspect of description.

Moving on, I nearly split myself when Tseng comments on Kyle's skills with women. Of all the things I could have expected, "You shit with women," was nowhere on the list. It really punctuates his usually downplayed mischievous side, and made me love Tseng all the more.

Pacing this chapter was probably the quickest the past few chapters. I really liked it because although there was once again lingering on Kyle's love life, there was a lot more movement and the exchanges were much more entertaining.

Ah, poor Tara being elected spokesperson for photos. XD A very well played moment, given her fleeting association with Kyle. This scene was very sweet and went further in solidifying Kyle as more than a mate in a romance story, and I couldn't help but love him for it.

I forgot to mention it last chapter, but it's good to have the plot moving again. It would appear Drew is the bottom-line antagonist, and he was interesting to meet. About my only gripe with him is that it seemed kind of cliche to assign him with so many traits generally perceived as bad or undesirable.

A lot more backstory building up here for both Kyle and Erin. I'm beginning to wonder, though, if Erin got out of the game due to an injury (rotator cuff, perhaps?) On this front, I'd have to say you're doing a good job gradually allowing the reader to get to know her better.

I thought the lead-up to Kyle arriving at the field could have been condensed. It felt like a lot of the first part of the chapter dragged, and while I appreciated the whole, "I should thank her," and the subsequent, "Hmm, maybe this is a bit creepy," moments, I did wish it had moved more quickly.

Once Kyle reaches the field, the pacing picks up quite nicely and made for smoother reading. The action was written very nicely throughout the practice and kept me engrossed.

It was nice to finally get to know Erin outside her shell. I was a bit surprised that she didn't seem even a bit put off by Kyle showing up out of the blue. It almost felt as though she were expecting him. I'm not sure if this is just because she's with the girls, or if there's something else, but for the sake of consistency it would have been nice to have a hint at her thoughts on him showing up.