Cupcakes and Writing: Banana Cream

For me, cupcakes are kind of like my writerly mascot.  Well, so inspired the Cupcakes and Writing series. If you've missed any of the cupcake flavors and want to read them, you can check them out here.  Bon appetit! 

Banana Cream: Revising

If you’re planning on making banana cream cupcakes from scratch, you must peel a lot of bananas.  I mean, can you imagine biting into a banana cream cupcake and getting a mouth full of peelings?   Appetizing, huh?  

But that's what we must do with our manuscripts.  Remove those banana peels-the plot holes, the underdeveloped characters, the unnecessary details.  And add the cream: developing the characters and the plot.  Upping the stakes.  And molding our stories into something delicious.  Bakery worthy.

It's a process.  One I'm not a huge fan of, but it's necessary.  Just like we don't want our loved ones to eat banana peels in a batch of banana cream cupcakes we slaved over, we don't want our readers to read a story that is full of unnecessary stuff and lacking in the good stuff.  Plus, no one would want to sell it.

I'm on draft five of my WIP.  And each of those drafts have gone through major editing.  And then I'd realize I need to go back to the drawing writing board and either rewrite or make major revisions.  Yep, five complete drafts.  Because I've learned more about the craft of writing and applied it to my story.  Or because agents have recommended something that requires a rewrite: such as the agent who said I need to change the POV.  Uh, yeah, changing the POV isn't like "Find and Replace me with he."  Most definitely not as easy as peeling as few bananas.  Naw, it's major revision. 

But my story is better for it.  It's creamier and a little more delicious.  It may not be ready for a bakery/publisher yet, but it's getting there.  And that's my goal.

How do you feel about revision?  Any tips for removing those banana peelings in our stories and adding more of the cream?