Revision Advice: Know What Your Book is About!

I'm fairly certain the line between a published author and an unpublished one has something to do with revisions. We've all heard stories of writers who can whip out a perfect manuscript in one shot, but I think that's a literary urban legend. I'm with Ernest Hemingway who said, "The first draft of anything is shit."

Ernie's observation begs the question, "How can I mold this steaming pile of words into something that resembles a story?"

Everyone's got their own process for turning lead to gold, but my biggest, number one goal in revisions is to figure out what my story is about. What is my point?

Because without a point, there's really no reason to write a story, and even less to read one.

In Mere Temptation my point was that true love means growing up and closing the door on some of your options. In Mere Passion, my point was that a person is more than the sum of his beliefs. Shark Bait? Being loved for yourself is more important than getting "that guy."

And yesterday I sat down with my WIP, The Gods Must Be Horny, and realized my point is "only by pissing some people off can you earn the love of the people you really care about."

Once I knew what my book was about, I got tons of information on why certain things weren't working. For example, I have a subplot in which a character's father figure acted like a dick and then learned the value of diplomacy. This subplot DID NOT WORK! Why? Because my book is about how you can't please everyone all the time.

I can't have a subplot that goes directly against the point of my book.

Harry Potter was all about good triumphing over evil, despite tremendous odds. How well would the series have worked if there were scenes littered throughout where Rowling said, "Well, good and evil are really relative terms. Everyone is just doing the best he or she can"? NO! In Harry Potter there was "good" and "evil." They fought each other. Yes, there were nuances, and characters who contained a little of both. But by and large evil=bad, good=good.

So if my story is about the times one has to abandon compromise in order to grow as a person, the last thing I want to do is throw in a scene that encourages compromise.

What about you? What is your current WIP about? Do all your scenes and plots point the same direction? Or are there some stragglers pointing the other way?