Thursday, June 21, 2012

Why Not To Put Jalapenos In Banana Splits

A friend of mine at a writing conference that I am currently at told me this:

"No piece of writing is precious enough to ruin a book over."

Brilliant. Think about it. A jalapeno may be the best jalapeno in the world, but does it belong in your banana split?

But it's a good jalapeno! C'mon, it's great. I worked so hard to grow that jalapeno, and I cut it just right, and why is everybody such a jalapeno hater, and what's the big deal anyway?

Let go of the jalapeno.

Put it in your next book, which is a big bowl of chili.

Or, just keep the jalapeno to yourself, and enjoy what it was.

No piece of writing is precious enough to ruin a book over. No jalapeno is precious enough to ruin a banana split over.

And that's all.


5 comments:

Erin Shakespear said...

Love the analogy. :)

Unknown said...

my children's book professor called it "killing your darlings"

Scott said...

But I'm not so sure that jalapeno wouldn't be good in a banana split. See, I kind of like putting habanero hot sauces on banana. Habanero goes great with a tropical fruit like a banana or a mango. And a little chopped up jalapeno with vanilla ice cream is a wonderful thing. (But not pickled jalapenos. That would just be wrong.)

Now that I've got that out of the way, great post! Fun analogy, and excellent point. Sometimes we want to do too much. Or we're in the middle of a project and something gives us an idea so we try to work it in, even if it's not really a good fit. If I had a jalapeno for every time I've done that, I'd be a happy fella.

Kim Woodruff said...

Great analogy Joseph. I better keep that in mind while I'm working on my rewrite.

Latin Food said...

great tips for me, i should share with my friends