Scaffolding

By way of random, writing process-related thoughts, I’ve been reflecting on how the first draft of almost everything I write (accepting that it may well be different for other authors), whether novel, short fiction, or poetry, always contains elements of what a friend, poet Joanna Preston, calls “scaffolding.”

Exactly as with physical construction, literary scaffolding provides a framework that allows me, as writer, to come to grips with the structure of what I’m building / creating.

For exam...