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 example, with a short story, I may spend the opening sequences “building the scene”, only to realize later that all that careful work was scaffolding, allowing me to work my way into the story until I get to the point where I no longer need it. But with the scene set in my mind, I may then be able to cut straight to the subsequent action without losing the story’s sense of milieu.
A big part of any second draft, therefore, is to identify what is scaffolding and what the ‘real deal’ of the creative work — and diligently remove the former.
I never regard the scaffolding as wasted words or effort, however, since without their help I might never have come to grips with the “real” poem, story, or novel.
I didn’t realise until I sat down to edit my books as a whole (I always edit as I go, as well) that I do this too. In fact, a lot of the time when I’d feel dissatisfaction at a paragraph or sentence without knowing quite why, I found I could simply delete the sentence with no loss of meaning or clarity. I tend to do it a bit around dialogue, too. Now that I know, it’s easy to get rid of it.
You’re right, though: it’s never wasted effort. It helps shape and define, and when it’s outlived its usefulness, it’s easy to delete. Sometimes I do wonder why the heck I felt I had to put THIS or THAT redundancy in, but the delete/backspace button is there for a reason 😀
I am glad I am not the only one! Sometimes, I think the ‘scaffolding’ is a way of explaining the action and development of the story to myself as I’m writing it—sort of like building a bridge and walking on it at the same time. But afterward (once the story is done), when I can look back and see the structure as a whole, it becomes very clear what is the ‘bridge’ and what the ‘scaffolding.’