Imagine walking across a tightrope over a deep canyon. To me, creative writing feels like tightrope walking. (Metaphorically. I would not attempt walking across actual rope.)
For any writing project, we start on one platform with an idea, a premise, a desire to tell a story or share an experience. Before us is the tightrope, an exhilarating yet terrifying path we must cross in many tiny steps without toppling if we are to make it to the platform (“the end!”) on the other side.
Ten years ago, Nik Wallenda (of Flying Wallendas circus family fame) walked a 1,400-foot tightrope over the Grand Canyon. Live, on television. He used neither a tether nor a safety net.
Some writers (“pantsers,” as in
