During the months leading up to the launch of Dig Down, I was spending most of my time researching the hundreds of things I needed to get done to make the launch as successful as possible. I watched numerous YouTube channels that gave instructions on how to create a website, building a social media platform, the best uses of your time and money, and I could go on and on.
It was extremely helpful getting tips from other writers who’d already taken the journey themselves, and I was always searching out new sources of information. One of the best resources I came across was the podcast So You Want to be a Writer.
Not only was this show hosted by two authors who chronicled the goings on of their own careers, they also held weekly interviews with other writers. Talk about a healthy dose of exposure to the writing process.
The end of their interviews always play out like Inside the Actor’s Studio where they’ll ask their guest the same series of questions. One question they posed stuck with me: they’d ask “Are you a plotter or a pantser?” Essentially, do you work out what’s going to happen in your story before you start writing, or do you fly by the seat of your pants, making it up as you go along?
I’ve got a lot of respect to all the writers who identify as pantsers, and I understand the reasoning behind their writing process. Authors like Stephen King and George R.R. Martin fall into this category, stating that they want to be as surprised at what happens next when they write it as their audience will be reading it.
But, I’m a meticulous plotter, through and through. I leave room for improvisation, and there’s always revisions I find I need to make both while writing and after, but I need a steady framework of where I am in the story and where it’s going or I’ll never finish. For Dig Down, I think I spent more time outlining the story than I did writing the first draft.
In the coming weeks, I’ll go into detail about how much I craft the story before I put down a single word