Megan Abbott

You mentioned that you figure it out before going.

Is it an outline?

How do you do it?

It's not an outline.

I do a lot of screenwriting, and I always outline the screenwriting, but I never outline it.

But I do really know the three acts, so to speak.

And I know the ending.

I just don't know.

a lot of the in between.

And then once I'm in towards the middle of the book, you know, the messy middle, I do start to plot out beats, you know, like things I still need to do.

And then it becomes a little closer to an outline.

I think it's closer to what I, what they would call on TV, a beat sheet, which is like, these things need to happen.

I, you know, I need to get to these things.

And that's, that's really just to rescue you from that part in the middle of the book, where I think a lot of writers, myself,

included feel a little lost in the sauce as they say so I like that I really like that I mean you've been doing this for a long time so obviously it works and you've had tremendous success is there something about being a writer that you feel has changed since you started remind me when your first book was published yes oh my gosh 2005 so it's been 20 over 20 years yeah yeah yeah and

As you know, but you're too young to know a lot of this, but the business changes.

I think we're the same age.

Okay, so you know the business publishing changes every five years or so in dramatic ways.

I haven't been agenting my whole life.

Like for context, I used to be a lawyer.