Chris’s worldbuilding video this week discusses magic systems. He asks a series of questions that can help you determine how your magic system works. Using common examples like Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, he explains how the answers to these basic questions can affect things like how many magic users there are, how…
Story Works Round Table #13: Plotting Science Fiction with Chris Fox
Chris was recently interviewed at SWRT about plotting science fiction stories. Highlights include: How important is the science to science fiction? Does the science need to be integral to the plot? Conventions in sub-genre’s of science fiction. What are reader expectations for characters and subplots? More conventions of other sub-genres. How can you break with…
Worldbuilding #2- Let’s Create the Umbral Depths
In this week’s video, Chris discusses the importance of travel and communication in storytelling. He talks about how these aspects influence his own world building and walks through the creation of something he created for his upcoming novel, Tech Mage, called the Umbral Depths. Sound cool? Check out more information in the video below!
How to Make Names That Don’t Suck
In today’s video, Chris begins a world building video series, starting with how to create names for your characters that readers will like. More specifically, he gives some tips about what to avoid and some easy techniques to use when naming your characters. Check out the video below for more details!
The Product Family Map
In today’s video, Chris talks about a concept from Relaunch Your Novel that he calls the Product Family Map. The Product Family Map is a map of your backlist of books showing links between books and how this affects sales. Check out the video below for more details.
The Power of Your Backlist
In this week’s video, Chris talks about how having a backlist of published books can help should you need to take a break from writing. He also discusses his income so far in 2017 and how it has been affected by his backlist. Interested to hear more? Check out the video below!
Quick Tip: How to Write Faster and More Consistently
In this week’s video, Chris gives another quick tip to improve your writing. The trick to consistent writing isn’t just discipline. It’s understanding flow state and learning to go into it on command. To learn more about how to write faster and more consistently, check out the video below!
The Power of Obsession
In today’s video, Chris discusses the power of obsession. Obsession can have a negative connotation associated with it, but Chris talks about the positive aspects of it. Check out the video below for more details: Sign up to the mailing list to get the Scrivener documents for Chris’s novels, marketing articles, and more.
Quick Tip: How to Immediately Make Your Writing More Compelling
Today’s video is the first in a new series, Quick Tips. The purpose of each video is to give one actionable tip, something you can put into immediate use. Today’s video is essentially what was posted in a previous blog post, Every Word Counts. Check it out in video form below:
How to Plot Your Novel Using Dan Harmon’s Story Circle
In this week’s video, Chris takes a look at the plotting aspect of writing a novel. Using Star Wars as an example, he explains Dan Harmon’s story circle structure, which builds on Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey, and how it works to drive the plot of a story. He also shows how he applies the story…