Chris Fox - Plot Gardening: Write Faster, Write Smarter

5,000 Words Per Hour

Lifelong Writing Habit

Write to Market

Launch to Market

Six Figure Author

Relaunch Your Novel

Plot Gardening

Its been almost a year since Ive published a book for writers. For a guy whose claim to fame is writing fast, that might seem odd. I mean, I talk about publishing a book a month. So where are the books, Chris?

In 2017 I made a conscious decision to really double down on craft. I wanted to master story and to really understand what made it work, why some of my novels blew up, and why others had mediocre sales. Some would argue that marketing was the key, and dont get me wrong, thats part of it. Thats why the last four books in the series all touch on marketing.

But at its heart, what really sells our book is the content. Its the story. It is infinitely easier to sell a great story than it is a mediocre one. So, its time this series added some craft, and taught the hard-won lessons Ive teased out of the publishing world over the last few years.

Im entirely too proud to say that over 250,000 people have paid for one of my books in some form, across fifteen novels and the previous six books in this series. The vast majority of those sales come from novels, with Destroyer and Tech Mage holding the top spots.

Both novels were Plot Gardened, though if youd asked me at the time I wouldnt have been able to tell you thats what I was doing. Ill explain exactly what that term means in the next chapter, but the short version is that Plot Gardening is a bridge between by the seat of your pants writing and meticulous plotting. Both have their place, as youll see in the pages that follow.

I know many people reading are like me when reading a book like this, and simply dont care about the author. If thats you, have a high five as you skip right on to Chapter 1, where the real learning starts.

When I started this series with 5,000 Words Per Hour back in June of 2015, I was still a software engineer working in San Francisco. Every morning Id hop on the #54 bus from Novato, and spend the next hour to hour and a half writing as we bounced our way toward the financial district.

I published five books during 2015, but by February of 2016 I realized it was too much to sustain alongside a full-time job. I had a difficult decision. Either I needed to scale back publishing, or I needed to give up the day job.

So I quit the day job.

I didnt do it willy-nilly. I saved up a years worth of income, and I paid off all my debt. I also made damned sure my books were selling before I pulled the plug. It was one of the scariest decisions Ive ever made.

When the dust settled at the end of 2016 I could truly claim to be a six-figure author, and had that honor again at the end of 2017. This writer thing is brutally hard, but wow can it be rewarding. Ive spoken in Florida, Vegas, and will be in Chicago and Seattle to speak this year. Next year Ill be speaking in Bali at the 20Books conference.

This strange journey is leading me all over the world, and introducing me to some amazing authors. Ive watched many of those authors use my Write to Market methodology to blow away my income. Ive studied their success, and looked at my own.

My conclusion? Theres going to be an explosion of content in the next decade. More and more people are realizing that self-publishing is profitable, and they want their piece of the pie. I saw the same thing happen in the app world.

If we want to survive, we do that by being the best authors in our genre. We win loyal readers, and that battle is fought with story. Its entirely dependent on our craft, and thats why I wrote this book. Its the culmination of my quest to master story, because I understand its vital to my career as an author.

To that end, I read every book available on plotting, outlining, or storytelling. I re-watched all of Campbells and Sandersons videos, and videos of random YouTube personalities. I binged everyone from John Truby to K.M. Weiland to John McKee.

More importantly, I experimented. Ive got fifteen novels in print, and every one benefited from the previous book. Each time I tried something new, and learned a little more. Now I finally feel ready to share what Ive learned.

Its my hope that this book helps you take your craft to the next level, and that you write the next great novel that delights me the same way other greats have. Either way, its a privilege to share this journey with you.

Chris Fox

February, 2018

H ave you ever given up sleep to finish a book? Or been walking through Walmart and found yourself stopping to watch an iconic scene in one of your favorite movies? Great stories pull us in and refuse to let us go. They speak to everything that makes us human. They force us to confront our worst fears, and to consider things from entirely different points of view.

These stories shape us as people, and play a role in who we become and how we live our lives. This book is going to teach you how to tell that kind of story, and were going to do it without sacrificing your creativity.

Some writers will tell you that you need an outline. Others will argue that they need to be unfettered by such things, and cannot write under that kind of constraint. These two groups have self-divided into plotters and pantsers, so named because the latter write by the seat of their pants.

Ive claimed to be both over the course of my career, but it wasnt until a year ago that I realized Im both. I meticulously outline novels, but some of my best characters and best scenes have come from discovery writing, or suddenly veering off outline.

After realizing that, Ive finally created a third alternative to either rigid plotting, or total freeform writing.

Writing a novel is a massive undertaking, and one that takes most of us a season or longer to do. The title of this book is a play on the two most common methods, borrowed from a Brandon Sanderson lecture.

He claimed that some writers are architects, and others are gardeners. The architects plot out everything meticulously, and know exactly where their stories are going. The gardeners sprinkle some seeds in their subconscious dirt, and wait for something to sprout.

If youd have asked me ten years ago, I would have said I was a gardener. If youd have asked me three years ago, I would have said I was an architect. Today, Im a plot gardener.

I realized that while Sandersons architect analogy made sense, it left out an important part of the creative process. It stripped away some of the organic creativity that has resulted in my best work.

At the same time, just sprinkling some seeds in the dirt and waiting usually resulted in me staring at a blank cursor. Total creative freedom led to inaction, and then me turning off the laptop and watching Netflix.

Then it dawned on me. The solution involved both routes. A gardener doesnt sprinkle seeds and then just hope. They plant specific seeds. They use the right kind of soil. And smart gardeners may use pesticide or planter boxes. They know how often and how much water to give their seeds.