Crafting Story Movement
Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Story Forward
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Published by: Craft on Craft, LLC
Release Date: Release date: October 7, 2025
Contributors: Donald Maass, Foreword
Pages: 328
ISBN13: 9798999142511
Overview
"You might think, at this point, that there is nothing new to say about the craft of fiction, but there is, and Kathryn is saying it here."
—from the Foreword by Donald Maass, literary agent and author of The Emotional Craft of Fiction
As a writer, you want to move your readers—to tears, to laughter, to dread, to wonder. To usher them beyond their lived experience so they can view life from a new perspective. To make their heart leap and their soul dance.
CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward is a writing craft guide that shows you how to create emotional storytelling, build reader immersion, and design a novel that flows with irresistible momentum.
Guided by examples from masters across genres—and inspired by the author’s background as a dance critic and developmental editor—you’ll discover:
• Fiction pacing techniques that keep readers turning pages
• Story movement strategies to sustain narrative momentum
• Character-driven storytelling tools to make readers care
• Ways to connect with readers on a visceral, emotional level
• How to choreograph scene-to-scene flow so every beat matters
Whether you’re writing high-stakes suspense, tender romance, or thought-provoking literary fiction, this book offers the shift in perspective that will help you claim the power of movement in fiction—and write a novel that lingers in your readers’ hearts long after “The End.”
Praise
“Kathryn Craft’s background in dance and choreography adds a delightful and fresh insight into developing characters, emotions, and story structure. Filled with illustrative examples and usable prompts, Crafting Story Movement is a valuable resource for new and experienced novelists alike.”
—Shelley Noble, former dancer and New York Times bestselling author of The Tiffany Girls and The Colony Club
“Drawing from the world of dance and movement, Craft takes us on a deep dive into the energy that drives a story forward and draws a reader closer. Full of examples from successful books, and practical suggestions for utilizing the material, Crafting Story Movement is a welcome, hands-on guide for fiction writers in any genre.”
—James Scott Bell, International Thriller Writers Award winner and author of Write Your Novel from the Middle
“Brilliant! Crafting Story Movement should be on every writer’s desk. Kathryn Craft, former dancer turned author, begins each chapter with inspirational words from noted choreographers and dancers, setting up stellar examples on how to propel a story forward with energy, passion, action, restraint, and nuance. A remarkable book with a stunningly unique perspective.”
—Julie Maloney, former dancer and author of A Matter of Chance and founder/director of Women Reading Aloud
“The movement of a dancer across a stage and a reader whose eyes race across the page seem an unlikely duo, yet the connection is laid bare in Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Story Forward by the inimitable Kathryn Craft. The author’s talent of drilling into the heart of notable books to explain what works and why is a gift every author, no matter their aptitude, will treasure.”
—Barbara Conrey, USA Today bestselling author of Nowhere Near Goodbye
“With Crafting Story Movement, Kathryn brings insight, common sense, experience, and a sense of joy to the process of writing a novel. This should be on every writer’s bookshelf!”
—Jonathan Maberry, NY Times bestselling author of NecroTek: COLD WAR and RED EMPIRE
“Crafting Story Movement will set your story in motion. Informed by the world of dance, Kathryn Craft invites you—chapter by chapter—into the deeper choreography of transformation. You’ll never experience your own narrative quite the same way again.”
—Therese Walsh, author of The Moon Sisters and editorial director of Writer Unboxed
“Brilliant, perceptive, and just what every writer needs. I never connected dancing with storytelling until now. Craft (so aptly named) offers plenty of useful examples of how to get your story moving, and I already know I will keep this guide by my side as I write my next novel!”
—Nancy Johnson, bestselling author of People of Means and The Kindest Lie
“Kathryn Craft has turned her long experience with dance to great advantage. By focusing on movement, and with numerous excellent examples from a wide range of novels, she manages to reveal the parallel progression of the author through her material and the reader through the story. In so doing, she provides both fundamental guidance for beginning writers and a fresh, illuminating perspective for old hands. Few are the writing guides that can teach old dogs new tricks. Crafting Story Movement is one of them—and one of the best.”
—David Corbett, author of The Art of Character and The Compass of Character
“Brimming with insight and wisdom, Kathryn Craft’s Crafting Story Movement entertains and informs while illustrating how the fine art of movement applies to story. A compelling how-to guide for novelists at all levels to devour, absorb, reread and savor.”
—Terez Mertes Rose, former dancer, author of the Ballet Theatre Chronicles series, blogger at The Classical Girl
“Through the metaphor of dance, Crafting Story Movement does the near impossible—it brings fresh perspective to the craft of writing. Full of deep and rich insights as well as practical exercises, Craft delivers her advice in a motivating voice that made me itch to get back to writing!”
—Lainey Cameron, award winning author of The Exit Strategy and host of The Best of Book Marketing Podcast
Introduction: Travel on the Diagonal
THIS BOOK IS A MOVEMENT STUDY for novelists. That a dance critic turned developmental editor—especially one with my last name—would write a book on the craft of story movement might seem an inevitability, but I was slow to come to the idea. It wasn’t until preparing a presentation for an online conference run by author Therese Walsh, co-founder of the acclaimed Writer Unboxed blog, that my backgrounds in dance and story converged to illuminate the contribution I might make to the already robust canon of how-to-write-fiction titles: the way every single aspect of craft I’d studied held the promise of story movement.
Sometimes it takes a few decades to realize that the journeys you’ve compartmentalized could converge as a perspective worth sharing.
From my dance training, I learned that movement is a transfer of energy—from one muscle to another, dancer to partner, the earth to the body, the mind to the body to the surrounding space, performer to audience member. The choreography that coordinates that movement is not a series of steps any more than a story is a series of black marks on a page. What captivates is the intention the mover brings to the connection between steps, just as story movement relies on the energy between words. It is in a novel’s spaces that author and reader interact, through questions raised, expectations managed, and ideas allowed to resonate.
By focusing on how to harness the energy that drives a story forward, I hope to encourage you to discover the “why” that will connect storytelling “steps” you may have learned elsewhere. As this book’s twenty-four chapters suggest, aspects of story movement manifest in many ways. We’ll start with how you-as-author move toward your story. We’ll look at how you invite the reader to share in its experience and how to keep them invested. We’ll look at how energy is exchanged within scenes and how this drives a protagonist’s inner change.
My movement background may have primed me to think of story in terms of impetus and destination, but this doesn’t mean nonstop action. A reader’s pulse can be elevated with only a single question riveting them to the page. As choreographer Lucinda Childs has said, “The diagonal gives a three-dimensional feeling to dancers that cannot be achieved when they are only front and back. On the diagonal, more movement is automatically visible.” Imagine tension on a page like a diagonal pass across the stage—a longer path to get from back to front, yes, but whose shadows and partial truths invite interest.
My goal is to energize the discussion of basic story craft with a movement specialist’s perspective; wisdom from exceptional dance artists and stellar excerpts from published novels in a range of commercial and upmarket genres will be our guides.
The techniques you find on these pages will help you create and sustain movement among many layers of story craft. I offer no rules for their use, because rules are fixed and immutable. Nor will I offer you a writing method, which like a stiff shoe may not be a good fit for your way of walking. Fixed, immutable, stiff—such adjectives will be of no use when applied to a creative endeavor that must conjure movement from the flat surface of a page. I intend to impel, provoke, and electrify as we look at the many ways your story interacts with your reader.
The only rule is to do what it takes to achieve story movement.
But let’s not dawdle right here at the opening, as that is a death knell for any writing that hopes to engage its reader. The sooner we plunge in, the sooner you can start applying fresh awareness to the movement in your manuscript.