4 Ways Specificity Drives Your Story Forward Detail creates story movement by inviting the reader into your story’s experience. Sometimes. If you apply that detail indiscriminately, it’s equally possible that you’ll entangle your reader and d…

Specific detail can move story forward or grind it to a halt. Today at Writer Unboxed I seek evidence for the former with inspiration from authors Andy Weir, Chris Whitaker, Tara Westover, Lauren Weisberger, and Elizabeth Benedict. writerunboxed.com/2026/04/09/4... #writingcommunity #novel

3 women make tough choices & face shameful secrets during a loved one’s suicide standoff in this novel based on true events. On ebook price drop for a limited time!
#bookclubfiction #pricedrop

Photo of the book Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward.

If your story has pacing issues, you must figure out how to maintain story movement beyond the hook. Hint from my book: you need more than action. kathryncraft.com/books/crafti... #novelwriting #writingcommunity #storycraft

What Developmental Editing Does for New Authors First-time authors: discover how developmental editing transforms your manuscript and craft. Read more to master your story.

This article about what developmental editing can do for novelists is so good, I wish I’d written it. #novelwriting #editing #writingcommunity

writersinthestormblog.com/2026/01/what...

Thanks Roz! Writers who are readers already have a leg up.

When We Believe-A December Blessing | Writers In The Storm This coming year, I’m choosing to believe: in my work, in my fellow creatives, in the quiet miracles that happen when we show up with joy.

Are you ”all in” with your writing? Lisa Norman says, ”Belief creates the proof.” This post is well worth the read. #writingcommunity #writers

writersinthestormblog.com/2025/12/when...

🤫 Book Lovers Only! (with a Boxing Day giveaway)

Checked off everyone on your list? Book lovers, subscribe and enter to win one of my books! Deadline 12/26. open.substack.com/pub/craftonc...
#novels #novelists #storycraft

Make Your Novel Soar with Your Novel Year 2026 Is your story starved for energy? I’m Kathryn Craft, and from two decades spent helping clients develop their stories—let alone from my own struggles—I know hard it can be to nourish a novel that h…

Would you like small-group support, applicable craft, and professional guidance as you draft or revise your novel in 2026? Learn more about my Your Novel Year program today at Writer Unboxed!

writerunboxed.com/2025/11/02/m...

AI Didn’t Replace My Editor—It Made Her Indispensable Even in 2025, AI can’t match a skilled editor’s insight, nuance, and care. Human editors bring heart, vision, and true partnership to every story.

An affirming piece from Lisa Norman in a time of technological change: AI may have trained on my novels, but it won’t replace me as an editor. #editing #ai
writersinthestormblog.com/2025/10/ai-d...

Decide How You’ll Write About Your Life We here at WU believe in fiction’s power, and work every day to improve how we wield it. But many of life’s real events can be spun into equally engrossing stories. This raises a quandary for…

Memoir, or fiction? These questions may help. Decide How You'll Write About Your Life writerunboxed.com/2025/10/09/d...
#writingtip #writingcommunity @writerunboxed.bsky.social

Hey writer friends, thank you to everyone who helped make this an orange banner day! I appreciate you!! #storymovement #novelwriting #topnewrelease

Perspective Will Drive Your Story Forward - Women Writers, Women's Books by Kathryn Craft “To expand the reader’s perspective is one of literature’s highest callings. Memoir would be pointless without it. Perspective pervades a journalist’s best quotes, energizes speeches,...

Perspective is an underutilized driver of story in many manuscripts. It drives my nonfiction book, CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT, and it can drive your novel as well. Here’s how.
#writingtip #storymovement #writingcommunity

booksbywomen.org/perspective-...

Today’s the big day! Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Drive Your Novel Forward is now available wherever books are sold. A story that moves can move others. Order through DoylestownBookshop.com to ask for a signed copy. #storymovement #storycraft #novelwriting

The countdown has reached “one”—CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT releases tomorrow—and this blurb from @theresewalsh.bsky.social encapsulates my goal in writing it!
#writingcommunity #storymovement #fictionwritingguide

Take Five Interview: Kathryn Craft and CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT We are incredibly excited to bring you an interview with longtime WU contributor and writing coach Kathryn Craft, featuring a book that we know will be a huge boon to the WU community, CRAFTING STO…

Want to know more about CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward (out Tuesday!)? Head over to Writer Unboxed for my Take Five interview!
writerunboxed.com/2025/10/05/8...
#storymovement #storycraft #freshperspective

Thank you to @careerauthors.com for this lovely graphic. Shall we dive in, #writingcommunity?

A lot of great food for thought here, Roz!

The words gracing today's Monday meme come from the fiction-writing heart of book marketing dynamo @laineycameron.bsky.social—and they're just what a craft book author wants to hear. One week to go!!
#storymovement #storycraft #writingguide

Two weeks to go until CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward releases! This is what former dancer Terez Mertes Rose, who writes so beautifully about movement, had to say.
#storymovement #writingcraft #writingcommunity

5 Ways to Manage Reader Expectations | Writers In The Storm Want to extend an invitation to readers to stay immersed in your story? Us too! Here are 5 techniques from veteran author and editor Kathryn Craft to help.

Writers, today I’m over at Writers in the Storm, introducing several ways to achieve story movement in a novel through the important process of managing reader expectation. Check it out!
#storymovement #storycraft
#writingcommunity

writersinthestormblog.com/2025/09/5-wa...

Political violence and threats are not the answer.

This is a watershed moment — we can choose to stay silent and live in fear, or we can choose to be loud for peace and compassion.

We must work together to stop this crisis, and it should start from the top with the President.

Only 3 weeks until my book, CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward, is released! Here’s what horror, paranormal and sc-fi thriller writer Jonathan Maberry had to say.
#writingcommunity #storycraft #storymovement

10 Novels Agents Have Seen a Billion Times, and How to Make Yours Stand Out - Electric Literature If your book is on this list, watch out for these common pitfalls

Hey novelists, do you need an update on what's in and what's out in the publishing world? This was a really good article by an experienced literary agent: electricliterature.com/10-novels-ag...
#writingcommunity #novelwriting #pubtip

Now that the Kindle version of my new book is finally up for pre-order on Amazon, it's time for another meme in the countdown to the release of Crafting Story Movement: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drive Your Novel Forward—this one from an author AND dancer!
#writingcommunity
#storymovement

Ha! Love “experimental writing”!

Today's #MondayMeme in the countdown to the 10/7 release of CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT is from Nancy Johnson, who—surprise!—included me in the acknowledgments of her debut novel, THE KINDEST LIE. So often, we have no clue who is listening when we put our message out into the world! #writingcommunity

Brava !

In the countdown to the 10/7 release of CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT, here's a blurb from David Corbett, whose writing scares me a bit—😅— yet always challenges with his keen observations. When he sent me this endorsement, I was...truly speechless. #MondayMeme #writingcommunity #storycraft

Another #MondayMeme in the weekly countdown to the 10/7 release of CRAFTING STORY MOVEMENT: Techniques to Engage Readers and Drivers Your Novel Forward. Each highlights a different facet of my book. #storycraft #writingtips #writingcommunity

Play the Long Game When first setting out to write in a novel’s long form, it’s a relief to learn that after the inciting incident, the episodic nature of each scene carries the same structure: the POV character purs…

Novels are built in scenes yet require that a writer tend to the long game. Today on Writer Unboxed I take a look at how novelists can do that, with inspiration from the perfect summer read: Frederik Backman’s My Friends. #writingcommunity #novelwriting

writerunboxed.com/2025/08/14/p...