Designed to print on one US Letter or A4 page (two-column at print). Use Ctrl/Cmd + P. For preachers, apologists, small-group leaders, and anyone who wants to recognize the moves in writing they read or write.
01 The Somatic Awareness Paragraph
Direct the reader to notice a physical sensation happening in their body, right now, as they read. Not vague — a specific location: the sternum, the jaw, the muscle behind the eye. The body locator moves the truth from about you to inside you in one sentence.
02 The Binary Choice (No Third Option)
Name two mutually exclusive possibilities about salvation. Forbid a third. Steel-man Answer A before letting it die — never a strawman. "I generated my own willingness" vs. "God gave me the willingness." There are only two answers, and one of them ends the conversation.
03 The Catch Within the Demolition
Mid-demolition, slip in a single line of the arms waiting underneath the rubble. Not a paragraph — a sentence. "The fall is short. The arms underneath you are infinite." The catch prevents vertigo from becoming despair.
04 The Corpse Inversion
Describe the very act of arguing against the diagnosis as the corpse sitting up to argue it was never dead. Every escape attempt becomes evidence. The reader cannot object without illustrating the point.
05 The Evidence of Your Own Interior
Replace the abstraction ("dead in sin") with a concrete, recognizable portrait of the reader's actual inner life. The mundane unflattering specifics — the phone, the fridge, the rehearsed grievance — that the reader has never seen in theological writing before. The portrait must be precise enough to prevent the nod that escapes.
06 The Greek or Hebrew Ambush
Drop one — exactly one — original-language word into the article, with transliteration and gloss, at the moment a translation is doing too much work. "The word for 'will' is θέλοντος (thelontos) — the one who desires. What remains? ἐλεῶντος (eleontos) — the One who shows mercy. God alone." Never lecture. One word, one sentence, one devastating gloss.
07 The List That Collapses
Enumerate every possible answer the reader might give. Watch each one collapse the same way. X = humility... X = openness... X = the choice itself... Six items is the ceiling. Five is the sweet spot. The reader watches their own mental maneuvers fail in real time.
08 The Push-the-Question-Deeper Move
The reader gives an answer. Push the question one layer further back than they expected. "Yes, but I cooperated with grace." Fine — where did the cooperation come from? Push exactly one layer at a time. Each step is small and reasonable; five layers later they have walked out of their own theology.
09 The Two Stories Your Soul Tells
Present two versions of the reader's own salvation testimony. Story One has a hero, and the hero is the speaker. Story Two has a hero, and the hero is God. Ask which one they actually tell, alone, late, when no one is watching. Do not over-comment. Let the reader feel which story they tell.
10 The Circular Return
The final section returns to the opening scene with the truth of the page now inside it. The 2:47 AM ceiling, the bathroom floor, the kitchen window — identical exterior, but something inside the reader has shifted. The move is felt, not announced. Never say "now you see this differently." Show the same thing differently.
11 The Paragraph-as-Hammer Final Line
The last sentence of every section does exactly one thing and stops. Never more than seven words. Never a qualifier. Never a "perhaps." "And He came anyway." "He has you. He always did." "You are out." "So is He." Hammer down, lift off.
12 The Time-Inversion Revelation
Reveal that the thing the reader assumed was a response happened before the thing it was responding to. "The price was paid before the bill arrived. The forgiveness was finished before the sin was committed." Parallel construction. Matched verbs. A rhythm you could set to a drumbeat. Three sentences max.
For canonical examples of every move at full strength, read the site's best reads — each technique here was drawn from a page on that list. For the architecture these twelve moves serve, read The Two Arms. For more handouts, see printables.
Twelve moves. One Hammer. One Hand.