The Narrative Arc

Speaking of John Gruber, I must say that the work he does at Daring Fireball has provided much of the inspiration for what I’m going for here. Obviously, our primary topics differ but the way he uses links with limited commentary to frame an editorial position is something I aspire to do successfully as well. There is a narrative arc to Daring Fireball that makes the sum much more than the individual parts.

Daring Fireball has just reached the 10 year milestone and Robinson Meyer, writing for The Atlantic, looks back at the first 10 years:

Gruber’s best when he’s writing about perfection, excellence and what it takes to achieve either. He can describe eight iPhone Twitter clients, or the software limitations of the iPad, and evince a common sense of aesthetic. His voice can be muscular and rigorous. The man’s clearly animated by a hatred of everything he knows to be BS.

Further in, Robinson quotes John:

There’s a certain pace and rhythm to what I’m going for [when I share links], a mix of the technical, the artful, the thoughtful, and the absurd. In the same way that I strive to achieve a certain voice in my prose, as a writer, I strive for a certain voice with regard to what I link to. No single item I post to the Linked List is all that important. It’s the mix, the gestalt of an entire day’s worth taken together, that matters to me.

This brilliantly summarizes my philosophy for what I’m doing with The Studio Stoop with one caveat - Daring Fireball is mostly editorial commentary but my intentions are somewhat more humble. I’m exploring and I appreciate the give and take as a learning experience. I’m also new to this type of writing, so I’m growing and developing my voice as a writer. I’m certainly not in the same league as John Gruber, but there is necessarily a difference between aspiration and reality. One day, maybe, I’ll have developed The Studio Stoop into something akin to Daring Fireball for the physical design world. For now, I can only concentrate on doing my best writing and providing an interesting and enlightening editorial voice for my site.

So what is my narrative arc here with The Studio Stoop? What is the single thread that ties everything together and creates a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts? I think my narrative arc is best summarized with the site’s subheading:

Front Porch Musings about Humanity in Design, Urbanism, Architecture, and the Arts

I link to and write about many disparate topics, but the thing that ties it all together in my mind is the search for humanity. There is certainly a celebration of excellence, perfection even, but only as it relates to the celebration of humanity. Everything I link to or write I try to put through the editorial filter of how it relates to the overall question of what it means to be human and how that effects our interactions with objects, buildings, places, and each other.