From the post from Roy Peter Clark at the bottom of the frog and the cheese thread: "I'm wondering if there might be a test we could apply to these kinds of stories, a kind of 'master narrative' test. In other words, if there were a hundred little narratives like this one in the paper, what would be the larger picture we would get of this place, this time?
"The cool feature obits running in the Times might provide an example. Each obit might cast a little light on this or on that, but 100 of them tell a larger story, that each life is important, that not only bigshots should get prominent obits, that the community is glued together by lives such as these."
Just recently I started this "Night" feature and another running feature called "Their own words." I've said to some around here in Tampa Bay that we won't really know how well they work or even IF they work until at least a year or so in. The goal is not necessarily to write winners each and every time but to be able to have a body of work 12, 18, 24 months from now that put together and over time tells the people of Pasco County something about where and when and how they live. Roy's "master narrative."
Let's talk about this.
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