the science of story

Okay, so my blog is sub-par. That does not mean that if you are reading this that you are sub-par, but rather that this site, from a literal, semantic, or rhetorical sense, is flawed. I am good with that. Because ultimately, the flaws in this site tell a specific story. Regardless if I am aware of that story or not.

Before I go on, I want to shout out to Jonathan Collins; you can read his excellent essay on metaphors here.

linguistic semantics

Semanticists study the relationship between signifiers (words, phrases, symbols, etc.) and their denotative meanings, in particular human language. It is the study of how we communicate meaning and value through the things we use to communicate. An example would be using images at the head of each blog post on a site. They are meant to be symbolic representations of the content contained within. Sometimes they are literal; sometimes, they are not.

A semanticist may choose to study the content of this site as a coalesced whole and then derive intent and meaning from that which I present. They then could interpret my site as not a cohesive story but a random set of certain things that lead to a specific meaning once properly analyzed. So it would not necessarily be the individual pieces of content on this site, but the shared signifiers that tell its story. from this perspective, one could argue, that my use of capitalization (or lack thereof) is a signifier that de-emphasizes certain things.

rhetoric

I noted in a previous post (right story. right people.) that I am a rhetorician by training. That is to say that I studied and got an undergraduate degree in rhetoric. Rhetorical criticism is the study of symbolic artifacts and how, and how well they affect an audience (intended or otherwise). To differentiate from semantics, which focuses on the meaning of signifiers, rhetoric puts the focus on the effect of something, not the something itself.

To illustrate, a rhetorician would look at this website, and each post individually, analyze the various aspects, shared symbols, themes, metaphors, and everything else in it, and compare that to other pieces of communication with similar symbolic usage to determine the effectiveness and offer insight into it. So one could easily argue that the lack of readership, the lack of topic focus, and the frequency of posts on the blog are limiting factors to effectiveness. The story, then, could be seen as a niche blog to a niche audience who shares the same perspective.

science

The point of this post is not to show how good or bad this site is but to illustrate something specific. There is as much science as there is art to storytelling. Take the time to understand the science behind the craft and learn from those who strive to understand why stories work.