{"id":17045,"date":"2026-04-17T13:07:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:07:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/?p=17045"},"modified":"2026-04-17T13:07:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T13:07:57","slug":"art-of-the-micro-narrative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2026\/04\/17\/art-of-the-micro-narrative\/","title":{"rendered":"The art of the micro-narrative"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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Sign up for the Nieman Storyboard newsletter,<\/em><\/a>\u00a0delivered every Friday in your inbox.<\/em><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Editor’s note: I am away this week, so we’re excited to feature a guest newsletter from journalist, author, and <\/em>Storyboard contributor<\/em><\/a> Kim Cross<\/em><\/a>. \u2014\u00a0<\/em>Mark Armstrong<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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***<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Dear Storyboard community: <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Atlanta-based artist Daniel Troppy<\/a> has always worked in visual media: painting, photography, and sculptures from found objects. Following the death of his brother, painter Darrell Troppy<\/a>, Daniel turned to words. \u201cWhen my brother passed away, that\u2019s when I started to write,\u201d he told me. \u201cAnd I am not a writer. I wasn\u2019t an artist with words. But writing saved me.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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In grief, he found catharsis in writing tiny true stories \u2014 defining moments, memories, micro-narratives \u2014 each paired with a black-and-white photograph with the mood and grain of film. Written with telling detail and brevity, the stories averaged 100 words. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Instagram became his gallery<\/a>. Amid the selfies and funny cat videos, his silver gelatin prints stood out like an art exhibit in a circus: An empty swing set<\/a> that echoed William Eggleston\u2019s untitled Memphis tricycle<\/a>; an old woman pushing a walker<\/a> through a hallway lined with portraits; a wrinkled hand<\/a> with an IV line; thinning hair in curlers<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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The images were arresting, more concerned with a mood and a moment than technical precision. The writing used specific details to avoid clich\u00e9. But what was this? Journalism? Art? Documentary? Visual memoir? A serial narrative unfolding in real time? <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u201cThey\u2019re love letters,\u201d Daniel told me. \u201cEach story captures a small moment in time. A visit. A question. A memory. A feeling. I wanted to use my photography skills and write these short stories to document my parents\u2019 end-of-life journey.\u201d <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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It was all so raw and intimate, I felt uncomfortable \u2014 and moved. Brave and unflinching, Daniel pressed the shutter in moments that might have caused me to look away. They pulled me into a world I felt I shouldn\u2019t be privileged to see, like Sally Mann\u2019s family portraits<\/a>. There was a touch of documentary, \u00e1 la Walker Evans\u2019s \u201cLet Us Now Praise Famous Men<\/a>,\u201d but this photographer wasn\u2019t an outsider. He was part of the scene, invisible but present. Shooting not only with permission, but love.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I recently interviewed Daniel about his process<\/a> for my newsletter, The Waterproof Notebook. As a writer of narrative nonfiction, I\u2019m always looking to learn from other storytelling genres \u2014 especially those that convey a story with a narrative arc in a short-form format. And social media, for better and worse, remains a place for stories to reach an audience. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Instagram increasingly feeds us influencer sludge more than posts by people we follow. But it remains a good place to practice writing short-form stories set to a sequence of images or videos. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Neil Shea<\/a>, a longform writer for National Geographic and other publications, called Instagram \u201cone of the world\u2019s most successful general interest magazines.\u201d He\u2019s been using it to tell short-form stories for more than a decade. \u201cSoon after I began experimenting within the app\u2019s creative constraints, something strange happened\u2014I found I loved writing short,\u201d he wrote on Storyboard<\/a> in 2015. \u201cBeneath the selfie surface, Instagram provided a powerful, unexpected, and mostly underutilized storytelling tool.\u201d Did that get old after a while? Nope! It looks like he is still going strong at @neilshea13<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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I\u2019ve been using Instagram to practice writing short, learn video editing, reveal a peek behind the writing process, and experiment with visual storytelling. A computer scientist told me the algorithm favors Reels that start with a human face, so I\u2019ve been trying that (cringe), with some posts performing better than others<\/a>. My most viral post is a carousel of 20 portraits of my mother<\/a>, followed by a painfully honest confession of mixed feelings about inheriting her miniature Yorkie<\/a>. (Do not stay tuned for more Yorkie content; that one brought out the trolls.)<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Do you have a favorite source of short-form narrative inspiration? I\u2019d love to hear from you. Shoot me a message over at kimhcross.com<\/a>, on Instagram (@kimhcross<\/a>), or on Substack at The Waterproof Notebook<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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\u2014 Kim<\/p>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n

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Links of note <\/h2>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n
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