Essays

Long-form writing - essays, articles and weeknotes.

When the words are the story - a trip that deserves telling properly, a person remembered, a year summed up - you write an Essay. It's the most capable form here: headings, paragraphs, pull-quotes, photos in seven arrangements, video, even cards linking to other stories, stacked in any order you like.

Writing between the lines - literally

The essay editor is edit-in-place: click any dashed text and type. New blocks are added exactly where you want them - hover between two blocks and a green + appears on the seam; click it and choose what goes there:

The essay editor with an insert slot open between blocks, offering Words (Heading, Paragraph, Quote), Photos (One, Pair, Three, Four square, Four mixed, Panorama, Full-screen) and More (Video, Story cards) — The + between blocks: Words, Photos in seven shapes, and More - added right where you clicked.

Words: a heading, a paragraph, or a quote when someone said the thing better than you can.
Photos: one, a pair, three, four (square or mixed), a panorama, or a full-screen image that takes the whole window between chapters of the telling.
More: an embedded video, or story cards - live links out to other stories in the archive, so an essay can be a doorway as well as a destination.
Rearranging: hover a block for its quiet strip - move it up or down, or remove it (with a warning if it still holds words or a chosen photo).

What it becomes

The finished essay page: long-form writing carried by full-width trip photography — The outcome: those same blocks, read - words carrying the story, photographs breathing between them.

Essay's two cousins

Two templates in the gallery are essays wearing different clothes: Article, a tidier, more structured layout for when the writing is more reportage than reverie - and Weeknotes, which arrives pre-sectioned for a weekly roundup. Everything above applies to both; they just start you with better scaffolding.

See finished ones

"Austria left a lasting impression" in +demos shows the full range - full-screen images, photo grids and quotes carrying a real trip. The show-home tour is itself an essay whose photos are screenshots - the form is flexible like that.