{"id":922,"date":"2012-08-24T08:12:41","date_gmt":"2012-08-24T08:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2012\/08\/24\/line-by-line-mrs-kellys-monster-how-jon-franklin-wrote-a-classic\/"},"modified":"2024-10-18T17:06:54","modified_gmt":"2024-10-18T17:06:54","slug":"line-by-line-mrs-kellys-monster-how-jon-franklin-wrote-a-classic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/niemanstoryboard.org\/2012\/08\/24\/line-by-line-mrs-kellys-monster-how-jon-franklin-wrote-a-classic\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Franklin and “Mrs. Kelly’s Monster”"},"content":{"rendered":" \n
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\n \nJon Franklin\u2019s \u201cMrs. Kelly\u2019s Monster<\/a>,\u201d which in 1979 won the inaugural<\/a> Pulitzer Prize for feature writing, ran 33 years ago but never loses its power to captivate or instruct. Franklin followed a brain surgeon through a tense operation on a woman named Edna Kelly and wrote a tight, timeless narrative that stands as a model of precision reporting and evocative writing.
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\nWhenever I teach this story, students argue about how Franklin reported it: where he was during the surgery, for instance, and how he went about the writing. The speculation was fun but eventually I asked* Franklin\u00a0to settle the mystery. During our nearly two hours on the phone, he gave the following great answers and\u00a0graciously agreed to let me reprint the 91-point annotation that he distributed to his students many years ago.<\/em>
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\nFirst, a fairly long conversation (contains spoilers!), and then the hybridized annotation.
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\nSo, were<\/em> you in the operating room during the surgery or some sort of viewing gallery? My classes always argue about this \u2013 some think you were in the room, others don\u2019t.<\/strong>
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\n\"\"<\/a>Jon Franklin: I was in the O.R. They show viewing galleries on television, but they don\u2019t really have viewing galleries anymore.
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\nHow did you know that this was the surgery you wanted to write about? And how many brain surgeries had you observed before this one?<\/strong>
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\nI had done a book earlier on shock trauma<\/a>, about the first civilian trauma unit in the country. I spent a lot of time there and could walk into an O.R. and know what to touch, what not to touch, and be able to converse with people. So I was very familiar with that stuff. (For Mrs. Kelly\u2019s surgery) I could see what was happening and I thought I had a hell of a story. And then (Dr. Ducker)\u00a0failed. And I thought, “Well shit, I lost my story.” It wasn\u2019t until four or five hours passed that I thought, \u201cWell, wait a minute, it\u2019s a better story because she died.\u201d
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\nWhy?<\/strong>
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\nBecause it wasn\u2019t expected.
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\nYes.<\/strong>
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\nThe story is a classic of white knight and maiden, and in this case the white knight failed. But the final thing is, he had to get up after that and go in and work on somebody else.
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\nSome readers expect her to live because they assume the newspaper wouldn\u2019t have run a story about a failed brain surgery. You knew this was an interesting surgery because of the double aneurysm and the tumor, but you couldn\u2019t have known this<\/em> would happen.<\/strong>
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\nThere\u2019s a certain amount of chance to this. Sometimes what you get is wonderful and sometimes it\u2019s not so wonderful. I had told Ducker that I\u2019d like to see him do several (surgeries),\u00a0and that I wanted to be there for the ones that he didn\u2019t really know how they would turn out. He agreed. Which he regrets to this day, I think.
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\nReally?<\/strong>
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\nWell, the thing people will most remember about him is his failure. I mean we\u2019re friends, but he said to me once, \u201cYou know, Jon, people don\u2019t want Not Quite a Miracle<\/a><\/em>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0<\/span>they want a miracle.\u201d As a matter of fact I\u2019m putting that book back into circulation on Kindle and I\u2019m gonna rename it Something Attached to the Soul<\/em>. The title comes from a quote out of the book; it\u2019s kind of an old bromide among brain surgeons that you don\u2019t want to pull too much on something because it might be something attached to the soul.
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\nYou\u2019re putting your books out on Kindle? So you\u2019re into the digital progression?<\/strong>
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\nI\u2019m fundamentally an optimist. The model that\u2019s going to work is going to be Kindle. They give the writer a big cut and they\u2019re gonna be giving them an even bigger cut, so the writer won\u2019t have to sell a million copies in order to make a living. It\u2019s a game changer. Kindle allows you to go directly to your reader. Now, I don\u2019t hate editors \u2013\u00a0I\u2019ve had one or two that have done me good \u2013 I\u2019m just sad that I haven\u2019t had more good ones.
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\nWhich of your books are out on Kindle?<\/strong>
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\nWolf in the Parlor<\/em>.
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\nAnd you\u2019re converting the others?<\/strong>
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\nYeah. A friend of my wife is doing this. Molecules<\/em><\/a> is all but ready to go. Writing for Story<\/a><\/em> is also gonna be on there. At the time I sold it, 30 years ago, nobody was doing (digital)\u00a0but I kept the electronic rights.
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\nThat book\u2019s always been a seller, hasn\u2019t it?<\/strong>
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\nIt sells 400 to 500 copies a quarter, though last quarter I think I got a check for a dollar and 74 cents. Maybe the thing is finally gonna die. The only way I got it published was, the publisher really wanted Molecules<\/em>. I said, “I\u2019ll sell you Molecules<\/em> but you gotta publish this other one too.”
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\nHad you written Writing for Story<\/em> on spec?<\/strong>
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\nYeah, it was my syllabus.
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\nSo do you actually own a Kindle?<\/strong>
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\nI bought one about three months ago. That is the future. I love it.
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\nWhy?<\/strong>
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\nWhat\u2019s wonderful about it is that it\u2019s very light. I like to read in bed. My arms get tired, and a year and a half ago I got in an accident and tore off my thumb. Holding a heavy book \u2013\u00a0<\/span>I start to get sore very quickly.
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\nYou tore off your thumb?<\/strong>
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\nIt was a freak thing. I jumped out of a car \u2013\u00a0my wife was driving \u2013 to look at a bus schedule and \u2026 I didn\u2019t know there was a curb there. I tripped over the curb and was going to hit a concrete post with my head. I went through a lot of contortions and managed not to hit that thing with my head, but instead my right hand \u2013\u00a0I\u2019m right-handed \u2013 \u00a0<\/span>got under me somehow. As I slid along the concrete the thumb got pushed back and pulled off. It starts to hurt after I type a long time.
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\nHang on, I\u2019m stuck on your thumb \u2013 you really tore it off?<\/strong>
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\nIt was actually kind of neat. I could see inside my hand. Those pictures you see, of the ropes and pulleys down inside the human hand? It really is like that.
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\nGross! There\u2019s a line in \u201cMrs. Kelly\u2019s Monster\u201d that kind of makes me sick every time I read it.<\/strong>
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\nWhich one is it?
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\n\u201cDead ahead the field is crossed by many huge, distended, ropelike veins.\u201d<\/strong>
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\nIt\u2019s usually the blood dripping on the floor that gets people.
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\nWhat happened to the thumb?<\/strong>
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\nThey sewed it back on. It was just dangling there. I put it back where it belonged and put pressure on it, to stop the bleeding.
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\nYour wife must\u2019ve been freaking out.<\/strong>
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\nIt helped that I wasn\u2019t. By the time the ambulance got there and offered me morphine I said, \u201cI don\u2019t need it, I\u2019m still in shock.\u201d\u00a0A few minutes later I changed my mind.
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\nSo back to the reporting. Did you review videotape of the surgery afterward or do all your reporting in the moment, in the O.R.?<\/strong>
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\nAll of it ended up in my notebook that day. I don\u2019t even think I had to call (Ducker)\u00a0back and ask him anything. When I finished the final draft I realized my heart was beating real fast. I was very innocent of that kind of power. John Steinbeck once said, \u201cI\u2019ve held fire in my hands.\u201d<\/a> I always thought that was sort of pure \u2013 I mean, you know, writer bullshit. But it wasn\u2019t.
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\nHow do you mean?<\/strong>
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\nThat story scared me so much. It was either so good or so bad, and I couldn\u2019t tell which. I called Ducker and read him everything, every word. I\u2019d never done that before and I haven\u2019t done it since. I\u2019ll never forget it: I\u2019m done and there\u2019s this long silence and he says, “Well Jon, that\u2019s pretty much the way it was.”
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\nHow long did the writing take?<\/strong>
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\nThe answer is either four days or 20 years. Because what you do is, you use everything you know. That\u2019s one of the reasons why there are very few good young writers. Unlike with poetry, which favors young artists, or science, which favors younger people, writing is just the opposite. I was 35 before I could do that. And writing is something you\u2019ll never get too old to do. You could certainly get too senile<\/em>.
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\nBut literally four days then?<\/strong>
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\nThree days maybe, not counting the day in surgery and the time with Mrs. Kelly and her husband.
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\nDid you start writing that night?<\/strong>
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\nI don\u2019t remember whether I started writing that night or thinking it through. I used to do things quite a bit differently than I do now, because now I can be more efficient. I try not to put anything on paper until I\u2019ve crystalized the story. But in that case, the story \u2013 I mean it was just there, you know? Somebody, I forget who, recorded people\u2019s heartbeats as they read various things,<\/a> and they said (readers\u2019)\u00a0heartbeats matched the story as they read Mrs. Kelly. You can do that in music too, control heartbeats.
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\nWhy do you think the story scared you so much?<\/strong>
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\nI\u2019m trying to think how to phrase this answer. When you\u2019re really doing it, when you\u2019re what I like to call in contact<\/em>, which means you\u2019re living in the story just like the reader\u2019s going to, it\u2019s very frightening. Because it takes an awful lot of chutzpah.\u00a0I\u2019m as insecure as everybody else. And the paper had never run anything like this before. And they didn\u2019t actually want to run this but they knew damn good and well they had to.
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\nWhat do you mean?<\/strong>
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\nWell, they buried it. It was on the bottom of the feature page.
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\nNo way.<\/strong>
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\nThey also \u2013 because there had been an edict about no long stories, they insisted on cutting it in half and running one part on one day and the second part on the other day. I was resisting all this, but it was their paper, not mine.
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\nI\u2019ve never heard that it ran as a two-parter.<\/strong>
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\nI cut it for them and gave them the lede for the second part. And then the editor came back and said, \u201cJon, you\u2019re not gonna like this but since we don\u2019t find out what happens till the second day, we can\u2019t do that to the reader; we have to tell them on the first day that she dies.\u201d
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\nOh my God.<\/strong>
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\nSo I hit the roof. At that point, out of desperation, I think, I got one of my finest moments of insight and said, Okay, what we\u2019ll do is I\u2019ll write a precede saying she dies. I\u2019m a writer, which means that by definition I\u2019m a sneaky sonofabitch. I know how to make rhythms and I also know how to break them. I wrote that precede so that the mind simply could not absorb it.
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\nCouldn\u2019t absorb the fact that she died?<\/strong>
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\nYes.
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\nDo you have that copy? I\u2019d love to see that.<\/strong>
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\nA lot of people have wanted to see that. You can probably find it at the Pratt Library. It\u2019s one of the best pieces of writing I ever did. I used totally unemotional words \u2013\u00a0it was flat. And the interesting thing was that I could get away with it, because the editor \u2013\u00a0and this illustrates what\u2019s wrong with journalism \u2013 to the editor this was fine.
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\nAnd what happened?<\/strong>
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\nThe thing was published on the first day and that night the switchboard was totally jammed with \u201cWhat happened to Mrs. Kelly?\u201d
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\nHow many story drafts did you do?<\/strong>
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\nI wrote this on a computer. When you write on a computer, you write something that I call a road map, which is a sequence of events, how you\u2019re gonna tell the story. Then you go back and expand that. Then you go back and polish it. In theory you can do it in those three steps. I damn near did that with Mrs. Kelly. But Mrs. Kelly was a special story, for me. I do experiments with stories, or I did when I was on the paper: Will\u00a0this work, will that work? I did it very quickly. I don\u2019t usually do things that quickly. I mean the current book took me almost 20 years, but that was for a lot of other reasons, and there were a couple of other books in there that were stillborn. I\u2019m slow.
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\nAnd nobody likes it when we\u2019re slow.<\/strong>
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\nThis kind of work is slow. I\u2019ve never been able to support myself solely with my writing. As a personality, I\u2019m an inventor. I try to invent things when I\u2019m writing \u2013 forms and things like that. I can\u2019t help myself, but it\u2019s not a good thing, because I can\u2019t do production. I got out of the newspaper business right at my peak because it became very clear to me that I could spend the rest of my life writing Mrs. Kelly\u2019s Monsters. That, in fact, was what they wanted me to do. And I mean I like to write stories like that now and then. If I could\u2019ve been happy just doing what I knew how to do, then my life would\u2019ve been a lot different. But then I\u2019d have had to have been in newspapers for the last 25 years, while they were going down the tubes.
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\nIt\u2019s hard to have an entrepreneurial mind and follow formats.<\/strong>
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\nI can\u2019t write when I\u2019m bored. I cannot do it.
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\nMrs. Kelly is 3,539 words long, but it reads short.<\/strong>
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\nWhat makes it read fast like that \u2013 of course you\u2019ve got pacing on your side, although the pacing was not an obvious thing. The idea is to say things just before they pop into the reader\u2019s mind. You get your reader going 100 miles an hour, and how fast it reads is what governs, not how long. For a while when I was teaching, I got a beautiful film off YouTube<\/a>\u00a0\u2013\u00a0it was some sort of a contest about how many dominos can you line up and knock over. He\u2019s on a pool table and three or four other pool tables, and they\u2019re all full of dominos. We used to watch them all get knocked over, and there\u2019s ways he gets them from one table to another \u2013\u00a0it\u2019s a\u00a0very harmonic kind of thing. That\u2019s the way things have to read.\u00a0And also, setting up<\/em> the dominos is a very tedious task\u2013\u00a0it\u2019s very nit-picking and you don\u2019t go fast and it\u2019s not capital-S fun. Knocking them over is fun. Now what the writer does is, he sets them up. And almost everyone who wants to be a writer, including myself, wanted to be a writer because they were a reader and they thought, Oh wow that\u2019ll be fun. And it is fun in some ways, but it\u2019s not like reading at all. You\u2019re writing a program that will play in the reader\u2019s brain.
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\nWhat do most students and writers want to know about this story?<\/strong>
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\nWhat they\u2019re basically interested in is how to\u00a0do it. Often we\u2019ll get into: Hey, I didn\u2019t have to be there, I reconstructed things that worked just as well. Tom Wolfe convinced me you could do that.
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\nWhat was reconstructed? For instance, you have an early\u00a0<\/span>morning scene where Ducker\u2019s wife hands him his lunch. Were you there for that?<\/strong>
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\nThat\u2019s the one thing that I didn\u2019t see.
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\nWell, that and Mr. Kelly telling his wife goodbye.<\/strong>
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\nYes. I confirmed that with the family later, and probably with Ducker.
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\nSo about the breakfast, you asked him \u2013\u00a0or his wife \u2013\u00a0what he ate?<\/strong>
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\nI wanted to end the piece with the food, the universal. So I called his wife and asked her what she fixed him, which is when I learned about the coffee thing. So then I had the magic bookends, which are always wonderful when you can get them. She told me later that she always fixed him a nice lunch and why did I have to watch him on the only day when she was in a big hurry and fixed him a peanut butter sandwich.
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\nSo you put everything down, you were saying.<\/strong>
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\nI put everything down. I put down the times because when you\u2019re doing a drama it\u2019s this happened and the next thing happened. I didn\u2019t expect to use the time (element)\u00a0the way I did. There\u2019s another story that I did, called \u201cA Death in the Family<\/a>,\u201d which is another story that I had no idea what I had until I was on my way home. You go in and you just observe. You teach yourself \u2013\u00a0<\/span>see, I think you can teach vision. I have yet to find anybody who will agree with me on this, and I don\u2019t know that I\u2019ve ever actually taught anybody this, but there are techniques for getting outside of yourself and turning yourself into a kind of recorder. [ed note: Here we got into a conversation about Freud and brain development.]
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\nAbout that time I got interested in going to shrinks. I started going to a Freudian shrink. I was thinking, The brain\u2019s a tool and I want to know how to use it better<\/em>. As a matter of fact I think the second Pulitzer came as a direct result of seeing the shrink.
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\nHow so?<\/strong>
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\nIt helped me recognize how my mind worked and what part of my mind was mine and what part was universal. Jung was right \u2013\u00a0at some level our brains are all alike and at some level they\u2019re all different. The part that\u2019s interesting is how they\u2019re all alike. That tells you what story is.
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\nHow do you mean?<\/strong>
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\nStory is what you feel. Story is emotional. It\u2019s not your eyes you see with; it\u2019s your mind.
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\u201cMrs. Kelly\u2019s Monster\u201d<\/a><\/h2>\nby Jon Franklin
\nBaltimore Evening Sun
\n<\/em> December 1978
\n
\nMy questions are in blue<\/span>.
\nFranklin\u2019s responses are in red<\/span>.
\nThe green bits<\/span> are Franklin\u2019s annotation, reprinted with his permission.
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\nIn the cold hours of a winter <\/a>You must set the mood early in the story. Dr. Ducker also rose to a warm house and a bright future, but those facts are not relevant to the story being told.<\/span><\/span> morning Dr. Thomas Barbee Ducker, chief brain surgeon at the University of Maryland Hospital, rises <\/a>It is no accident that the first verb in this story is an action verb. The use of present tense tends to make the story more immediate, but it increases the pressure on the writer, who must supply an endless stream of detail to make the immediate nature of the story seem real. Because of the increased technical problems with present tense, the technique must never be used lightly. Also, present tense is usually unsuitable for long pieces.<\/span><\/span> before dawn. <\/a>This provides sense of time. Sense of place is implied here: It\u2019s in Dr. Ducker\u2019s house, in Baltimore.<\/span><\/span> His wife serves him waffles <\/a>Be specific with symbolism. Also note how the food imagery here dovetails with the food imagery in the ending. Food is a life process. In the morning the food is warm, and served lovingly. In the end, the food is dry, cold and packed in an anonymous paper bag.<\/span><\/span> but no coffee. Coffee makes his hands shake. <\/a>Straight news technique requires the writer to sum up the story in the first paragraph. Feature style often requires that it be implied. The implication here is that it is very important that Dr. Ducker\u2019s hands don\u2019t<\/em> shake.<\/span><\/span>
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\nIn downtown Baltimore, <\/a>Place transition<\/span><\/span> on the 12th floor <\/a>Be specific\u2026but only when it doesn\u2019t interfere with the story you\u2019re telling. You need a good literary<\/em> reason for the inclusion of each fact. In this case, it was rhythm<\/span><\/span> of University Hospital, Edna Kelly\u2019s husband tells her goodbye. <\/a>This implies danger, building on the implications of the \u201cshaking hands\u201d line above<\/span><\/span> For 57 years Mrs. Kelly shared her skull <\/a>Note the perception that Mrs. Kelly is<\/em> her brain. Such a unity, once established, must be carried out throughout the piece<\/span><\/span> with the monster: <\/a>This perception was Mrs. Kelly\u2019s, not the author\u2019s nor the surgeon\u2019s. Your subject will do much of your head work for you, if you\u2019ll be observant<\/span><\/span> No more. Today she is frightened but determined.\n\n It is 6:30 a.m. <\/a>Pacing. Pacing must begin before the need for it becomes apparent. This story picks up a definite beat later. It begins here, with the stipulation of an exact time. To make it an odd number, such as 6:32, would have been enameling the lily, and would have lost the effect when the story shifts to specific time later, as the pace increases<\/span><\/span>
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\n \u201cI\u2019m not afraid to die,\u201d she said <\/a>Flashback to material gleaned in an early interview<\/span><\/span> as this day approached. <\/a>This sentence marks the transition from the opening, or lead, into the complication<\/span><\/span> \u201cI\u2019ve lost part of my eyesight. I\u2019ve gone through all the hemorrhages. A couple of years ago I lost my sense of smell, my taste. I started having seizures. I smell a strange odor and then I start strangling. It started affecting my legs, and I\u2019m partially paralyzed. <\/a>How much time did you spend with Mrs. Kelly before the surgery? I like that you don\u2019t quote her on the day of the surgery.<\/span>The idea was not to capture her words. As time went on in the story I used fewer and fewer quotes. There\u2019s nothing magic about quotes. Dialogue is a whole different matter. I spent maybe 40 minutes with them<\/span>Ever?<\/span>Uh huh. I used a tape recorder on that. I didn\u2019t take a tape recorder into the O.R.<\/span>Why?<\/span>Well, I\u2019d had some bad experiences with them. I use them today. They\u2019re a lot more reliable than they used to be.<\/span>Sounds like you\u2019ve got some horror stories.<\/span>Yeah I\u2019ve got one that\u2019ll make you cry.<\/span><\/span>
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\n \u201cThree years ago a doctor told me all I had to look forward to was blindness, paralysis and a remote chance of death. Now I have aneurysms; this monster is causing that. I\u2019m scared <\/a>And we\u2019re back to present tense<\/span><\/span> to death \u2026 but there isn\u2019t a day that goes by that I\u2019m not in pain, and I\u2019m tired of it. I can\u2019t bear the pain. I wouldn\u2019t want to live like this much longer.\u201d <\/a>The reader must clearly understand the motivations of your characters. In this case, Mrs. Kelly has decided to go for broke because the disease had made her life not worth living<\/span><\/span>
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\n As Dr. Ducker leaves for work, Mrs. Ducker hands him a paper bag containing a peanut butter sandwich, a banana and two fig newtons. <\/a>Foreshadowing is the magic of the dramatic feature writer. In this part of the story, the lunch helps get Dr. Ducker out of the house and shifts the reader\u2019s attention toward his work. (The information does double duty, another hallmark of good dramatic writing.)<\/span><\/span>
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\n Downtown, in Mrs. Kelly\u2019s brain, a sedative takes effect.
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\n Mrs. Kelly was <\/a>Flashbacks provide supportive, background and character information<\/span><\/span> born with a tangled knot of abnormal blood vessels in the back of her brain. The malformation began small, but in time the vessels ballooned inside the confines of the skull, crowding the healthy brain tissue. <\/a>This story becomes a portrait of the tumor and the surgeon; how much did you intend to anthropomorphize the growth?<\/span>Anthropomorphizing things\u2014we do it. It\u2019s a human trait. It\u2019s not necessarily a super idea, but we believe in agencies. If there\u2019s a lightning bolt, somebody must have thrown it, which is where you get Thor. When a tree falls, the tree god knocked it down. It\u2019s very deep in our mind. I don\u2019t think you can really write without some of that, but when you get into a life-and-death situation\u2014I mean I\u2019ve been in an operating room and heard people say things like, \u201cI can\u2019t get to this\u00a0sonofabitch.\u201d You know? Or, \u201cLook at this bastard.\u201d The fact is, we take life personally. You might as well not deny it. And when you deny it, I think we get a skewed picture of what the world was like. And in that respect journalism is guilty as charged\u2014the definition of news is what happens in front of the reporter.<\/span>Some people have a hard time embracing narrative.<\/span>Man, it\u2019s a high-tension business. Everybody stands around and they don\u2019t look like they\u2019re fighting tigers, but they\u2019re fighting tigers. You\u2019re constantly having to make decisions based on too little information and understanding, and when you have to do that you have to come up with rules of thumb. And since you depend on these rules of thumb to survive, over the years they metamorphose into the stations of the cross. And that\u2019s why newspapers are gonna die, even without the Internet.<\/span><\/span>
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\n Finally, in 1942, the malformation announced its presence <\/a>This personifies the malformation. Personification of objects is a tricky, tricky business and should be done only with the greatest care\u2014and only with the principal forces in the story. It would not do, for instance, to personify the peanut-butter sandwich<\/span><\/span> when one of the abnormal arteries, stretched beyond capacity, burst. Mrs. Kelly grabbed her head and collapsed. <\/a>The story does not say how Mrs. Kelly felt. Rather it implies and shows it. Action (grabbing one\u2019s head and falling) tells much more than attempts to describe her feelings. The first rule of feature writing is \u2018Show, don\u2019t tell.\u2019<\/span><\/span> After that the agony never stopped.
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\n Mrs. Kelly, at the time of her first intracranial bleed, was carrying her second child. Despite the pain, she raised her children and cared for her husband. <\/a>She is never said, specifically, to be courageous. Rather, by her actions, she is shown to be<\/span><\/span> The malformation continued to grow.
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\n She began <\/a>Today I would hesitate to use \u201cbegan.\u201d I would say, instead, \u201cShe called it \u2018the monster.\u2019 Words like begin, began, commenced and started are usually unnecessary and tend to give the sentence in which they reside a distant and passive cast<\/span><\/span> calling it \u201cthe monster.\u201d
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\n Now, at 7:15 <\/a>Fifteen minutes past the hour is more specific than thirty minutes past. A minor point, but the tempo is building<\/span><\/span> a.m. in operating room eleven, a technician checks the brain surgery microscope and the circulating nurse lays out bandages and instruments. <\/a>Always use action. If you want to tell the reader that the operating room is ready, then show the crew getting it ready<\/span><\/span> Mrs. Kelly lies still on a stainless steel table.
\n
\n A small sensor has been threaded through her veins and now\u00a0hangs in the antechamber of her heart. The anesthesiologist connects the sensor to a 7-foot-high bank of electronic instruments. Oscilloscope waveforms begin <\/a>This word is unnecessary<\/span><\/span> to build and break. Dials swing. Lights flash. With each heartbeat a loudspeaker produces an audible popping sound. The steady pop, pop, popping <\/a>The value of sound as a pacing and descriptive device is widely overlooked. Clocks tick. Babies cry in the background. Pencils tap restively on tables. Rain clatters on a tin roof. Notice these things, and use them<\/span><\/span> isn\u2019t loud, but it dominates the operating room.
\n
\n Dr. Ducker enters the O.R. and pauses before the X-ray films that hang on a lighted panel. He carried those brain images to Europe, Canada and Florida in search of advice, and he knows them by heart. <\/a>This serves to emphasize the danger\/jf Still, he studies them again, eyes focused<\/span> By using the eyes, what\u2019s going on in the brain can be illustrated<\/span><\/span> on the two fragile aneurysms that swell above the major arteries. Either may burst on contact.
\n
\n The one directly behind Mrs. Kelly\u2019s eyes is the most likely to burst, but also the easiest to reach. <\/a>If you\u2019re taking your reader into unfamiliar territory, it\u2019s necessary to step back periodically and tell the reader, in brief and nontechnical terms, what\u2019s going on. Otherwise, certain readers will become disoriented and quit reading<\/span><\/span> That\u2019s first.
\n
\n The surgeon-in-training who will assist Dr. Ducker places Mrs. Kelly\u2019s head in a clamp and shaves her hair. Dr. Ducker checks to make certain the three steel pins of the vice have pierced the skin and press directly against Mrs. Kelly\u2019s skull. \u201cWe can\u2019t have a millimeter <\/a>The word \u201cmillimeter\u201d is rather unfamiliar to the reader. It is necessary to run it through the reader\u2019s mind once, in a relatively slow-paced situation, so that it will seem more familiar later when it\u2019s used under more dramatic tension. The rule is never to use an unfamiliar word for the first time in a fast-paced part of your story, because it\u2019ll slow the narrative down. (It is, incidentally, not relevant here exactly how large a millimeter is. It is sufficient that the reader know it\u2019s small.)<\/span><\/span> slip,\u201d he says.
\n
\n Mrs. Kelly, except for a six-inch crescent of scalp, is draped <\/a>Here, you\u2019ll note, she\u2019s draped. Later, the image is \u201cshrouded.\u201d<\/span><\/span> with green sheets. A rubber-gloved palm goes out and Doris Schwabland, the scrub nurse, lays a scalpel in it. Hemostats snap over the arteries of the scalp. Blood spatters onto Dr. Ducker\u2019s sterile paper booties. <\/a>Gore, like sex, is sometimes more effective when it occurs off camera<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n It is 8:25 a.m. The heartbeat goes pop, pop, pop, 70 beats a minute, steady.
\n
\n Today Dr. Ducker intends to remove the two aneurysms, which comprise the most immediate threat to Mrs. Kelly\u2019s life. Later, he will move directly on the monster. <\/a>This is another orientation paragraph. Note that it is used also as a pacing device, to keep the action from getting too fast here. We want the action to build<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n It\u2019s a risky operation, designed to take him to the hazardous frontiers of neurosurgery. Several experts told him he shouldn\u2019t do it at all, that he should let Mrs. Kelly die. But the consensus was that he had no choice. The choice was Mrs. Kelly\u2019s.
\n
\n \u201cThere\u2019s one chance out of three that we\u2019ll end up with a hell of a mess or a dead patient,\u201d Dr. Ducker says. <\/a>Says to whom? The reporter, of course. But imagine how awful it\u2019d sound to say, \u201csaid to this reporter.\u201d Keep yourself out of the copy and let your subject talk directly through you to the reader. Remember, as a feature writer who puts himself into the action, you are a surrogate for your reader, and your existence on the scene is totally unimportant<\/span><\/span> \u201cI reviewed it in my own heart and with other people, and I thought about the patient. You weigh what happens if you do it against what happens if you don\u2019t do it. I convinced myself it should be done.\u201d
\n
\n Mrs. Kelly said yes. Now Dr. Ducker pulls back Mrs. Kelly\u2019s scalp to reveal the dull ivory of living bone. The chatter of the half-inch drill fills the room, drowning the rhythmic pop, pop, pop <\/a>Pacing devices must be heavily foreshadowed. The pops are going to be critical later, so they have to be firmly embedded in the front of the story<\/span><\/span> of the heart monitor. It is 9\u00a0o\u2019clock when Dr. Ducker hands the two-by-four-inch triangle of skull to the scrub nurse.
\n
\n The tough, rubbery covering of the brain is cut free, revealing the soft gray convolutions of the forebrain.
\n
\n \u201cThere it is,\u201d says the circulating nurse in a hushed voice. \u201cThat\u2019s what keeps you working.\u201d <\/a>Greek choruses are very useful. Watch for the opportunity to use them<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n It is 9:20. <\/a>The times are getting more specific<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n Eventually Dr. Ducker steps back, holding his gloved hands high to avoid contamination. While others move the microscope into place over the glistening brain the neurosurgeon communes <\/a>The difference between the right word and the almost-right word, Mark Twain said, is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug<\/span><\/span> once more with the X-ray\u00a0films. The heart beats strong, 70 beats a minute, 70 beats a minute. <\/a>Repetition can add dramatic tension and emphasize building tensions in the story. Most professional writers understand that events and ideas must be foreshadowed, but few apply the principle to gimmicks, like repetition, as well<\/span><\/span> \u201cWe\u2019re going to have a hard time today,\u201d the surgeon says to the X-rays. <\/a>Actually, of course, he doesn\u2019t expect the x-rays to hear him. The words are directed to the occupants of the operating room\u2014or to the readers, in the persona of a reporter, who is standing beside him. Here is another example of physical action (his voice is aimed at the x-rays) being used to keep the story concrete while implying moods and tensions<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n Dr. Ducker presses his face against the microscope. His hands go out for an electrified, tweezer-like instrument. The assistant moves in close, taking his position above the secondary eyepieces. <\/a>This is the pause before the battle. A romantic novel uses the same technique when the writer describes the knights settling into their stirrups just before the heroic charge. Some things never change<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n Dr. Ducker\u2019s view is shared by a video camera. Across the room a color television crackles, <\/a>Sounds, like smells, are extremely effective in putting the reader into your story. The senses of hearing and smell are ancient, and are most closely connected to the emotional brain than is the sense of sight. That\u2019s a good anatomical fact for a professional writer to know<\/span><\/span> displaying a highly magnified landscape <\/a>This is the hardest-won word in the piece. I wanted something that implied a bigness. The word \u201clandscape\u201d is commonly applied to continents and planets, and so carries an aura of great spaces. Few people realize how big a drop of water becomes under a microscope, and how the viewer can actually get lost and disoriented in it. Getting disoriented and lost is one of the most important dangers in neurosurgery<\/span><\/span> of the brain. The polished tips of the tweezers move into view.
\n
\n It is Dr. Ducker\u2019s intent <\/a>Anytime you start talking about something that happens in the subject\u2019s head, you almost automatically slow the narrative and move into background discussion. So, when you do that, make sure you\u2019re doing it at a place you can afford to slow down. Also, this does double duty as another orientation paragraph<\/span><\/span> to place tiny, spring-loaded alligator clips across the base of each aneurysm. But first he must navigate <\/a>\u201cNavigate\u201d is something you do over a landscape or seascape. See the footnote on landscape, above<\/span><\/span> a tortured path from his incision, above Mrs. Kelly\u2019s right eye, to the deeply buried Circle of Willis.
\n
\n The journey will be immense. Under magnification, the landscape of the mind <\/a>Now, the perception of \u201clandscape\u201d fully established, we can make the story\u2019s most important metaphysical leap, from the brain to the mind. When I wrote this piece I was beginning an unusually technical series on the brain, focusing on the brain-mind connection. I decided to do this story as the lead piece because I thought it would embed that point firmly in the reader\u2019s brain\/mind\/jf expands to the size of a room. Dr. Ducker\u2019s tiny, blunt-tipped instrument<\/span> As the instrument and its movement become the focus of the reader\u2019s attention, it becomes a surrogate for Dr. Ducker. Thus the instruments get a very specific personification<\/span><\/span> travels in millimeter leaps.
\n
\n His strategy is to push between the forebrain, where conscious thought occurs, and the thumb-like projection of the brain, called the temporal lobe, that extends beneath the temples. <\/a>More orientation. Note the regularity of orientation paragraphs, and how they fall off as the pace picks up<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n Carefully, Dr. Ducker pulls these two structures apart to form a deep channel. The journey begins at the bottom of this crevasse. <\/a>This paragraph should have read, \u201c\u2026Dr. Ducker pulls these two structures apart to form a deep crevasse. The journey begins at the bottom.\u00a0The time is 9:36 a.m.\u201d\u00a0Some heat-of-the-moment awkwardness is, sigh, unavoidable in the newspaper feature writing business.<\/span><\/span> The time is 9:36 a.m.
\n
\nThe grey convolutions of the brain, wet with secretions, sparkle beneath the powerful operating theater spotlights. The microscopic landscape heaves and subsides in time to the pop, pop, pop of the heart monitor.
\n
\nGently, gently, the blunt probe teases apart the minute structures of gray matter, spreading a tiny tunnel, millimeter <\/a>Never use an awkward word for the first time in a poetic passage. It takes the reader\u2019s brain longer to process it the first time, and that will throw off the rhythm you\u2019re trying so hard to establish. Foreshadow!<\/span><\/span> by gentle millimeter, into the glistening gray. <\/a>Count the number of \u201cm\u201d sounds in this paragraph. Then count the number of \u201cg\u201d sounds. That is a very, very tricky gimmick and can be used only with care. Very much of it, and an otherwise elegant piece turns saccharine<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n We\u2019re having trouble just getting in,\u201d Dr. Ducker tells the operating room team. <\/a>Here, action is used to foreshadow<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n As the neurosurgeon works, he refers to Mrs. Kelly\u2019s monster as \u201cthe A.V.M.,\u201d or arterio-venous malformation. <\/a>Shift here to background<\/span><\/span> Normally, he says, <\/a>This attribution is unnecessary and slows down the flow<\/span><\/span> arteries force high-pressure blood into muscle or organ tissue. After the living cells suck out the oxygen and nourishment the blood drains into low-pressure veins, which carry it back to the heart and lungs.
\n
\n But in the back of Mrs. Kelly\u2019s brain one set of arteries pumps directly into veins, bypassing the tissue. The unnatural junction was not designed for such a rapid flow of blood and in 57 years it slowly swelled to the size of a fist. Periodically it leaked drops of blood and torrents of agony. <\/a>Parallel construction tugs compellingly at the mind. It makes things seem related that aren\u2019t, and makes for slick stream-of-consciousness transitions. The concepts \u201cdrops of blood\u201d and \u201ctorrents of agony\u201d come from separate universes, or do they? This piece was written specifically to make the reader ask that question\/jf Now the structures of the brain are welded together by scar tissue and, to make his tunnel, Dr. Ducker must tease them apart again. This statement brings us back to story action<\/span><\/span> But the brain is delicate.
\n
\n The screen of the television monitor fills with red.
\n
\n Dr. Ducker responds quickly, snatching the broken end of the tiny artery with the tweezers. There is an electrical bzzzzzt <\/a>A good feature writer learns to observe noises and, when possible, bring them to his reader. Sometimes this can be tricky. I\u2019ve got an hour invested in \u201cka-Glup, ka-Glup, ka-Glup,\u201d used to describe a heart-sounds amplifier in a recent book<\/span><\/span> as he burns the bleeder closed. Progress stops while the blood is suctioned out.
\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s nothing to worry about,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s not much, but when you\u2019re looking at one square centimeter, two ounces is a damned lake.\u201d <\/a>Driving home the idea, again, that the microscope magnifies everything, including the problems<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n Carefully, gently, Dr. Ducker continues to make his way into the brain. Far down the tiny tunnel the white trunk of the optic nerve can be seen. It is 9:54.
\n
\n Slowly, using the optic nerve as a guidepost, Dr. Ducker probes deeper and deeper into the gray. The heart monitor continues to pop, pop, pop, 70 beats a minute, 70 beats a minute.
\n
\n The neurosurgeon guides the tweezers directly to the pulsing carotid artery, one of the three main blood channels into the brain. The carotid twists and dances <\/a>Verbs are everything<\/span><\/span> to the electronic pop, pop, popping. Gently, ever gently, nudging aside the scarred brain tissue, Dr. Ducker moves along the carotid toward the Circle of Willis, near the floor of the skull.
\n
\n This loop of vessels is the staging area from which blood is distributed throughout the brain. Three major arteries feed it from below, one in the rear and the two carotids in the front.
\n
\n The first aneurysm lies ahead, still buried in grey matter, where the carotid meets the Circle. The second aneurysm is deeper yet in the brain, where the hindmost artery rises along the spine and joins the circle.
\n
\n Eyes pressed against the microscope, Dr. Ducker makes his tedious way along the carotid.
\n
\n \u201cShe\u2019s so scarred I can\u2019t identify anything,\u201d he complains through the mask.
\n
\n It is 10:01 a.m. The heart monitor pop, pop, pops with reassuring regularity. <\/a>This implies that irregularity is not reassuring, and foreshadows trouble ahead. When the heart slows, the reader will know instantly something is wrong. He won\u2019t have to have an explanation, which would slow him down<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n The probing tweezers are gentle, firm, deliberate, probing, probing, probing, slower than the hands of the clock. Repeatedly, vessels bleed and Dr. Ducker cauterizes them. The blood loss is mounting, and now the anesthesiologist hangs a transfusion bag above Mrs. Kelly\u2019s shrouded <\/a>Note the switch from \u201ccovered\u201d to \u201cshrouded.\u201d This kind of foreshadowing operates on the reader\u2019s mind at a subconscious level. With such subliminal devices the reader never knows what hits him. But hit him it does<\/span><\/span> form.
\n
\n Ten minutes pass. Twenty. Blood flows, the tweezers buzz, the suction hose hisses. The tunnel is small, almost filled by the shank of the instrument.
\n
\n The aneurysm finally appears at the end of the tunnel, throbbing, visibly thin, a lumpy, overstretched bag, the color of rich cream, <\/a>When you\u2019ve taken the reader to an alien and frightening place, it\u2019s necessary to use as many familiar images as possible. But they have to be very apt. If it\u2019s the almost-right word, you end up looking like an idiot<\/span><\/span> swelling out from the once-strong arterial wall, a tire about to blow out, a balloon ready to burst, a time-bomb the size of a pea. <\/a>Relate sizes to something the reader knows<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n The aneurysm isn\u2019t the monster itself, only the work of the monster, which, growing malevolently, has disrupted the pressures and weakened arterial walls throughout the brain. But the monster itself, the X-rays\u00a0say, lies far away. <\/a>This should have been foreshadowed, first, very early in the piece. Another example of deadline-related awkwardness<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n The probe nudges the aneurysm, hesitantly, gently.
\n
\n \u201cSometimes you touch one,\u201d a nurse says, \u201cand blooey, the wolf\u2019s at the door.\u201d
\n
\n Patiently, Dr. Ducker separates the aneurysm from the surrounding brain tissue. The tension is electric.
\n
\n No surgeon would dare go after the monster itself until this swelling killer is defused.
\n
\n Now. <\/a>A paragraph is, most of all, a unit of thought. If the thought is elegant, the paragraph is short<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n A nurse hands Dr. Ducker a long, delicate pair of pliers. A little stainless steel clip, its jaws open wide, is positioned on the pliers\u2019 end. Presently the magnified clip moves into the field of view, light glinting from its polished surface.
\n
\n It is 10:40.
\n
\n For eleven minutes <\/a>When you\u2019ve got rapid action, keep writing down times in your notebook. Later, you can select what you need for pacing<\/span><\/span> Dr. Ducker repeatedly attempts to work the clip over the neck of the balloon, but the device is too small. He calls for one with longer jaws. Soon that clip moves into the microscopic tunnel. With infinite slowness, Dr. Ducker maneuvers it over the neck of the aneurysm.
\n
\n Then, in an instant, the jaws close and the balloon collapses.
\n
\n \u201cThat\u2019s clipped,\u201d Dr. Ducker calls out. Smile wrinkles appear above his mask. <\/a>Action can sometimes be heightened by hinting at it. The alternative would have been, \u201cHe smiled behind his mask.\u201d That\u2019s a more direct statement of fact, but has less dramatic impact. Both statements are accurate<\/span><\/span> The heart monitor goes pop, pop, pop, steady. It is 10:58.
\n
\n Dr. Ducker now begins following the Circle of Willis back into the brain, toward the second, and more difficult, aneurysm that swells<\/a> Word choice can be used to bolster imagery. In this case, the word tends to remind the reader of the nature of the aneurysm<\/span><\/span> at the very rear of the Circle, tight against the most sensitive and primitive structure in the head, the brainstem. The brainstem controls vital processes, including breathing and heartbeat.
\n
\n The going becomes steadily more difficult and bloody. Millimeter, millimeter after treacherous millimeter the tweezers burrow a tunnel through Mrs. Kelly\u2019s mind. Blood flows, the tweezers buzz, the suction slurps. Push and probe. Cauterize. Suction. Push and probe. More blood. Then the tweezers lie quiet.
\n
\n \u201cI don\u2019t recognize anything,\u201d the surgeon says. He pushes further and quickly finds a landmark.
\n
\n Then, exhausted, Dr. Ducker disengages himself, backs away, sits down on a stool and stares straight ahead for a long moment. The brainstem is close, close. <\/a>Again, repetition emphasizes. If you\u2019re interested in rhythmic techniques, by the way, read Edgar Allan Poe\u2019s poetry. Bells bells bells bells bells bells bells. And not one single bell more.<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n \u201cThis is a frightening place to be,\u201d whispers <\/a>\u201cWhispers\u201d is a word that amplifies the nature of the frightening place in which Dr. Ducker finds himself. Reserve this category of attribution trick for dramatic passages only. Usually, the word \u201csaid\u201d will suffice. Repetition of the word \u201csaid\u201d is rarely a serious problem<\/span><\/span> the doctor.
\n
\n In the background the heart monitor goes pop, pop, pop, 70 beats a minute, steady. The smell of ozone and burnt flesh hangs thick in the air. <\/a>Pacing images are used to put the reader into the scene while also serving to slow the story action down. This implies that you\u2019ve got to have enough action that you can afford some slow passages. If you don\u2019t have enough action to withstand the imagery slowdowns, you\u2019ve probably got a boring story<\/span><\/span> It is 11:05 a.m., the day of the monster.
\n
\n The operating room door opens and Dr. Michael Salcman, <\/a>Minor characters do not have to be introduced at the top of a story but, if not, they must be foreshadowed. In this case that was easy, since Dr. Salcman came in and hung around for a while before he started taking important (structural) action.<\/span><\/span> the assistant chief neurosurgeon, enters. He confers with Dr. Ducker, who then returns to the microscope. Dr. Salcman moves to the front of the television monitor.
\n
\n As he watches Dr. Ducker work, Dr. Salcman compares an aneurysm to a bump on a tire. The weakened wall of the artery balloons outward under the relentless pressure of the heartbeat and, eventually, it bursts. That\u2019s death.
\n
\n So the fragile aneurysms must be removed before Dr. Ducker can tackle the AVM itself. Dr. Salcman crosses his arms and fixes his eyes on the television screen, preparing himself to relieve Dr. Ducker if he tires. One aneurysm down, one to go.
\n
\n The second, however, is the toughest. It pulses dangerously deep, hard against the bulb of nerves that sits atop the spinal cord.
\n
\n \u201cTechnically, the brainstem,\u201d says Dr. Salcman. \u201cI call it the \u2018pilot light.\u2019 That\u2019s because if it goes out \u2026 that\u2019s it.\u201d
\n
\n On the television screen the tweezer instrument presses on, following the artery toward the brainstem. Gently, gently, gently, gently it pushes aside the gray coils. For a moment the optic nerve appears in the background, then vanishes. <\/a>A glance at something he\u2019s met before, in this case the optic nerve, gives the reader the sense that he understands where he is. That is strictly smoke and mirrors, of course, but it puts his mind at rest and he can read on. After all, the reader isn\u2019t here to learn brain anatomy. He\u2019s here to find out what happens, and how the story comes out. The moral of the story is don\u2019t explain any more than the reader needs to understand the story. Explanations beyond that are flab<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n The going is even slower now. Dr. Ducker is reaching all the way into the center of the brain and his instruments are the length of chopsticks. The danger mounts because, here, many of the vessels feed the pilot light.
\n
\n The heartbeat goes pop, pop, pop, 70 beats a minute. <\/a>And the beat, now in a separate paragraph, begins to take on a life of its own<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n The instrument moves across a topography of torture, scars everywhere, remnants of pain past, of agonies Mrs. Kelly would rather die than further endure. <\/a>And a tip of the hat to Abe Lincoln. Immature poets, some guru said, create. Mature poets steal. When possible, steal from the masters. Steal from romance novels and other trash at your peril.<\/span><\/span> Dr. Ducker is lost again.
\n
\n Dr. Salcman joins him at the microscope, peering through the assistant\u2019s eyepieces. They debate the options in low tones and technical terms. <\/a>Going too deeply into the technical would only confuse the reader, and is not necessary to the action. Deciding what to leave out is one of the writer\u2019s most important functions. The iron rule is that if you don\u2019t need it to make the climax work, then you don\u2019t need it at all. Some of the best stories are written backwards. This one was, sort of, and at times<\/span><\/span> A decision is made and again the polished tweezers probe along the vessel.
\n
\n Back on course, Dr. Ducker works his tunnel ever deeper, gentle, gentle, gentle as the touch of sterile cotton. Finally the grey matter parts.
\n
\n The neurosurgeon freezes. <\/a>When your action is being carried along by active, fine-scale description, then action<\/em> is defined not as motion but as change. Thus freezing in the face of danger is, in this story, a very active thing for Dr. Ducker to do<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n Dead ahead <\/a>Symbolism can be layered on top of symbolism. The word \u201cdead\u201d is symbolic in its\u00a0own right, and the phrase \u201cdead ahead\u201d is a term used for navigating<\/em> across topography<\/em><\/span><\/span> the field is crossed by many huge, distended, ropelike veins.
\n
\n The neurosurgeon stares intently at the veins, surprised, chagrined, betrayed by the X-rays.
\n
\n The monster.
\n
\n The monster, by microscopic standards, lies far away, above and back, in the rear of the head. Dr. Ducker was to face the monster itself on another day, not now. Not here.
\n
\n But clearly these tangled veins, absent on the X-ray\u00a0films but very real in Mrs. Kelly\u2019s brain, are tentacles of the monster.
\n
\n Gingerly, the tweezers attempt to push around them.
\n
\n Pop, pop, pop . . pop \u2026 pop \u2026 . pop \u2026 . pop. <\/a>Consider the foreshadowing that led up to this<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s slowing!\u201d warns the anesthesiologist, alarmed.
\n
\n The tweezers pull away like fingers touching fire.
\n
\n \u2026 . pop \u2026 pop . . pop . pop, pop, pop.
\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s coming back\u201d says the anesthesiologist.
\n
\n The vessels control bloodflow to the brain stem, the pilot light.
\n
\n Dr. Ducker tries to go around them a different way.
\n
\n Pop, pop, pop . pop . . pop \u2026 pop \u2026 .
\n
\n And withdraws.
\n
\n Dr. Salcman stands before the television monitor, arms crossed, frowning.
\n
\n \u201cShe can\u2019t take much of that,\u201d the anesthesiologist sa<\/span><\/a>ys.<\/span> Note the absence of the phrase \u201ctold this reporter.\u201d Unless you\u2019re writing about yourself, stay out of your story<\/em><\/span><\/span> \u201cThe heart will go into arrhythmia and that\u2019ll lead to a \u2026 call it a heart attack.\u201d
\n
\n Dr. Ducker tries a still different route, pulling clear of the area and returning at a new angle. Eventually, at the end of a long, throbbing tunnel of brain tissue, the sought-after aneurysm appears.
\n
\n Pop, pop, pop . pop . . pop \u2026 pop \u2026 .
\n
\n The instruments retract.
\n
\n \u201cDamn,\u201d says the neurosurgeon. \u201cI can only work here for a few minutes without the bottom falling out.\u201d
\n
\n The clock says 12:29.
\n
\n Already the gray tissue swells visibly from the repeated attempts to burrow past the tentacles.
\n
\n Again the tweezers move forward in a different approach and the aneurysm reappears. Dr. Ducker tries to reach it by inserting the aneurysm clip through a long, narrow tunnel. But the pliers that hold the clip obscure the view.
\n
\n Pop, pop . pop . . pop \u2026 pop \u2026 .
\n
\n The pliers retract.
\n
\n \u201cWe\u2019re on it and we know where we are,\u201d complains the neurosurgeon, frustration adding a metallic edge to his voice. \u201cBut we\u2019re going to have an awful time getting a clip in there. We\u2019re so close, but \u2026\u201d
\n
\n A resident who has been assisting Dr. Ducker collapses on a stool. He stares straight ahead, eyes unfocused, glazed. <\/a>This makes Dr. Ducker\u2019s fatigue more real<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n \u201cMichael, scrub,\u201d Dr. Ducker says to Dr. Salcman. \u201cSee what you can do. I\u2019m too cramped.\u201d
\n
\n While the circulating nurse massages Dr. Ducker\u2019s shoulders, Dr. Salcman attempts to reach the aneurysm with the clip.
\n
\n Pop, pop, pop . pop . . pop \u2026pop \u2026 .
\n
\n The clip withdraws.
\n
\n \u201cThat should be the aneurysm right there,” says Dr. Ducker, taking his place at the microscope again. \u201cWhy the hell can\u2019t we get to it? We\u2019ve tried, ten times.\u201d
\n
\n At 12:53, another approach.
\n
\n Pop, pop, pop . pop . . pop \u2026 pop \u2026 .
\n
\n Again.
\n
\n It is 1:06.
\n
\n And again, and again, and again.
\n
\n Pop \u2026 pop \u2026 pop, pop, pop \u2026 pop \u2026 pop-pop-pop \u2026
\n
\n The anesthesiologist\u2019s hands move rapidly across a panel of switches. A nurse catches her breath and holds it.
\n
\n \u201cDamn, damn, damn.\u201d
\n
\n Dr. Ducker backs away from the microscope, his gloved hands held before him. For a full minute, he\u2019s silent.
\n
\n \u201cThere\u2019s an old dictum in medicine,\u201d he finally says. \u201cIf you can\u2019t help, don\u2019t do any harm. Let nature take its course. We may have already hurt her. We\u2019ve slowed down her heart. Too many times.\u201d <\/a>The words carry defeat, exhaustion, anger. It is better to let action carry emotion, even if the action is no more than inflection on words<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n Dr. Ducker stands again before the X-rays.\u00a0His eyes focus on the rear aneurysm, the second one, the one that thwarted him. He examines the film for signs, unseen before, of the monster\u2019s descending tentacles. He finds no such indications.
\n
\n Pop, pop, pop, goes the monitor, steady now, 70 beats a minute.
\n
\n \u201cMother nature,\u201d a resident growls, \u201cis a mother.\u201d
\n
\n The retreat begins. Under Dr. Salcman\u2019s command, the team prepares to wire the chunk of skull back into place and close the incision.
\n
\n It ends quickly, without ceremony. Dr. Ducker\u2019s gloves snap sharply as a nurse pulls them off. <\/a>This punctuates the end of the action. It is a specific, active, concrete, sensual (sound is used) symbol<\/span><\/span> It is 1:30.
\n
\n Dr. Ducker walks, alone, down the hall, brown paper bag in his hand. In the lounge he sits on the edge of a hard orange couch and unwraps the peanut butter sandwich. His eyes focus on the opposite wall.
\n
\n Back in the operating room the anesthesiologist shines a light into each of Mrs. Kelly\u2019s eyes. The right pupil, the one under the incision, is dilated and does not respond to the probing beam. It is a grim omen.
\n
\n If Mrs. Kelly recovers, <\/a>This paragraph and the two short paragraphs that follow are worse than unnecessary. They bring up images that are irrelevant (Mrs. Kelly is going to die and Dr. Ducker knows it), and distract the reader. Some readers were left uncertain as to whether or not Mrs. Kelly died. These paragraphs are the culprit. Together they constitute the worst structural failing of the story, and if the rest of it hadn\u2019t worked well enough to offset the problems the piece as a whole would have failed<\/span><\/span> says Dr. Ducker, he\u2019ll go ahead and try to deal with the monster itself, despite the remaining aneurysm. He\u2019ll try to block the arteries to it, maybe even take it out. That would be a tough operation, he says without enthusiasm.
\n
\n \u201cAnd it\u2019s providing that she\u2019s in good shape after this.\u201d
\n
\n If she survives. If. If.
\n
\n \u201cI\u2019m not afraid to die,\u201d Mrs. Kelly had said. \u201cI\u2019m scared to death \u2026 but \u2026 I can\u2019t bear the pain. I wouldn\u2019t want to live like this much longer.\u201d <\/a>Flashbacks late in the story provide dramatic perspective. It is time that the reader remembers that Mrs. Kelly went into this with her eyes open. Otherwise, our hero becomes tarnished by failure. One of the points of the piece is that he is not<\/em> tarnished, because he tried<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n Her brain was too scarred. The operation, tolerable in a younger person, was too much. Already, where the monster\u2019s tentacles hang before the brainstem, the tissue swells, pinching off the source of oxygen.
\n
\n Mrs. Kelly is dying.
\n
\n The clock on the wall, near where Dr. Ducker sits, says 1:40.
\n
\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to tell what to do. We\u2019ve been thinking about it for six weeks. But, you know, there are certain things \u2026 that\u2019s just as far as you can go. I just don\u2019t know \u2026\u201d
\n
\n He lays the sandwich, the banana and the fig newtons on the table before him, neatly, the way the scrub nurse laid out the instruments. <\/a>Foreshadowed, this becomes a very dramatic, human action<\/span><\/span>
\n
\n \u201cIt was triple jeopardy,\u201d he says finally, staring at his peanut butter sandwich the same way he stared at the x-rays. \u201cIt was triple jeopardy.\u201d
\n
\n It is 1:43, and it\u2019s over.
\n
\n Dr. Ducker bites, grimly, into the sandwich. He must go on. <\/a>Food symbolizes life<\/span><\/span> The monster won.
\n
\n ***
\n
\n Jon Franklin<\/a> won the inaugural Pulitzer Prize for feature writing in 1979, for this story. He won again six years later, in Explanatory Reporting, for a series on brain science. His\u00a0\u201cMrs. Kelly\u2019s Monster\u201d\u00a0annotation also can be found in the appendix of his classic\u00a0<\/em>Writing for Story: Craft Secrets of Dramatic Nonfiction by a Two-Time Pulitzer Prize Winner<\/strong><\/a>. His latest book is\u00a0<\/em>The Wolf in the Parlor: The Eternal Connection between Humans and Dogs<\/strong><\/a>, and he is also the author of books including\u00a0<\/em>Molecules of the Mind<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<\/em>Not Quite a Miracle: Brain Surgeons and Their Patients on the Frontier of Medicine<\/strong><\/a>. Franklin is a University of Maryland writing professor emeritus and is at work on a novel.<\/em>
\n
\n *This piece is a reprint of a Sept. 26, 2011, post from the Tumblr feed The Story of A Story.<\/em>\n\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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