Dissecting Dead People

Here are today’s Wonderful Words:

You would think the first time you cut up a dead person, you’d feel a bit funny about it. Strangely, though, everything feels normal.

When Breath Becomes Air, Paul Kalanithi, page 43

Background

When Breath Becomes Air is a memoir about Paul Kalanithi’s journey from neurosurgeon to cancer patient and his evolving understanding of life and death. His philosophy was born from several distinct stages in his life: English student, philosophy student, medical student, medical resident, and cancer patient. These sentences begin the section of his life as a med student.

What makes it wonderful?

If you read these sentences alone, you might think they were the introduction to Jeffrey Dahmer’s biography. Which is why they’re slightly startling in a memoir about one of the most thoughtful and caring people you’ll ever read about.

But as you read on, you quickly understand Kalanithi is describing cadaver dissection in the anatomy lab, not some grizzly true-crime horror story.

Kalanithi continues describing the experience with exceptional ability:

The scalpel is so sharp it doesn’t so much cut the skin as unzip it, revealing the hidden and forbidden sinew beneath, and despite your preparation, you are caught unaware, ashamed and excited.

Cadaver dissection is a medical rite of passage and a trespass on the sacrosanct, engendering a legion of feelings: from revulsion, exhilaration, nausea, frustration, and awe to, as time passes, the mere tedium of academic exercise…

Here you are, violating society’s most fundamental taboos, and yet formaldehyde is a powerful appetite stimulant, so you also crave a burrito.

His words are wonderful because he captivated me with the first two sentences and then opened my eyes to a foreign world—almost like riding in the open top Jeep through the fields of Jurassic Park.

Let's get technical

The main technique here is creating suspense. As we’ve discussed before, the best way to keep the reader reading is to make him want what you have.

In this case, the reader wants to know why Kalanithi is cutting up a dead body—and why it feels normal.

And of course, he has the answer.

He’s a med student. It’s part of the training. In fact, after less time than you’d expect, it becomes as routine as an accountant preparing a tax return.

The second technique is one I call translating the foreign to the familiar. We’ve seen Jack Thomas do it with death. We’ve seen JR Moehringer do it from a bar stool.

It’s as simple as taking an experience that is foreign to the reader—slicing the skin of a dead human—and comparing it to something familiar—unzipping a dress, a tent, a pair of knee high boots.

In doing this, you can connect the readers’ experiences to your own and help them understand what it was like to stand in your shoes.

As you can see, the best writers rarely use one technique. Rather, talented writers stack one on another, like pastry chefs stack layers on wedding cakes. The result, a product more pleasing to the eye, tasty to the tongue, satisfying to the subject. So create some suspense, translate an experience, and add whatever else you’d like to build your own literary masterpiece.

Happy writing,

Joe