Jon Franklin

1
Jon Franklin

• Winner of Pulitzer Prizes in Feature Writing
  (1979) and Explanatory Journalism (1985) and
  author of five books

2
Franklin the pioneer

• Regarded as a pioneer in literary non-fiction
• Changed the newspaper business when he wrote
  Mrs. Kellys Monster in 1978
• But Franklin says many great writers preceded him
• I cant think of another Pulitzer Prize winner
  who put as much care into the words of the story
  as Franklin. The story is so active. Some of the
  stuff that Jon did was truly revolutionary.
  David Garlock

3
Franklin the science writer

• Fascinated by science as a child
• Dreamed of becoming a scientist
• Won numerous prizes in science writing
• In recent years, however, he argues that science
  writers should drop the science from their
  titles.
• Franklin links science to the public by telling
  the stories of the people. He puts a human face
  on science. Rick Chappell

4
His Books

• 1980 - Shocktrauma, (with Alan Doelp)
• 1983 - Not Quite a Miracle, (with Alan Doelp)
• 1984 - Guinea Pig Doctors, (with John Sutherland)
• 1986 - Writing for Story
• 1987 - The Molecules of The Mind

5
Mrs. Kellys Monster

• Franklin received the first-ever Pulitzer Prize
  for feature writing in 1978.
• A story about a brain surgeons struggle to
  remove a tumor from deep within a suffering
  patients lobe

6
Shocktrauma

• Published in 1980
• Co-authored by Alan Doelp
• Made into a TV drama in 1982
• An account of the alarming incidence of death
  from shock
• The work of Dr. R. Adams Cowley and the special
  clinics he founded for treating accident victims

7
Shocktrauma

• A dedicated team of doctors who worked day and
  night to save the lives of shock victims
• Dr. Cowley fought against a conservative
  administration to maintain his controversial
  medical unit.

Dr. R Adams Cowley (1917-1991) center
instructing in the Trauma Resuscitation Unit,
University of Maryland Medical Center
8
Not Quite a Miracle

• Published in 1983
• Co-authored by Alan Doelp
• Later published as Something Attached to the
  Soul
• A non-fiction novel about brain surgeons and
  their patients

9
Guinea Pig Doctors

• Published in 1984
• Co-authored by Dr. John Sutherland
• Later published as If I Die In The Service of
  Science
• A collection of non-fiction short stories about
  scientists who changed history by experimenting
  on themselves

Dr. James Carroll (1854-1907) left, a noted
bacteriologist, and Dr. Jesse W. Lazear
(1866-1900) right, a malaria expert, who made
key discoveries in the fight against yellow fever
in Cuba
10
The Molecules of the Mind

• Received his second Pulitzer Prize in 1985
  again in a new category, explanatory journalism
• First published in 1987
• Later published under the title The Mind Fixers
• A story about the use of neurochemistry to treat
  mental disorders

11
Scientific illiteracy

• Franklin is passionate and angry about Americans
  scientific illiteracy.
• He blames his fellow journalists for mishandling
  scientific subjects.
• He says while journalists make heroes of sports
  figures and pop stars, thousands of stories like
  Mrs. Kellys Monster and The Mind Fixers
  never see the printed page.

12
Jon Franklin

• 1942 - Born in Enid, Oklahoma
• 1959 - Spent eight years as a journalist in the
  U.S. Navy for All Hands magazine
• 1967 - Wrote for The Prince Georges Post, a
  weekly newspaper, while attending the University
  of Maryland's College of Journalism
• 1970 - Graduated with high honors from the
  University of Maryland
• 1970 - Joined the Baltimore Evening Sun,
  beginning on the rewrite desk and ending as the
  paper's science feature writer 1975 - James T.
  Grady Medal, American Chemical Society

13
Jon Franklin

• 1977 - Talbot Denmead Memorial Conservation Award
• 1977 - Keep America Beautiful Award
• 1979 - Pulitzer for feature writing
• 1980 - Shocktrauma, (with Alan Doelp)
• 1983 - Not Quite a Miracle, (with Alan Doelp)
• 1984 - Guinea Pig Doctors, (with John Sutherland)
• 1984 - Helen Carringer Award, Association for
  Mental Health
• 1985 - Penney-Missouri Special Journalism Award
• 1985 - Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism
• 1986 - Writing for Story

14
Jon Franklin

• 1986 - Professor at the University of Maryland
  College of Journalism
• 1987 - The Molecules of The Mind
• 1989 - Became chairman of the Department of
  Journalism at Oregon State
• 1994 - Founded an internet writing workshop,
  WriterL
• 1998 - Spent three years with the Raleigh News
  and Observer before returning to academia
• 2001 - Became Philip Merrill Professor of
  Journalism at the University of Maryland's Philip
  Merrill School of Journalism

15
Benjamin Franklin

• Jon Franklins father, Benjamin, was a major
  influence in his life.
• He recalls a bullying incident from his days at a
  predominantly Mexican-American school in Santa
  Fe, after which his dad encouraged the 14-year
  old to seek revenge not with switchblades,
  bicycle chains and zip guns, but with words on
  paper.
• Switchblades and zip guns were the tools of
  adolescents. True revolutionaries, the ones who
  actually DID change the world, used different
  instruments. They used words, typewriters, and
  paper.

16
All Hands

• Franklin quit high school and joined the Navy.
• He landed his first writing job for All Hands
  magazine.

17
G. Vern Blasdell

• The second person who influenced Franklin was
  the news editor of All Hands magazine, G. Vern
  Blasdell.
• Five years at the mercy of Vern left me with an
  ulcer, a discipline, a craft, and a love for the
  old man that was equal to what I once felt for my
  father.

18
Cold War and the 60s

• Franklin worked as a Navy journalist for eight
  years.
• The Cold War G. I. bill was passed in the
  mid-60s, allowing veterans to make a transition
  into civilian life.
• In 1967, 25-year-old Franklin attended University
  of Marylands journalism school.

19
The Art of Fact

• Literary journalism is an art suited to the
  complexity and confusion of life.
• Factoids and factlets condense into thick fogs
  that obscure our vision.
• We yearn for clarity.
• Non-fiction writers are in a unique position to
  address the tensions and schisms in our lives.
• Storytelling allows the expression of reality
  through action.
• Storytelling has become the single most powerful
  way of factually explaining ourselves.

Franklins wife, Lynn, editor of WriterL
20
Writing for Story

• Published in 1986
• Franklin insists there is no secret to good
  non-fiction writing, except hard work and a
  dedication to the storytelling craft.
• He believes good storytellers adhere to a set of
  basic principles and build their works around a
  complication-resolution structure.

21
Definition of a story

• "A story consists of a sequence of actions that
  occur when a sympathetic character encounters a
  complicating situation that he confronts and
  solves."

22
Complication-resolution

• Complication
• a problem encountered by any human being
• involves both internal and external forces
• introduces the element of tension (suspense)
• is fundamental to the human condition, involving
  love, hate, pain, death and such
• Resolution
• is any change in the character or situation that
  resolves the complication
• by definition, destroys tension
• complication without resolution is worse than
  useless

23
Character

• Black Box Theory of Psychology
• Its irrelevant to consider what a person
  thinks look instead at what he does. Actions, in
  literature as in life, speak far louder than
  words.
• Mack Truck Principle
• The lazy writer isnt allowed to solve his
  complication by having all his characters get run
  over by Mack trucks.
• For the story to be powerful, the resolution must
  result from the characters own effort. This
  means action.

24
Mrs. Kellys Monster

• Complication Ducker gambles
• Development
• 1. Ducker enters brain
• 2. Ducker clips aneurysm
• 3. Monster ambushes Ducker
• Resolution Ducker accepts defeat

25
Mrs. Kellys Monster

• Dr. Thomas Barbee Ducker, Professor of
  Neurosurgery at the University of Maryland,
  operated on Mrs. Edna Kelly in 1978.
• Franklin assumed the surgery would be successful.
• He interviewed Mrs. Kelly, her husband, her
  daughter and Dr. Ducker.
• The surgery went wrong. Mrs. Kelly died.
• Franklin thought he had lost the story. Later he
  had a revelation and wrote the story through Dr.
  Duckers eyes.

Dr. Thomas B. Ducker, F.A.C.S
26
Senses

• The gray 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.

27
Sight

• The aneurysm finally appears at the end of the
  tunnel, throbbing, visibly thin, a lumpy,
  overstretched bag, the color of rich cream,
  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.

28
Sound

• With each heartbeat a loudspeaker produces an
  audible popping sound. The steady pop, pop,
  popping isnt loud, but it dominates the
  operating room.
• Dr. Ducker responds quickly, snatching the
  broken end of the tiny artery with the tweezers.
  There is an electrical bzzzzzt as he burns the
  bleeder closed.

29
Smell

• 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. It
  is 1105a.m., the day of the monster.

30
Rhythm

• Long sentences set the scene.
• The pace picks up as the drama of the operation
  intensifies.
• The sentences become shorter and the words come
  in staccato fashion.
• The pace is heightened by the drumbeat of the
  popping respirator and references to the clock.

31
Pace

• Pop, pop, pop . pop . . pop . . . . pop . . .
  .
• The clip withdraws.
• That should be the aneurysm right there, says
  Dr. Ducker, taking his place at the microscope
  again. Why the hell cant we get to it? Weve
  tried, ten times.
• At 1253, another approach.
• Pop, pop, pop . pop . . . pop . . . .
• Again.
• It is 106.
• And again, and again, and again.

32
Action Verbs

• The going becomes steadily more difficult and
  bloody. Millimeter, millimeter after treacherous
  millimeter the tweezers burrow a tunnel through
  Mrs. Kellys mind. Blood flows, the tweezers
  buzz, the suction slurps. Push and probe.
  Cauterize. Suction. Push and probe. More blood.
  Then the tweezers lie quiet.

33
Metaphors and similes

• Metaphors
• The monster
• The landscape of the mind
• Torrents of agony
• The carotid twists and dances
• Similes
• The aneurysm a time-bomb the size of a pea
• Ropelike veins
• Instruments the length of chopsticks

34
Focus

• The first focus describes Dr. Ducker eating his
  breakfast.
• The second switches to downtown Baltimore and
  introduces Mrs. Kelly and her pain.
• The third switches back to Dr. Ducker.
• The fourth returns to Mrs. Kelly, flashes back to
  her past life.
• The major focus ends as the reader discovers she
  calls her malformation the monster.

35
Focus

• Complicating Focus
• Dr. Ducker doesnt drink coffee because coffee
  makes his hands shake, implying he is going to do
  something important with his hands.
• Resolving Focus
• Dr. Duckers tries to fight after all hope is
  gone, and finally facing the fact that he has
  lost and resolving to go on with life.

36
Narrative

• Good narrative establishes the time, place,
  character, subject and mood in the first few
  lines of the story.
• In the cold hours of a winter morning Dr.
  Thomas Barbee Ducker, chief brain surgeon at the
  University of Maryland Hospital, rises before
  dawn. His wife serves him waffles but no coffee.
  Coffee makes his hands shake.

37
Foreshadowing

• A technique by which the writer inserts details
  early in the story which will surface during
  dramatic scenes.
• The peanut-butter sandwich, banana and two fig
  newtons in Dr. Duckers lunch pack were
  introduced early in the story.
• At the agonizingly poignant emotional climax of
  the story, Dr. Ducker lays out those food items
  neatly.
• The food symbolizes life. Life must go on.

38
Jon Franklin

• The Secret is that there is no secret beyond
  knowledge and experience writing is no different
  than conducting an orchestra, performing surgery,
  flying an airplane, or climbing a mountain.