Related story: Finally caging Corey's tiger

By Ged Carbone
Journal Staff Writer

My wife, Mary Preziosi, read the first draft of my story about a miraculous cancer cure; she said, "Well, darlin', the beginning doesn't bring you in the way your beginnings usually do." Which I found to be an endearingly subtle way of saying: The lead sucks.

I literally did not lose any sleep over it that night because as soon as she said that I felt a hunch about what had gone wrong: I had written the story chronologically instead of dramatically.

Sometimes, I accidentally write a story in chronological fashion, but this time I had deliberately structured the story in A through Z fashion.

The first draft introduces readers to Corey Fox, teenaged boy, announcing one morning that he does not feel well. There follows a trip to the doctor's office, followed by an ambulance ride to Hasbro Children's Hospital; he learns he has cancer; chemotherapy fails; a doctor tells him he has little time to live.

The most dramatic scene there is: Doctor tells him he has little time to live.

I initially thought that I would give that doctor's office scene more drama by introducing readers to Corey, investing them in his struggle before I hit them with his death sentence. I was wrong.

That draft was too slow in getting started. I could just picture fellow Journal reporter Bill Malinowski scanning that story over breakfast and muttering, "Who gives a ----."

The day after my wife panned the lead, I snuck up on my keyboard and ripped the story apart. I took the most dramatic scene: "I don't think we're going to be able to cure this" and stuck it at the beginning. This was actually the best way to get readers invested in this kid: Look, the poor kid's going to die. That's more compelling than a sick teenager at breakfast.

Then I needed a device to connect the most dramatic scene to the actual sequence of events. I did this by writing a new second scene, the scene of what Corey did on the night that he learned he'd soon die. This scene held inherent interest and allowed me to feed readers information they needed to know through the guise of narrative. Because I knew where I was shifting backwards in time I could hear the grind of the gears; but a couple of test readers (Mary, and another fellow reporter, Mark Arsenault) said that they thought the transition was seamless. After that, the story's a straight chronology.

I knew that asking Corey to recall what he did that night of the death sentence would likely create a strong scene, because when I was 16, a year younger than he was, a doctor told me cancer would kill me within a year.

From that experience I knew that it's interesting, what people will do in those situations.

The good thing about being a writer is that nothing is wasted. Anything that happens to you or loved ones -- suicide, car crash, cancer -- eventually helps you become empathetic with people whose lives are affected by similar events. Empathy is important in interviewing; sympathy is not. You don't need to sympathize with your characters, but you do need to understand what they felt in order to accurately portray them.

This story did not take many hours to report and write: 45 minutes with Dr. Forman on a Thursday evening; 3 hours with the Foxes on Friday with a follow-up phone interview Monday; a draft written on Monday and the final draft done on Tuesday, about half-a-week's work.

Ultimately, though, this story would have earned a failing grade in Journalism 101.

I took special care to get Corey's mother's name right -- Louanne; and the good doctor's name was Forman, not Foreman. But often it's the simple names that bite you, like Jon, Mychal, Geoffrey, and Philip. In this case the name Corey screwed me up -- it is Corey, not Cory. Spell check even questioned Cory, but I had the hubris to override it. Photographer Kathy Borchers pointed out my error after the story ran; she got it right in her cutlines but I got it wrong. Naturally, I wish someone had noticed the discrepancy and flagged it, but the duty to get it right rests first and finally with the reporter.

Corey confirmed the misspelling when I called him days later; he said he didn't care, but I did and I do. The archives now have it right. Before I can talk about story structure, how to create maximum dramatic effect, empathy in interviewing, etc., I've got to go back to the basics of 101: Get the reporting right. It all begins there.