"Figuring out the structure of the book was maddening, and it took me a very long time." --Rebecca Skloot
Braided Narratives: The book has three sections, but they don't directly correspond to the three narratives threaded throughout the book: Henrietta's story, Deborah's story, and the cells' story. When she was beginning the book, Skloot envisioned her structure as similar to the one Fannie Flagg used in Fried Green Tomatoes: she pictured having Henrietta's story told alongside her (Skloot's) and Deborah's story, with news clippings explaining the science interspersed throughout. She says she at first "couldn't imagine how I could possibly put the science into some kind of narrative."
The book begins in the middle of it all. Henrietta knows she has a tumor, or something of the sort, and goes to the hospital. This works as the beginning because this is the moment where the three narratives that will be shared throughout the book all converge: Henrietta's still alive, Deborah is a baby, the doctors meet Henrietta's cells for the first time. Only once these three balls have been tossed into the air does Skloot go back to the beginning beginning, starting with Henrietta's childhood.
Story Arc: On p. 49 Skloot inserts herself as a character into the book. A few pages later we then meet, albeit over the phone, Deborah for the first time. This is where the main tension of the book begins, at least for me. With the introduction of Henrietta's cells in the first fifty pages, of I want to know what happened to them, but upon meeting Deborah a new suspense enters the book--now I'm curious to know what will happen. Will Deborah speak to Rebecca? Will there be some sort of reconciliation between the families and the doctors/scientists/journalists?
Skloot says that the storyline of the book/the narrative arc (for her) is the storyline of Deborah. She says she's (Skloot's) only in the book as a vehicle to get to Deborah. About writing in general, Skloot says: "Within a big sweep of history there's usually a story that can hold it all together--then some of the history can be told in flashbacks. ... I'm always looking for narrative with every story I write."
Balance of Scene and Summary: I think it's interesting that from essentially chapter 29 in Part 3 (page 232), when Skloot and Deborah finally meet, the book is essentially one long scene right to the end. From then on we're with Skloot and Deborah and other family members, on the journey with Deborah so she can uncover the past, right up to the end. Why, for example, didn't Skloot meet Deborah earlier in the book and thread those scenes where we're right there with the two of them more evenly throughout the book? I understand Skloot's reasoning behind unfurling the story of the cells, of Henrietta's past, and of the families frustrations alongside one another ("What happened to the cells and Henrietta take on such a different weight if you learn about them at the same time as the science, the scientists, and her family," Skloot says), but something about one long continuous scene at for the last 100 pages feels unbalanced to me. The story is captivating enough so it doesn't bother me, but I'm wondering if anybody else felt that way.
How Skloot Does Structure: "I spent several days pressing play and pause, play and pause and I storyboarded the whole movie of Hurricane on the same three colored index card system I had with my book, and then I literally just laid my book on top of it to see what would happen in the same color coding. And through that I realized I was taking too long and I had these long chapters, and really part of what worked with the structure of the movie was that it happened really fast. So I had written all three of the narratives and then went with my Hurricane/Fried Green Tomatoes structure idea, and actually braided them on the computer and then just sat down and printed it out and read it beginning to end ... so then a lot of rearranging happened in the various drafts. I rewrote the book completely from beginning to end probably five times before I even turned it in, then another many times after that, to my editor's dismay."
Sources:
From the nieman storyboard: "Rebecca Skloot on narrating history: 'looking for that one family, that one person, that one moment that will help hold everything together' "
Rebecca Skoot talks about how Fried Green Tomatoes and the movie Hurricane influenced how she structured The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks:
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