Deconstructing Gawande – why narrative and structure are important

According to all sorts of “how-to” sites, one of the most important rules for online writing is to keep it short. Well, try telling that to Atul Gawande and his legion of readers. Known for his superb long-form essays and books, Gawande recently published a masterful piece in the New Yorker about death and dying. I plugged the full text into Word and it weighs in at a monstrous 12,000 words. This is a feature that makes Wired articles look like paragraphs. And yet, its copious length flies by. I read the piece in 20 minutes, with no distractions except for the occasional need to reach for some tissues. I’m not alone in thinking this; the piece was passed all over Twitter, with several people noting how readable it is despite the excessive word count. And bear in mind that all of these people read the piece on screen (and ...