Inside the Cover Book Review

Review by Amy Brozio-Andrews

Body Trauma: A Writer's Guide to Wounds and Injuries
By David W. Page, MD, FACS
Behler Publications
2006
254 pp.
Writing reference

This is it-- you're in the home stretch. Does your hero still have the strength to rescue the little girl after he receives a knife wound to the abdomen? What about her mother, who's gotten hit in the head-- will the attending physician think she has a concussion or will he realize she's suffering from life-threatening bleeding on the brain? Just when you're thinking Mom was right and maybe you should have gone to med school, you can turn to Dr. David W. Page, who spells out the how, where, when, and what next of putting your characters through the wringer in Body Trauma.

Beginning with the basic medical terms and phrases, Dr. Page gives writers a crash course in medicine, covering common practices and likely scenarios for on-site trauma care by professionals and lay people as well as triage care in emergency rooms, operating theatres, and disaster sites, as well as follow up care and prognoses for recovery.

He continues with concentrated examinations of common and uncommon injuries, from cause, extent, and treatment, to the "how come," giving you the tools you need to use wounds and injuries as plot devices. For example, "From the humdrum cellulitis your pianist picked up trimming her Presidential roses a day before the big concert, there evolves a nasty swollen index finger full of pus. The tendon sheath abscess becomes a ticking clock." Dr. Page uses the proper medical terms in layman's language so you can let your characters speak intelligently about wound cause and care because you'll understand the ramifications of the physical ordeals inflicted on your characters.

Information is divided into neat chapters: head trauma, neck and spinal injuries, chest wounds, abdominal wounds, extremities, bites, impalement and mutilation, burns and frostbite, diving, assault, sexual assault, and even organ donation. Clear line drawings of body parts illustrate the text, offering a visual tie-in, helping writers "see" the injury. Dr. Page expands his discussion of these medical emergencies to include women, children, and the elderly, as well as some talk of patterns of injury and criminal investigation, making Body Trauma the first-stop for writers looking to work physical injuries into their manuscripts.

Numerous examples are given that include ideas and suggestions for maximizing and minimizing injury to achieve the desired plot effect. Page covers wounds from the perspective of the injured and the responder so that you can write scenes accurately and with maximum effect. Dr. Page pulls no punches-- if you're squeamish like me, there will definitely be sections that will make you shudder.

Dr. Page is an experienced surgeon and is currently a professor of surgery at Tufts University School of Medicine. His perspective on writers' needs as far as medical jargon is unique, as he also holds a MFA from the University of Southern Maine. Dr. Page also co-authored Code Blue-- A Writer's Guide to Hospitals (with Keith Wilson, MD). Literary examples abound in Body Trauma, from Madame Bovary to Hemingway's A Natural History of the Dead and Jack London's Call of the Wild, keeping the focus always on how the information Dr. Page presents can be used to further your writing-- "Your task is to think of what's in your story's unique world that might cause a traumatic amputation… Cut off the body part, not the conflict." Yes, doctor.

Amy Brozio-Andrews is a freelance writer and book reviewer. She's teaches It Pays to Read: Book Reviewing Basics for Absolute Write. The next session starts April 9.