kundan's review against another edition
4.0
McPhee has composed this book with sprezzatura. Part memoir and part manual, the book encompasses points on writing narrative nonfiction. I liked the chapter on structure where the author has said that theme precedes chronology in deciding the flow of narration. The prose is interspersed with humor. I found the story of The New Yorker editor's experiment on taking a call on whether to include expletives in the magazine really funny. The penultimate chapter is titled Draft No. 4 where root causing the scope of improvement through repeated revision is stressed upon. All in all, I plan to read some of McPhee's other works as well.
timhoiland's review against another edition
4.0
“You are writing, say, about a grizzly bear. No words are forthcoming. For six, seven, ten hours no words have been forthcoming. You are blocked, frustrated, in despair. You are nowhere, and that’s where you’ve been getting. What do you do? You write, ‘Dear Mother.’ And then you tell your mother about the block, the frustration, the ineptitude, the despair. You insist that you are not cut out to do this kind of work. You whine. You whimper. You outline your problem, and you mention that the bear has a fifty-five-inch waist and a neck more than thirty inches around but could run nose-to-nose with Secretariat. You say the bear prefers to lie down and rest. The bear rests fourteen hours a day. And you go on like that as long as you can. And then you go back and delete the ‘Dear Mother’ and all the whimpering and whining, and just keep the bear.”
kjboldon's review against another edition
5.0
Like listening to a cool grandfather telling good stories, with writing advice and a beautiful dry humor to boot. Lovely and useful.
genrichards's review against another edition
5.0
Part memoir of his prolific writing career and part craft book, John McPhee’s new book, Draft No. 4, relays his wealth of knowledge about the writing process and speaks to writers in every stage of their career. McPhee echoes other nonfiction writers, such as Mary Karr, when he discusses the importance of telling the truth in creative nonfiction, that it “is not making something up but making the most of what you have.”
McPhee begins his discussion of the writing process with a chapter titled, “Progression,” which outlines how ideas are found and how they lead to other ideas and, eventually, compelling narratives. Progression, he seems to say, is the genesis of good writing. His advice to the reader: “new pieces can shoot up from other pieces, pursuing connections that run through the ground like rhizomes. Set one of these progressions in motion, and it will skein out in surprising ways, finally ending in some unexpected place.” If progression is the genesis of good writing, then McPhee suggests that structure and revision are at the heart of it.
His second chapter, “Structure,” McPhee not only outlines a few complex structures of some of his previously published essays, but explains how the structure of an essay is integral to its success as a creative work. He is careful to remind the reader that structure “…should not be imposed upon the material. [It] should arise from within it.” He also reminds the reader that they must start with a good lead, which is, perhaps, the most difficult thing to write in a story, because it is hard to frame a structure until the writer has a good idea of where the writing is going.
In his next few chapters, McPhee details the importance of editors and publishers, as well as fact checkers and writing truthful interviews, giving the reader insight into his experience as a longtime writer for The New Yorker. Fact checkers are integral to the integrity of a piece of creative nonfiction, as are detailed notes and verbatim quotes when eliciting interviews. McPhee encourages “creative bumbling,” or appearing like you, the writer, are dumb so that the interviewee will explain the whole of what they mean, hopefully with some level of clarity. McPhee writes, “Whatever you do, don’t rely on memory. Don’t even imagine that you will be able to remember verbatim in the evening what people said during the day.”
Editors can act sort of like counselors, McPhee says, and their job is to help give “insight, encouragement, and reassurance to a current project” and, of course, to the writer behind it, helping her to “make the most of the patterns that are unique about [her].” However, McPhee cautions the writer that they should “Never stop battling for the survival of [their] own unique stamp…the piece is [theirs] – and ought to be [theirs] – if it is under [their] name.”
In his last two chapters, perhaps the most essential chapters of the book, McPhee articulates his writing process, that he must write something three or four times, and often his first draft, or “a sort of nucleus,” takes longer than the rest of the drafts put together. His ideas about the fourth draft and the value of omission, which are necessary steps in the writing process that make writing well-written, can be summed up with this quote: “Writing is selection. From the first word of the first sentence in an actual composition, the writer is choosing, selecting, and deciding (most importantly) what to leave out.” McPhee encourages writers to make the most of what they have, to tell the truth and to craft it well.
McPhee begins his discussion of the writing process with a chapter titled, “Progression,” which outlines how ideas are found and how they lead to other ideas and, eventually, compelling narratives. Progression, he seems to say, is the genesis of good writing. His advice to the reader: “new pieces can shoot up from other pieces, pursuing connections that run through the ground like rhizomes. Set one of these progressions in motion, and it will skein out in surprising ways, finally ending in some unexpected place.” If progression is the genesis of good writing, then McPhee suggests that structure and revision are at the heart of it.
His second chapter, “Structure,” McPhee not only outlines a few complex structures of some of his previously published essays, but explains how the structure of an essay is integral to its success as a creative work. He is careful to remind the reader that structure “…should not be imposed upon the material. [It] should arise from within it.” He also reminds the reader that they must start with a good lead, which is, perhaps, the most difficult thing to write in a story, because it is hard to frame a structure until the writer has a good idea of where the writing is going.
In his next few chapters, McPhee details the importance of editors and publishers, as well as fact checkers and writing truthful interviews, giving the reader insight into his experience as a longtime writer for The New Yorker. Fact checkers are integral to the integrity of a piece of creative nonfiction, as are detailed notes and verbatim quotes when eliciting interviews. McPhee encourages “creative bumbling,” or appearing like you, the writer, are dumb so that the interviewee will explain the whole of what they mean, hopefully with some level of clarity. McPhee writes, “Whatever you do, don’t rely on memory. Don’t even imagine that you will be able to remember verbatim in the evening what people said during the day.”
Editors can act sort of like counselors, McPhee says, and their job is to help give “insight, encouragement, and reassurance to a current project” and, of course, to the writer behind it, helping her to “make the most of the patterns that are unique about [her].” However, McPhee cautions the writer that they should “Never stop battling for the survival of [their] own unique stamp…the piece is [theirs] – and ought to be [theirs] – if it is under [their] name.”
In his last two chapters, perhaps the most essential chapters of the book, McPhee articulates his writing process, that he must write something three or four times, and often his first draft, or “a sort of nucleus,” takes longer than the rest of the drafts put together. His ideas about the fourth draft and the value of omission, which are necessary steps in the writing process that make writing well-written, can be summed up with this quote: “Writing is selection. From the first word of the first sentence in an actual composition, the writer is choosing, selecting, and deciding (most importantly) what to leave out.” McPhee encourages writers to make the most of what they have, to tell the truth and to craft it well.
quietdomino's review against another edition
3.0
deep dive into the structural integrity of the nonfiction essay/book + stories of wallace-shawn-era new yorker offices = yes yes yes
liv_davis's review
4.0
Interesting read! While he could be blunt, McPhee provided some good advice for writers in this one!