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A review by jwsg
Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee
4.0
I’ve loved everything I’ve read by John McPhee, which, unfortunately, hasn’t been as much as I’d have liked. So naturally, I devoured Draft No. 4, where McPhee breaks down his writing process and gives the reader a behind the scenes look at how works like Oranges, Encounters with the Archdruid, and Levels of the Game were developed.
In Draft No. 4, McPhee addresses questions like:
- How do you structure a piece of non-fiction? (“You’re a non-fiction writer. You can’t move that bear around like a king’s pawn or a queen’s bishop. But you can, to an important and effective extent, arrange a structure that is completely faithful to fact”)
- How do editors and publishers shape a piece of work?
- How do you engage an individual and find the right quotes, the right anecdotes that capture the essence of that person and convey it to the reader?
- What frames of reference do you use to add texture and vividness to your descriptions? How much currency and longevity do these references possess?
He offers words of advice like:
“All leads – of every variety – should be sound. They should never promise what does not follow. You read an exciting action lead about a car chase up a narrow street. Then the article turns out to be a financial analysis of debt structures in private universities. You’ve been had. The lead – like the title – should be a flashlight that shines down into the story. A lead is a promise. It promises that the piece writing is going to be like this. If it is not going to be so, don’t use the lead.”
“Writing is selection. From the first word of the sentence in an actual composition, the writer is chosing, selecting and deciding (most importantly) what to leave out”… “The creative writer leaves white space between chapters or segments of chapters. The creative reader silently articulates the unwritten thought that is present in the white space. Let the reader have the experience. Leave judgment in the eye of the beholder… Creative non-fiction is not making something up but making the most of what you have.”
But Draft No. 4 is more than just a guide to writing non-fiction. A guide, no matter how well-written, is unlikely to be entertaining or fascinating (sorry Strunk and White). McPhee not only discusses his personal writing process (like his system of typing up all his notes, photocopying them, then cutting them up into slivers which he would then organise into themed folders, which the programme Kedit subsequently helped automate), he also discusses The Writing Process involving a whole cast of characters such as Editors, Publishers and Fact Checkers. He describes the colourful characters he encounters – fellow writers like Calvin Trillin, former New Yorker editor William Shawn, and the people he’s written about (there’s a particularly brilliant anecdote with actor Richard Burton).
What struck me most, perhaps, reading Draft No. 4, was McPhee’s statement that he had “once made a list of all the pieces [he] had written in maybe twenty or thirty years, and then put a check mark beside each one whose subject related to things [he] had been interested in before [he] went to college. [He] checked off more than ninety per cent.” Sounds like a career well spent.
In Draft No. 4, McPhee addresses questions like:
- How do you structure a piece of non-fiction? (“You’re a non-fiction writer. You can’t move that bear around like a king’s pawn or a queen’s bishop. But you can, to an important and effective extent, arrange a structure that is completely faithful to fact”)
- How do editors and publishers shape a piece of work?
- How do you engage an individual and find the right quotes, the right anecdotes that capture the essence of that person and convey it to the reader?
- What frames of reference do you use to add texture and vividness to your descriptions? How much currency and longevity do these references possess?
He offers words of advice like:
“All leads – of every variety – should be sound. They should never promise what does not follow. You read an exciting action lead about a car chase up a narrow street. Then the article turns out to be a financial analysis of debt structures in private universities. You’ve been had. The lead – like the title – should be a flashlight that shines down into the story. A lead is a promise. It promises that the piece writing is going to be like this. If it is not going to be so, don’t use the lead.”
“Writing is selection. From the first word of the sentence in an actual composition, the writer is chosing, selecting and deciding (most importantly) what to leave out”… “The creative writer leaves white space between chapters or segments of chapters. The creative reader silently articulates the unwritten thought that is present in the white space. Let the reader have the experience. Leave judgment in the eye of the beholder… Creative non-fiction is not making something up but making the most of what you have.”
But Draft No. 4 is more than just a guide to writing non-fiction. A guide, no matter how well-written, is unlikely to be entertaining or fascinating (sorry Strunk and White). McPhee not only discusses his personal writing process (like his system of typing up all his notes, photocopying them, then cutting them up into slivers which he would then organise into themed folders, which the programme Kedit subsequently helped automate), he also discusses The Writing Process involving a whole cast of characters such as Editors, Publishers and Fact Checkers. He describes the colourful characters he encounters – fellow writers like Calvin Trillin, former New Yorker editor William Shawn, and the people he’s written about (there’s a particularly brilliant anecdote with actor Richard Burton).
What struck me most, perhaps, reading Draft No. 4, was McPhee’s statement that he had “once made a list of all the pieces [he] had written in maybe twenty or thirty years, and then put a check mark beside each one whose subject related to things [he] had been interested in before [he] went to college. [He] checked off more than ninety per cent.” Sounds like a career well spent.