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A review by heydebigale
Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process by John McPhee
informative
medium-paced
3.25
think your mileage may vary on this one. I read this book because John McPhee is one of the originators of the creative nonfiction genre… which is the genre I’m trying to write! The beginning of the book talks about how this collection is some of the things that John McPhee teaches to his creative nonfiction class at Princeton.
I found some really good nuggets in this book like “writing is selection”, using to help you understand and select an edit words, the importance of quotations and how quotations can be verbatim, and also still misrepresent the speaker.
But at the same time, you kind of have to wait through some of John McPhee’s anecdote about him, traveling to Florida, and to write about oranges… or the time he talks about editing software that I’ve never heard of that is probably obsolete. these anecdotes are probably be really charming for people who follow his work and know who he is. But, for me, as someone who this author was completely new to me, it was a little bit that I had to wade through.
I found some really good nuggets in this book like “writing is selection”, using to help you understand and select an edit words, the importance of quotations and how quotations can be verbatim, and also still misrepresent the speaker.
But at the same time, you kind of have to wait through some of John McPhee’s anecdote about him, traveling to Florida, and to write about oranges… or the time he talks about editing software that I’ve never heard of that is probably obsolete. these anecdotes are probably be really charming for people who follow his work and know who he is. But, for me, as someone who this author was completely new to me, it was a little bit that I had to wade through.