Draft No. 4: An Exploration of the Writing Process

thomas k: a great work for the writers and editors among us

Canada on Nov 07, 2023

Daniel Welsch: This book is more about McPhee's life as a writer than it is a book of advice on writing. Not exactly practical, but – like everything McPhee writes – interesting reading.

Spain on Mar 23, 2023

The Purple Durian: John McPhee has arguably questioned my belief in the genre I've chosen, and my work couldn't be better. His "creative nonfiction" tells us that what might be best is not by making something up but by making the most of what we have.

How was I introduced to this?

Required reading for a Stanford's Continuing Studies programme I'm currently taking, called "Writing the Globe: Crafting the Personal Travel Essay", led by the talented Peter Fish. Fish chose Draft No. 4 as the main text for the course, but we are also reading selections from The Best American Travel Writing 2020 and other writers like Rahawa Haile, whose short story "Sidra" can be found in the collection The Good Immigrant: 26 Writers Reflect on America.

Others I bought were:

I purchased The Best American Travel Writing 2020 guest edited by Robert Macfarlane, which reviews weren't as good as other editions, so I picked up the first edition of the Best American Travel Writing series as well, guest edited by Bill Bryson, the man who wrote A Walk in The Woods and then felt like I had enough supplementary text to take this giant leap into nonfiction. I should have bought some work from John McPhee...

United States on Sep 25, 2022

Year.Shi: Sehr gut Einleitung zu schreiben

Germany on Dec 06, 2020

R Khan: It has certainly motivated me to work harder.
Gather a lot more relevant information to do even a small piece of factual writing.
It amazed and inspired me to read how much time and effort great magazines like Time and The New Yorker invest in checking the facts before a piece is allowed to be published.

United Kingdom on Jun 10, 2020

Esther Schindler: Shortly after I started my first editorial job (as opposed to writing only), my boss gave me a copy of Blundell's _The Art and Craft of Feature Writing_. (I'm still grateful, Peter.) Ever since, Blundell's book has been on my short list of most-useful books for writers because of its practicality and encouragement. As Blundell pointed out, a good feature writer can make ANY subject interesting -- even, say, oranges, about which (Blundell pointed out) John McPhee wrote an entire book.

Now, Blundell's #1 spot on my writer's bookshelf has been replaced by McPhee's own book about the writing process. (Though really, get both.)

McPhee is a brilliant writer -- as evidenced by his ability to keep a reader's attention all the way through a 60,000-word New Yorker article, and to make those readers keep turning pages on any number of non-fiction books. He also is a superb instructor. The book covers such topics as structure, progression (in what order you present events), dealing with editors, elicitation (such as how to take notes while the source is staring at you; "display your notebook as if it were a fishing license," he suggests), frames of reference, and fact checking....

United States on Sep 23, 2018

Mr. M. Harris: What to say and what not to say? (That will make more sense if you read this book.) A very readable insight into a lifetime of writing.

United Kingdom on Jun 21, 2018