Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process
✈️ ✈️ ✈️ ✈️ (4 Airplanes)
Why Draft No. 4 should be required reading for any creative fiction writer.
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 himself, but he does a good job providing excepts of it throughout the book; you won't be disappointed.
If I were you and you were hard-picked on buying a John McPhee book, I'd pick Oranges as an additional text to Draft No. 4. He brings it up a lot throughout, and I'd say if you really wanted to dive deep, then this would be just the one to do it with.
I wonder if McPhee has ever tried durian?
Essential information:
Published in 2017, the book is 192 pages long and was written by the American writer John Angus McPhee, considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction. A term I was only recently introduced to, it differs from other nonfiction in that, although also rooted in fact, its prose is meant to entertain. McPhee won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for Annals of the Former World, a book about North America's geological history, which was researched and written over two decades beginning in 1978. If you haven't realised it already, this guy is hardcore.
McPhee is known for having had a long career at The New Yorker, and he tells many interesting stories throughout Draft No. 4 about his tenure there. I liked the story of Eleanor Gould and her "Gould Proof" the most:
What's interesting about that quote is that she was only nine! You must read the book to learn more about her and the "Gould Proof."
McPhee, 91, currently still has a post at The New Yorker, and according to his Wiki profile, since 1974, has been a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University.
What's it about?
Draft No. 4 evolves from different essays on the writing process that have appeared in The New Yorker and are composed here in eight chapters that outline as a whole the process of writing a finished piece for publication.
My favourite quote about structure of his is this:
And that last line sums up what the chapter "Structure" strives for, how to find the format of your story within your data. It's technical and dense, but you will be all the better for reading it.
I like a quote that he takes from English dramatist Ben Jonson:
This a quote I myself should take heed to.
I also liked this one fact I learned about the etymology of the word "posh":
British Raj, 1910s (Source)
Port out starboard home.
Draft No. 4 is filled with tiny facts like this, and although I probably heard this one before in my travels, it was nice to be reminded of it. Although I did google it and its origin can be debated.
McPhee also critiques other writers in this chapter, such as Maureen Dowd and Frank Bruni, the latter talking of our "collective vocabulary." This starts the climax I think of Draft No. 4, and I began not to put it down.
I liked a quote that he attributes to George Plimpton:
A great interview in The Paris Review of his can be found here.
My praise and critique:
McPhee tells us that what might be best is not by making something up but by making the most of what we have, and I've been pondering those words since I read them. Although it took a while to get into and started off with some graphs/diagrams that I was not expecting, I treasured it. And after writing a third of this review, I realise now how valuable the information was. I'm excited to take what I learned and apply it in the course I'm taking. I've been a fiction writer up till now, but that fiction, surprisingly, has all been based on fact. Why have I found the need to add in the superfluous? Is it superfluous, or is it needed, or can I find a balance where my imagination still reigns free? I don't know. But what I do know is that McPhee paints the process of writing a finished piece for publication well, and that's what Draft No. 4 is all about.
My critique would only be on the first few chapters and my not understanding them well enough. THIS COULD BE ENTIRELY ME. But I felt the diagrams in the "Structure" chapter were still confusing, and I felt like a math student trying to understand an equation. I'm terrible at math, but I did understand something, so I'm giving McPhee some credit. Let's just say they take a second reading.
My rating system:
I'm giving it ✈️ ✈️ ✈️ ✈️ (4 airplanes) in that this book had everything I was looking for and then some. I didn't know what to expect, so I was pleasantly surprised. If I compared it to champagne, it isn't Dom, but it's definitely better than Veuve. The writing is superb and has a unique creative style; I would reread it. Like I said, in some sections, you might actually need to reread to get the whole meaning of it, and that's ok.
Would I recommend it?
Buy this and be a better writer for it. It is not something you read once, and it's priceless information for any writer, whether a poet or a creative fiction writer like myself. Put it on your bookshelf or Kindle and refer to it time and again when thinking about structure and, above all, omission.
Who is it for?
If you've stumbled this far into this review, this book is obviously for you. It's easier to say who the book isn't for. It's not for the lazy writer. It is not for someone who doesn't understand that writing is one of the most challenging professions. It's not for someone not willing to do the work, and luckily, in Draft No. 4, John McPhee helps us in more ways than one to make our job as writers a little bit easier. Thank you, Mr McPhee.