Draft No 4 On The Writing Process First Edition John Mcphee by John Mcphee 9780374537975, 0374537976 instant download after payment.

The long-awaited guide to writing long-form nonfiction by the legendary author and teacher

"Followers of John McPhee, perhaps the most revered nonfiction narrative journalist of our time, will luxuriate in the ship-shape prose of "Draft No. 4"... Interspersed with observations every writer should remember... I savoured every word."  -  Corby Kummer, New York Times Book Review

Draft No. 4 is a master class on the writer’s craft. In a series of playful, expertly wrought essays, John McPhee shares insights he has gathered over his career and has refined while teaching at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed writers of recent decades. 

McPhee offers definitive guidance in the decisions regarding arrangement, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces, and he presents extracts from his work, subjecting them to wry scrutiny. The result is a vivid depiction of the writing process, from reporting to drafting to revising - and revising, and revising.

"McPhee’s sentences are born of patience and attention: he seems to possess a pair of eyes with the swivel, zoom and reach of a peregrine falcon’s, and a pair of ears with the recording ability of a dictaphone. He notices almost everything."   -  Robert Macfarlane, The Guardian

Draft No. 4 is enriched by multiple diagrams and by personal anecdotes and charming reflections on the life of a writer. McPhee describes his enduring relationships with The New Yorker and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, and recalls his early years at Time Magazine. Throughout, Draft No. 4 is enlivened by his keen sense of writing as a way of being in the world.