Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process

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3 Sentence Summary

John McPhee is a giant in the literary world, known for his tight prose and concern for structure. This book is as close as a layman writers (like me) will ever get to learning the craft of nonfiction writing from a master. Readers of this collection of essays will walk away with a taste of the true effort and dedication to the craft required to make sound decisions regarding arrangement, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces.

5 Key Takeaways

1. Start by writing a great lead.
2. A thousand details add up to one impression.
3. Great writing is done four times over.
4. Writing is selection. Only keep the most interesting parts.
5. Never market research your writing. Write about what interests you.

Draft No. 4 Summary

Structure

• We wrote three pieces of writing each week. And each composition had to be accompanied by a structural outline. The outline was to be done first. It could be anything from Roman numerals to a looping doodle with guiding arrows and stick figures. The idea was to build some form of blueprint before working it out in sentences and paragraphs.
• I settle on an ending before going back to the beginning.
• Sometimes it makes sense to start in the middle of the action. Go to the end and then loop back to where you started.
• Readers are not supposed to notice the structure. It is meant to be about as visible as someone’s bones. And I hope this structure illustrates what I take to be a basic criterion for all structures: they should not be imposed upon the material. they should arise from within it.
• Eliminate distractions. Focus on one element of the story at a time.
• Writing a successful lead can illuminate the structure problem for you and cause you to see the piece whole – to see it conceptually, in various parts, to which you then assign your materials. You find your lead, you build your structure, you are now free to write.
• Always write your lead (redoing it and polishing it until you are satisfied that it will serve) before you go at the big pile of raw material and sort it into a structure.
• Blind leads – wherein you withhold the name of the person you are writing about and reveal it after a paragraph or two – range from slightly cheap to very cheap.
• All leads should be sound. They should never promise what does not follow.
• Another way to prime the pump is to write by hand.
• “A Thousand Details Add Up to One Impression.” Few (if any) details are individually essential, while the details collectively are absolutely essential.
• If you come to your planned ending and it doesn’t seem to be working, run your eye up the page and page before that. You may see that your best ending is somewhere in there, that you were finished before you thought you were.

Editor & Publisher

• The name of the subject shall not be in the title
• In discussing a long fact piece, Mr. Shawn would often say, “How do you know?” and “How would you know?” and “How can you possibly know that?” He was saying clearly enough that any nonfiction writer ought always to hold those questions in the forefront of the mind. 
• No one will ever write in just the way that you do, or in just the way that anyone else does. Because of this fact, there is no real competition between writers. 
• Writing is a matter strictly of developing oneself.

Elicitation

• Use a voice recorder
• Don’t rely on memory
• From the start, make clear what you are doing and who will publish what you write. Display your notebook as if it were a fishing license. 
• I have no technique for asking questions. I just stay there and fade away as I watch people do what they do.
• In complex situations, quotations, fairly handled, can help keep judgement in the eye of the beholder.

Checkpoints

• Guess at names and figures early on. You can come back and revise them later.

Draft No. 4

• When you have writer’s block…You write, ‘Dear Mother.’ And then you tell your mother about the block, the frustration, the ineptitude, the despair.
• The way to do a piece of writing is three or four times over, never once. For me, the hardest part comes first, getting something – anything – out in front of me. 
• You finish that first flirting blurting, and then you put the thing aside. You get in your car and drive home. On the way, your mind is still knitting at the words. You think of a better way to say something, a good phrase to connect a certain problem. Without the drafted version – if it did not exist – you obviously would not be thinking of things that would improve it
• You draw a box not only around any word that does not seem quite right but also around words that fulfilled their assignment but seem to present an opportunity.

Omission

• Writing is selection
• You select what goes in and you decide what stays out. At base you only have one criterion: If something interests you, it goes in – if not, it stays out. 
• Forget market research. Never market research your writing. Write on subjects in which you have enough interest on your own to see you through all the stops, starts, hesitations, and other impediments along the way.

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