Draft No. 4

John McPhee was born in Princeton, New Jersey, and attended Princeton and Cambridge Universities. His writing career began at Time magazine and continued with The New Yorker, where he has been a staff writer since 1965. McPhee received the Academy of Arts and Letters' Award in Literature in 1977. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Annals of the Former World in 1999.

Draft No. 4 is a master class in writing technique. John McPhee shares insights gathered over his career and refined while teaching at Princeton University, where he has nurtured some of the most esteemed writers of recent decades, in a series of playful, expertly crafted essays. McPhee provides definitive guidance in the decisions about arrangement, diction, and tone that shape nonfiction pieces, as well as excerpts from his work that are subjected to wry scrutiny. In one essay, he considers the delicate art of persuading sources to reveal information that they would not otherwise reveal. In another, he discusses how to use flashback to insert a bear encounter into a travel narrative, noting that "readers are not supposed to notice the structure." It's supposed to be as visible as someone's bones." As a result, the writing process is vividly depicted, from reporting to drafting to revising and revising and revising.

Draft No. 4 includes numerous diagrams as well as personal anecdotes and charming reflections on the life of a writer. McPhee discusses his long-standing relationships with The New Yorker and Farrar, Straus and Giroux, as well as his time at Time magazine. Draft No. 4 is infused with his keen sense of writing as a way of being in the world throughout. The book is considered one of the best books on filmmaking.

Author: John McPhee

Link to buy: https://www.amazon.com/Draft-No-4-Writing-Process/dp/0374537976/

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