Draft No. 4 – On The Writing Process

Author: John McPhee

I should have done a bit more research before reading this book as my expectations were quite misaligned. I expected it to be more like a book I skimmed through a year ago called “The Anatomy Of Story” by John Truby which was a concise and pointed read where the author gave direct advice for creating a story.

I finished the whole book because it was really short, but ultimately I didn’t find it to be the best use of time.

This book primarily consisted of John McPhee telling stories about his career and tossing in a couple sentences of lessons we should glean from them. So unless I am missing the deep underlying themes embedded in his stories (which is likely), the learning could probably be distilled to a few bullet points such as those below.

• Be considerate about using cultural references like “he looked like Tom Cruise” which can quickly date your writing.
• Spend time building a good structure early on after having an idea, which can help avoid writers block and guide you through your writing. Structure shouldn’t be forced on the reader though, it should feel natural.