This was going to be the book that I reviewed for March. But then some past events came to light.
So, I went to the next in line book, Draft # 4 by John McPhee.
This book is basically a writing class from an actual professor and actual working writer who published in The New Yorker amongst other gigs.
You get some behind the typewriter scenes about gathering material and how to structure a story but even more fascinating to me were the anecdotes about the fact checkers and the need to have writers green 1 a story, by which McPhee explains, is reducing the story by one line. And you can’t do that by just removing the last sentence.
The section on how he refused to use a regular “Word” program and instead kept a dying specific to just him software program afloat came across as a bit pompous especially when it is of little use to pretty much any aspiring writer.
That being said, it is always interesting to see how a writer builds a story and the pluck and luck needed.
To drink, I would start with a can from Evil Twin, I Plan On Writing An Epic Poem About This Gorgeous IPA. I know that McPhee is primarily non-fiction but that Name would make a writer smile and there are no hop puns.
If you are in Denver, you could just hit up Fiction Brewing and read the book there. Or for us Angeleno’s you could look for Stronger than Fiction from Bottle Logic in Orange County.
