Draft No. 4: On the Writing Process
by John McPhee · Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The standard practitioner text on structuring long nonfiction and on the fact-checking and editorial process. It is less a beginner manual than a master's account. Eight essays by John McPhee, adapted from The New Yorker, on structure, sequence, access to sources, frame of reference, editors and fact-checkers, omission, and revision. Uses his own long-form pieces and their diagrammed structures as worked examples.
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More resources on Narrative Non-Fiction
creativenonfiction.org
creativenonfiction.org is the official hub for the craft of Creative Nonfiction, featuring craft essays, author interviews, and guidance for writers. The site also provides submission guidelines, contests, and publishing opportunities in CNF.
The Open Notebook
Nonprofit site for science journalists publishing interviews, story annotations and craft guides on reporting and structuring long-form narrative pieces. Readers learn how working writers find stories, organize research, and build scenes and structure in published narrative nonfiction.
Nieman Storyboard
Nieman Foundation at Harvard's publication on narrative journalism, featuring annotated stories, writer interviews and craft essays. Readers learn how reporters structure scenes, handle chronology, build characters from reporting, and turn factual material into compelling long-form nonfiction.
The Longform Podcast (archive)
A free, primary-source record of how working narrative writers report and build stories, which the books can't provide. Archive of about 585 interviews (2012-2024) with nonfiction writers and editors, among them John Jeremiah Sullivan, about how specific long-form stories were reported, structured, and edited. Free to stream. The show ended in June 2024 and the archive remains online.
Storycraft: The Complete Guide to Writing Narrative Nonfiction (2nd Edition)
The most complete, systematic craft textbook for the field. It covers the whole pipeline from reporting to arc to ethics, which is what makes it the single spine resource for a learner. Jack Hart's manual on narrative nonfiction craft: story theory, structure and narrative arc, point of view, scene, character, dialogue, reporting for story, explanatory and other narrative forms, and ethics. The 2021 edition adds podcasting and research on storytelling.
Creative Nonfiction Writing
Four-module introduction to writing true stories with literary technique: choosing a subject, reporting and organising notes, turning research into narrative, then editing and sustaining a writing practice. Includes graded assignments.