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Hello all!

This week’s (or more, last week’s) lesson is from Martin, and is looking at the pros and cons of typing, and writing by hand. 

So, without any further rambling from Jess, let’s see what Martin has to say about notebooks and keyboards!

 

Things I’ve learned from my own experience with both mediums:

 

Typing:

Pros:

Typing is faster.

Typing is much easier to edit and clean your prose as you go along.

 

Cons:

I find myself easily slipping into editor mindset, and making new content at all. This is a recipe for writer’s block for me.

 

Writing by hand:

Pros:

If you are going to make progress, you have to actually write. None of this, “Let me edit the last paragraph real quick to get in the mood and oh look the beginning is completely different now.”

If you write by hand, you must fill blank pages with new content.

I find it easier to be concise when I am writing by hand. For some reason, it feels like I’ve done more than I have, and because I avoid chunky, overbearing prose above all, I keep moving forward. This makes for a much leaner, tight first draft.

When transcribing from paper to digital, I am able to do a good deal of basic line editing that will clean up the first draft dramatically.

 

Cons:

I find writing by hand rather slow. I’m a slow writer regardless, so it only exacerbates that issue.

Although writing by hand makes concision easy, there’s such a thing as too sparse. I often have to beef up my prose when it makes it onto the laptop so as to avoid confusing and choppy scenes.

 

Application

The title says “vs.” as if I’m making a direct comparison of the two. That’s a bit misleading. I just wanted to lay out the advantages and disadvantages of both methods side by side.

Here are a few application pointers:

If you are up against writer’s block, try switching mediums temporarily. This may help you approach the situation differently.

If you consistently have trouble writing a certain kind of scene, try switching writing mediums for those scenes in particular to see if you have more success. A more tactile approach can trigger or unlock a break through – and vice versa.

 

What about you?

How do you write, by hand or on a computer?

Have you found similar advantages and disadvantages to the ones I have discovered? If not, how is your experience different?

Tips, strategies, insights?
 

Oooooh. This is really interesting! Thanks, Martin!

I often fill notebooks with ideas and scenes due to not always having a laptop on me. (that’s another pro to hand-writing: You can almost always do it.) But I must say, I don’t tend to write substantially by hand when I can help it. But when I do write by hand, generally it involves a lot more stream of consciousness than usual.

The ‘edit as you go’ temptation of typing is very relatable for many, I think. When you can make things just a bit nicer as you go, it’s easy to spend hours fixing every little detail instead of actually getting a draft out. Sometimes it’s good to set time-limits to help with this, or removing the backspace key from your computer if you’re feeling drastic. 

But also, the aesthetic of writing a novel in a series of notebooks! 😍

So, what say you? Any thoughts on typing and writing by hand?

 

 

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