Comment by rcarr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rcarr | Hacker News Reader

I was toying with buying a typewriter and a scanner and then using said typewriter for all first drafts and scanning them into the computer with OCR software to save time having to type them up. However I ended up discovering that the Apple Pencil and handwriting recognition in Nebo Notes is insanely good so I use that instead. I still might end up trying out the typewriter/scanner method at some point in the future when I start writing more seriously.

People dismiss these things as hipsterism but there is definitely something to be said for using them. There was an interview with Neil Gaiman where he talks about being an editor and noticing that after computers became widespread that the average length of stories being submitted increased dramatically with no increase in quality, or worse, a decrease in quality. He subsequently took personal efforts to avoid falling into the same trap. I believe he now writes all his first drafts using fountain pens and paper. Something about the slower nature of typewriters and handwriting forces you to slow down and think more which I believe is particularly useful when you’re writing fiction.

Tangentially related: a high-regarded literary editor from my country told me that he seems to notice more text-level details when he is reading somebody's draft on an e-reader, as compared to working with a paper printout. I think I have had a similar experience myself.

+1 also on Gaiman's thoughts. I have done a lot of writing (professional level journalism, closet-level fiction). I almost always write a better first draft longhand -- probably because writing by hand is so much slower, you'll end up with a much more concise sentence.

From another perspective, I recently finished "The Kindly Ones" by Jonathan Littell. 900+ pages of Kafka-style wall of text -- but I often just couldn't put the book down. So stream of consciousness still seems to work from a reader's perspective, too; maybe computers do give some "oomph" to a writer who prefers this style, the kind of feverish way of writing. That said, "The Kindly Ones" is definitely a unique, remarkable, even incredible book; part of its power surely lays in the fact that Littell reportedly did some 10 years of research prior to writing it.

There have also been prolific and influential writers in the past who composed their drafts in pen shorthand. Iirc, in Europe, Astrid Lindgren was one (and I believe she was actually trained as a touch typist).

I recommend writing on a typewriter. Only being able to go forward acts as a forcing function for writing. The lack of distraction is also nice. You're not going to randomly find yourself on HN, for instance.

Writing with pen (or pencil) on paper gives you "paged" real-time random access, plus the ability to illustrate at any resolution. The satisfying scratch of the roller ball on the paper tooth is also available in some hardware configurations.

I agree about the typewriter but there's a lot to be said for actual writing too.

The issue I have with pen-and-paper writing is that I don't have the stamina to do it for long. It's quite a work out for your hand.

One thing that helped me with this was getting good quality pencils where I can use a minimal amount of pressure (a non-ballpoint pen also works). I also had to unlearn gripping the pencil hard and tensing my wrist. Good handwriting doesn't require tension: tension can occur because of misplaced effort at trying to write more nicely.

I relearned the motions of how to handwrite using Briem's handwriting repair curriculum: https://sites.google.com/view/briem/free-books/handwriting-r... Now I really enjoy writing by hand. Of course if I'm writing quickly the quality isn't as nice as when I can take more time.

There is a section on the site specifically about hand tension here: https://sites.google.com/view/briem/handwriting/writing-cram...

Good point. I admit that when I’m writing with pen and paper, it’s usually for things where brevity is desirable. More than a couple full pages at a time and it’s less fun.

If you haven't tried a fountain pen, do; they're the most comfortable writing implements I know, precisely because they need the least force to make a line. A good pen needs only the weight of the pen itself; you're not really pushing at all, just steering. That lets most of your hand and wrist muscles stay fairly relaxed, and keeps fatigue to a minimum.

If you do decide to try one, start with an inexpensive steel-nibbed model like a Pilot Metropolitan. Transitioning from pencils and ball pens involves some unlearning, as you adjust your hand posture and develop a feel for how little force is required. It takes a while, and depending on how hard a hand you have to start, a gold nib may not hold up.

We missed a trick when we stopped teaching kids to write with fountain pens, but the lack is easily remedied in later life with a bit of interest and diligence. Fair warning, though: you may find them so comfortable to use for long periods that you develop a writer's bump like mine!

It would be easier probably to build a computer keyboard with no backspace or arrows. Or to just remap those keys to noop. I’m deep in the keyboard hobby, but it’s definitely on my todo list to build a write-only keyboard.

In his interview with Tim Ferris, Neil says that he writes his drafts all the way though before editing in a bound notebook with a fountain pen.

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