This Made Me a Better Writer Almost Instantly
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- čas přidán 13. 05. 2024
- May 14, 2024 - WV 004
I stumbled upon this writing exercise when I was young and it made me a better writer almost instantly. Also, a typewriter from my collection.
Steven Duncan/Writer Type Thing
PO Box 483
Lone Oak, TX 75453
www.writertypething.com
I definitely remember this process from my early days of discovering a love of writing. I was in middle school, and we had to hand copy every draft of everything. Typing would be even swifter, but same concept.
Computers have made me lazy. I can edit and rearranged ad infinitum, vs. having to put much more thought into where I'm going ahead of time. Plus, handwriting forces you to slow waaaay down and be choosier with your words from the very first draft. I find I'm closer to final draft when I start writing by hand. I don’t do it often, but it's the hard facts!
Couldn't agree more.
I used to do something similar when I was younger. I would type it up on the computer, then print it and edit it on paper, then type up the entire thing again, making the changes I added with the pen, and more beyond. It worked well, I might have to try it again.
I like it. Sounds like a nice, streamlined process that hits it from multiple angles.
*3 WEEKS AGO* I bought a typewriter, not for writing, for garment labels. But I had a go on it. I was absolutely astonished how different my brain worked on a typewriter V computer.
Looking at the physiological stress plot on my Garmin fitness watch my phis-stress goes UP when I write on the computer, but significantly DOWN when I write on the typewriter. I don't yet fully understand this and my writing is a completely different style. I would recommend anyone to try writing on a typewriter and then re-typing it into the computer - you might be surprised.
Nice to see I'm not alone.
I think I kinda stumbled into this method myself too -- for anyone not getting it, the main point is to do the bulk of your editing on a hard copy, because the change allows you to catch a lot more mistakes / areas for improvement than youre able to when just staring at the same digital document youve typed your draft into.
I recently got one of those Alphasmart word processors as my own exercise in nostalgia (im a 90s baby so we used these in school in the 00s), and found that having to retype my drafts after editing by hand let me view my work in a new light 🔥
Perhaps this tip is more specific to overwriters. My first draft is spare already and I love to cut.
Agreed. No need to cut if there's nothing that needs cutting.
I have previously heard the writing advice of fully re-writing drafts, but not heard it connected with this very reasonable goal.
I feel like I achieve a similar effect when cutting down for word count goals. I also heard some writers say they put a fixed number on how much they want to cut from their initial draft for similar reasons. Even though I expect a fixed number makes it harder to judge value than the 'effort' cost you describe.
I never had any typwriter experience, but I personally had great success with rewriting when I got stuck somewhere. Deleting the past few paragraphs and rewriting them usually gave an insight I missed and needed for the part I got stuck on.
All great ideas and techniques. Thanks for watching.
Sounds like it helped you. Maybe others would benefit.
...ok??