Screen vs paper: does it matter how you write?

Plus, the In Writing Creative Hour is BACK ON – this Sunday.

Photo by Kenny Eliason on Unsplash

Thanks for being understanding and kind at the weekend when I had to postpone the In Writing Creative Hour. My laptop keyboard stopped working, which was briefly horrifying – but it’s recovered now, so let’s reschedule.

Be there or be square: 10am BST Sunday 14 August

I’ll send out a Google Meet link to paid subscribers early on Sunday, and I’ll meet you online at 10am, when we’ll chat a bit and then spend 50 minutes writing silently together. (For a bit more detail about what’s involved, you can read the newsletter I wrote about it last time – here.)

Become a paid subscriber for £4 a month or £40 a year. That will allow you to join in with nice community stuff like this; access audio versions of the newsletter (here’s this week’s) and other occasional audio content; and support In Writing to keep existing in its various forms. Thank you.

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It was Lucien at the Apple store on the Champs Elysées who saved my life on Sunday, which is what I told him (he looked nonplussed, but I imagine they hear it a lot). He’d really ramped up the suspense and excitement beforehand, by warning me several times that it might take seven to nine days to fix my laptop.

I know everyone relies on their computer, but at the moment I am particularly dependent on mine, to a) do my job as a journalist; b) produce these newsletters, and c) write the creative work that I’m supposed to be handing in next month for my MA. The thought of seven to nine days laptop-less made me break out in a cold sweat (and I was already deep into a hot sweat, because it’s August and as usual, I was running late).

Anyway, maybe he saw the fear in my eyes. He fixed my keyboard on the spot, and here we are. That brush with laptop death, however, has made me think about typing versus writing by hand. If I didn’t have a computer, I’m sure I’d still be a writer – I’m just not quite sure how I’d do it.

I know that many writers draft by hand – that, indeed, some of you who read the newsletter do. In response to one of my posts a few weeks back, the author Jion Sheibani commented, ‘I love writing in notebooks so I can see the crossings out/destruction part and it’s not just all about computer word count.’ Jion is also an illustrator, and it sounds as though there’s something in the visual experience of writing by hand – the thought process right there in front of your eyes, not erased forever with a backspace key – that feels more productive and creative to her. Do you feel the same?

For me, paper rarely comes into play (apart from when I’m reading/editing, by the way. That’s a whole different thing, for another newsletter). I need a screen to organise my thoughts, and I’m continually moving things around and tweaking them as I go. Even notes are made on my phone. If I send you a thank-you card, or a handwritten letter after a bereavement, I’ve probably drafted it in an email first, to make sure I get it right.

There are, though, a few scenarios where I get out a pen. I’ve always been an on-off journal-keeper, and sometimes for a few months, in the spirit of Julia Cameron’s morning pages (from the brilliant The Artist’s Way), I get into the habit of writing every day. It’s rambling thought and it doesn’t have to be well-structured, so I don’t need a screen – but I also think a screen would make me too self-conscious. Paper has the informality I need to be comfortable writing the unreadable. (Maybe this is one of the reasons why some people find it helpful to write first drafts of fiction by hand – because it feels less official and so less pressured? I’d love to hear what you think.)

I always write my questions in a notebook if I’m interviewing someone, even though I probably worked them out on a screen first, and then copied them onto paper when I had the order right. If I’m glancing down, I don’t want my interviewee to wonder if I’m checking my email or reading a text, so that’s the reason for that one.

Finally, I turn to paper in desperation when I reach the limits of what I can do on the computer. This one is more about getting stuck and then trying to find a way out of it with pen and paper – I’m scrawling bullet points and drawing arrows. I think it’s about trying to get out of the details and see the big picture, but it’s difficult to articulate why I find this easier to do off-screen.

There's research that suggests that we might be better at learning and forming memories when we make notes by hand instead of typing them – that’s useful to know if you’re in class or interviewing someone, but less important for other forms of writing. A cursory Google suggests that people have strong feelings about pen and paper being superior, but I suspect it’s like any other aspect of creativity: whatever works for you is the correct method.

How would I have got through the next seven to nine days if Lucien had taken my laptop away? I’d like to say I’d have discovered the joys of drafting newspaper articles in my notebook, but if I’m honest – I’d have done it on my phone.

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While we’re at it, let’s talk about notebooks. I love good-looking stationery in theory, but I think when it comes to longhand writing, there is only one kind that is fit for purpose:

I don’t want a beautiful leather-bound book handmade by local artisans, if it’s going to be a hassle to wedge it open while I’m writing in it. I’d rather have a boring, unbeautiful ring-bound one (which you can probably still find somewhere for under £1), with lined pages, which I can rip out without leaving a mess – and I don’t want it any bigger than A5, because it needs to be easy to carry around. Most importantly, it has to be able to sit open, flat, without any effort on my part. Do you agree with me, or am I a stationery killjoy?

To lift the mood I’ll leave you with Meg Mason’s very funny New Yorker piece, Gift Ideas for the Writer in Your Life.

See you on Sunday I hope – until then, good luck with your writing.