Handwriting Versus Typing
I was listening to a podcast a few years ago that addressed the benefits of handwriting versus typing. The interviewee (I don’t remember her name) was a graduate student who had forgotten to take her laptop to a class one day and had to resort to taking notes by hand. To her surprise, she discovered she had retained more of the lecture information than she normally did. This led to a research project to compare the benefits of the two methods of taking notes.
The memory of that podcast recently prompted a question in my mind: outside of taking notes in class, does anyone write in long hand anymore? If so, what kind of writing lends itself to longhand vs. typing. I found some interesting information online.
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In a 2021 article on whenyouwrite.com, Jessica Majewski summarized several benefits which I’ve paraphrased here:
Writing by hand is more focused. There are fewer distractions than using a laptop where there are constant temptations to check email or read the latest news story. Also, there are no word processing limitations when writing by hand. The author can draw a mind map, jot side notes, or doodle images without having to open another app.
But typing has its advantages, too. Doing research is a breeze if you’re on your laptop. Just hop over to another app to search out the information you need. Copy and paste articles into your research folder and keep going. But the primary advantage to typing is speed. And sooner or later everything you write is going to have to be typed into a word processor, so unless you’re fortunate enough to have a secretary to do the transition, you’ll have to do the additional work yourself.
But how do the different methods affect creativity? Majewski makes the following case in her article:
“When you are writing by hand, your cognitive processes are more involved than when you type and this can lead to some random springs of ideas. And at the pace of handwriting, you’re not worried about your hands outpacing your brain.”
In a 2017 article on qz.com, Ephrat Livni makes the following statement:
“Brain scans during the two activities also show that forming words by hand as opposed to on a keyboard leads to increased brain activity. Scientific studies of children and adults show that wielding a pen when taking notes, rather than typing, is associated with improved long-term information retention, better thought organization, and increased ability to generate ideas.”
That all sounds good, but does anybody actually write the first draft of a novel by hand? Well, yes. Here are a few authors you may have heard of who have written one or more novels by hand:
- Joyce Carol Oates
- Stephen King
- J. K. Rowling
- Quentin Tarantino
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As an experiment, I wrote this blog post in long hand. My thoughts flowed as I was writing, and there was a sense of freedom in the process that was different from typing. Fortunately, I was able to read my own handwriting when I finished, and I transferred it to a Word doc.
Well, I’m almost out of paper, so I’ll stop now. We haven’t touched on another creative method: Speech to Text. Maybe we can cover that in a later post.
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So TKZers – Do you ever write in long hand? What advantages or disadvantages have you noticed using handwriting vs. typing? Has this article convinced you to give handwriting another go?
I write in longhand in my journal. And when I’m stuck on a plot point or when a character just isn’t working, I write out my ideas longhand.
I write my notes–plot points, things to follow up with, add, things to remember in longhand, but any more than that and I can’t read it. Used to have excellent penmanship, but no more.
I write in longhand when I’m stuck. I’ll free write on an artist sketch pad because there are no lines to box me in.
Arthritis makes my penmanship so bad often I can’t read it. For a recent zoom class, I took notes by hand for the first time in a long time. Surprisingly they’re legible enough for me to read (but probably no one else could). And it did retain the info much better.
But to-do and grocery lists??? Could someone please translate “proyocols” and “dys”?
I wrote my first novel by hand. Drafts for betas were typed up on an electric tyoewriter. It was what I cut my Microsoft Word teeth on as I learned word-processing on a computer.
I still jot notes and quick thoughts on paper (because don’t the really good ideas always come at ridiculous moments: showering, cooking, driving, falling asleep?)
I also still hand write letters to certain correspondents. But they’re rare.
The callus I formed on my middle finger from those days of constant handwriting is nearly gone now.
I still enjoy handwriting, but my penmanship frustrates me and I find myself automatically reaching for the thesaurus hot keys. (In the days of that first novel, a paperback Thesaurus sat beside me at all times. It needs a rubberband to keep itself together now, but I still have it.)
I feel that my thoughts flow smoothly when composing by hand, but there will still be many drafts before I’m satisfied.
Cyn, you’ve thrown down a gauntlet to me. LOL!
I’d love to challenge myself to write an entire manuscript first draft long-hand, just to see how the process works for me as opposed to pecking at the keyboard off and on. And you can almost always have a pen & notebook with you, whereas dragging around a computer isn’t so easy, especially in a warm state like Arizona. I’m finishing up first drafting a collaborative project right now but maybe I can set myself a goal of tackling this near the end of the year. Hmm….
As others have stated, my penmanship leaves a lot to be desired but I can at least read it well enough to transcribe it to the computer.
Like others, I also wrote my first novel in longhand. But my husband believed in me (or thought if I wrote a best-seller he could retire) and bought me a computer. I transferred my book to the DOS program, and it ended up getting published. That first book was originally written in several spiral notebooks, and that’s what I still use for each book idea. The style sheet, names, relationships, and scenes that come to me are written in the appropriate notebook. I find that the more I write by hand, the better my handwriting becomes. Not sure if I could, or would, write another whole book by hand, because it’s so much easier to revise on a computer. I have found that I need to compose on my computer for the story to flow.
James Michener cut his handwritten pages up and taped them together to revise. His secretary typed them from those pages. I hope the secretary was well paid.
If memory serves, Zane Grey wrote all his books longhand and his wife typed them up. I assume back in his era they had better penmanship since they weren’t spoiled by computers as all of us are.
A. Dumas wrote standing up and bragged on his output. Let an audience of admiring groupies watch him as he did it.
My motor neuron disease makes my handwriting illegible. But I dislike writing by hand anyway. I’m old enough to remember writing essays and compositions by hand and then on manual typewriters. When I wanted to move paragraphs around I’d cut up the pages and tape them together and then redo them. I love the ease of editing so much on a computer. Plus I worked as a newspaper reporter for 10 years so it feels as if the words flow from my brain to my fingers so much easier (and I typed 95 words a minute on an electric typewriter so I figure my speed on a computer keyboard is even faster. Writing by hand doesn’t keep up with my brain!)
I like to do mind maps to make character and plot connections. I esp. like them for my Substack subjects, as explained in Writing the Natural Way by Gabriele Rico.
1st draft always by hand. Love those sloppy notes and ideas scribbled around the edges. 2nd draft and onward typed out. Love that backspace button. Work in a text-to-speech to catch arkwardness & typos. Get some guidance with ProWritingAid then it’s off to betas & ARCs.
I write my notes by hand in the many notebooks I’ve bought for various classes. It does help to focus on the information faster now that I’m going back and rewriting notes so I can read them better, lol. My arthritis and tendonitis rule my hands a lot of time so I’m teaching myself voice to text which is a godsend. I grew up with writing reports in school and then having to typewrite my papers on a hand-me-down typewriter from my great-aunt. That typewriter mean a lot to me, broken keys and all. Later, I switched it out for a word processer and then a pc.
My book on memory touches on the idea that retention improves when there are more “links” to a subject. Handwriting engages more muscle memory and sensory pathways, so it naturally creates more of those links. I go into this more deeply in the upcoming second edition.
The connection between memory and creativity isn’t always direct, but the number of links we form does increase the number of possible “what ifs.” Creativity is really just the mental rearrangement of what we already know into new patterns, and handwriting gives the brain more raw material to work with.
I write longhand. I finished two nanowrimos with 50K + drafts in a paperblanks ultra journal. I had the journal for te draft, and a second exercise book for notes and non-linear writing that could be added later.
The advantage of paper is that it is three dimensional – you have layers. The plan and the notes and the ther stuff can sit in front of you. Digital files across different devices are difficult to manage – and a paper version acts as a back-up against digitial mishaps.
Editing is difficult which is fine for a first draft as it preserves a forward motion – a typewriter does the same thing. You are less likely to edit and re-edit the same first paragraph when starting by hand. You have to make choices to move foward – but can revisit them later – not similtaneosly.
The stuff will eventually be typed. It’s not much different from what Hemingway said. He started by hand, then moved to type and then had the proofs – so you got three strikes to get the book right