The idea that writers’ words are framed by whatever they are writing on – typewriter, screen, paper – is so well known it barely needs repeating. But I will – there is always something new to say about it.
Changing that frame was why Jack Kerouac pasted paper together, end-to-end, in a scroll, when he came to write On The Road. He didn’t want paper-changing to interrupt his flow – and deliberately.
Or take Lord Dunsany’s books. Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, had a wonderfully lyrical style. You can imagine Christopher Lee reading his books aloud. (Actually, you don’t have to imagine it – Lee played the King of Elfland on the 1977 King of Elfland’s Daughter concept album.)
There is a reason for the sonority. Dunsany eschewed typewriters. He wrote with a quill pen.
Framing counts for much. The question for writers is how to control it – and how to take advantage of it.
Books written on screen will always, I think, be framed by that screen. By the screen size. Certainly by the software. I sometimes see authors espousing Scrivener’s full-screen options, for instance; or the way it allows writers to run virtual file cards. What’s framing writing here is subtle but present – it’s the concept of the software developers, wrapped around the wider concept of the operating system maker, and then of the hardware manufacturers. It’s subtle, it’s almost invisible – but it’s there. Not a bad thing. We couldn’t write without our favourite software. But it’s handy to be aware of the framework. Then we can transcend it.
Will changing the frame give us different ideas? Absolutely! I think even changing aspects of the way it’s presented on screen will do it. How many of you have bought a new computer – and suddenly got inspired to write something?
We can’t go out and buy a new computer every week. But I’ve got some frame-changing tricks I’d like to share:
1. Use paper and pencil. Perhaps to plan your novel or scenes, or to scribble down some ideas and dialogue. It’s easy to throw words into a keyboard. Harder to write them, letter by letter. Does it force you to think differently?
2. Try changing your default font and margins on your software. Different look – different feel.
3. Print out what you’re written and go through that with pen and ink. You’ll see stuff you’ve not seen before. This is a good technique for final revisions before finishing – even if what you’re writing will be presented on screen.
4. Also change the environment you write in. Go out with a laptop (or pen and paper). Take a walk. Find a beach and sit on the shingle watching the waves come in, or a forest and sit under a tree.
5. Do you have an old typewriter? Drag it out. If it doesn’t work, not problem – sit and imagine how things might be to write on it. Put your hands on the keyboard. Think about composing your story on it. Then go write something on the computer. Conceptualisation can be as powerful a frame-changing tool as actually doing it.
Do these work for you? Have you got your own ways of changing writing frame? What are your thoughts on this whole idea? I’d love to hear from you.
Copyright © Matthew Wright 2012
I think I’ve tried all those ideas or some variation thereof. For example, at least twice during the course of November, I find it’s fun to go down to the local B&N, get a cup of coffee, and spend the morning writing there. Even if I get up and walk around and look at books and magazines (even read bits here and there)(or pile up a stack of books I might buy) I seem to get just as much written, sometimes more. Besides, seeing all those other authors up on the shelves (but not ME!) gives me a certain restless incentive to keep writing!
I actually have an old Olympus portable that still works. I keep it around for just in case. Had one like it in college that served me for fifteen years before giving up the ghost.
Maybe it’s force of habit, but all my typewriters growing up had a Times New Roman font. It just doesn’t LOOK right with any other font. I’ve flirted with Courier and Arial — will use other fonts for special effects — but for day-to-day use I’m a TNR man.
Sometimes for planning handwritten notes work pretty well but so does a digital voice recorder. The interesting thing about a DVR is that when you listen to your own voice it sometimes brings back memories of the other things that were going on in your mind while you were talking, which in turn kicks off alternative ideas. Those may or may not be helpful or relevant, but sometimes it’s just the idea you need.
Sometimes I also like to write notes using a calligraphy pen. Haven’t done it in a while — they tend to be messy and are starting to get expensive. But I liked the way the letters looked and I can see Lord Dunsany’s point about the quill pen. How many writers crouched over a MS. dreading that accident that overturns the inkpot and ruins who knows how many pages of what was in those days the SOLE copy of your work? Or even if you were smart and kept a page on your desk/table at a time, there you were at night by the light of a candle or two, and if you want a thrill, try writing by candle-light and nothing else! Draw the curtains so the illumination of the streetlights doesn’t help, otherwise it’s cheating.
BTW, Matthew, I very much liked your comment to my comment on your last post…drawn from Space Cadet, no less! I’d forgotten that scene where the cadets are being introduced to a zero-g environment and you were absolutely right about Heinlein getting the physics correct. That might actually have been a more pertinent scene than the one I chose, but I was always more into ballistics and the mathematics side of things, and, uh, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!
16 days!
Thank you! Funnily enough, I use Times New Roman myself – prefer it to the new Word defaults. My mechanical typewriter used Courier, but I had Prestige Elite on my IBM Selectric II. Neither machine is operative now…
When I look back at Heinlein – in particular – I am always astonished at just how right he got things, both in terms of the science and of the way people behave. I put him up with Hemingway when it comes to ‘real’ in the human character sense. But he also had an unerring ability to figure out where technology might go. I’m not just thinking of waterbeds, which he described so accurately he was awarded the patent for them, when they were eventually invented.
There’s that scene – again – in ‘Space Cadet’, where Matt uses his personal, portable, wireless phone in the opening scene. This written in 1947! Or the ‘medical bed’ in ‘Have Spacesuit Will Travel’, anticipating Star Trek by a decade. Or the use of a star-drive as a weapon – often attributed to Niven in the 1960s-70s, but actually introduced by Heinlein two decades earlier as a throw-away line in ‘Time for The Stars’. Awesome insight. For me the more crucial part of that book, though, was the way he pivoted the whole story around sibling rivalries. An awesome, awesome writer.
I always return to pen and paper when I am stumped. As you say, it reframes my thinking. Because I cannot hand write as fast as I talk/type onto a screen–I use voice recognition software almost exclusively now–I jot down phrases/keywords. Rather quickly, I find myself at the screen.
Some 20 years ago, I baked bread (with note cards and pen in close proximity); in particular, the kneading would get me through a scene or a trouble spot in an essay. This is where I developed many phrases/keywords that I still use.
As always, a thoughtful post, Matthew.
Karen
Hmmm, they say we are more creative when we use a pen and paper – vs typing on a keyboard. I find it helps to doodle as well, and when things are really going slowly, I start mind-mapping my way through the mess.
For me the act of switching from one to the other, itself, often provokes creativity. It’s a personal thing & what counts is what works. It’s all good.
Reblogged this on Naimeless and commented:
Time now for another series of reblogs about NaNoWriMo. from a fabulous author and scholar I’ve really come to enjoy reading. NaNoWriMo starts November 1st in the US.