The Joys of Writing Longhand
I’ve been writing fiction on word processors for many years now and have often marveled to think that Charles Dickens wrote David Copperfield and Leo Tolstoy wrote War and Peace and George Eliot wrote Middlemarch by hand. How did they do it?
In the past month, while on my computer screen sabbath while trying to figure out the triggers for my vertigo episodes, I’ve been writing the second draft of Hello, Honeymoon by hand, using black pen on blank sheets of white drawing paper. I’m surprised by how much I’ve been enjoying the process and how liberating I’ve found it. Aside from the fact that writing with pen and paper doesn’t give me vertigo, here are three other benefits I’ve appreciated:
Writing longhand frees me from distractions. There’s no Facebook or Instagram. No email to check. No Google to turn to for quick answers to any factual questions that cross my mind while writing. No news story teasers flitting across my screen. Nothing but the story in my head, the pen in my hand, and the blank page.
The physicality of writing slows me down. I can’t easily cut and paste if I realize I want sections in a different order, so I give myself more time to decide the order of events. I pause and think, Do I really want my characters to have this particular conversation? How does it advance the plot? Do I need this backstory here or can I stay with what’s happening in the current scene? I hope that when I finish this draft I’ll discover that I’ve avoided some rabbit roles.
I’m released from the temptation to perfect the sentence. True confession: I spend a lot of time perfecting sentences. Sentences really matter to me. But the truth is, sentences don’t need to be perfect in the first or second draft when I’m still figuring out the plot. That’s work for the final stages of revision and I’m a long way away from that right now.
For now, these are enough reasons for me to continue writing draft #2 of Hello, Honeymoon by hand.