How Your Writing Tool Shapes Your Text

Choose the right tool for the job – that phrase goes for writers too. This blog tells you how your writing tool shapes your text.

How Your Writing Tool Shapes Your Text

What’s your go-to tool when you write? A pen? A computer? Hopefully, you have a whole toolbox. Because whatever you choose for your writing, that technical device will shape your text. It’s important to know how that happens. In this blog, we’ll look at writing by hand, typing, dictation, and using a stylus on a tablet.

This blog references an earlier article on Why Writers Should Write By Hand. Please read it first, as some aspects will only be stated here without further explanation.

Your Toolbox

Writers can choose from many tools. Here are some that I will discuss:

Writing by hand on paper.
Typing (on a computer or tablet).
Writing through dictation.
Using a stylus on a tablet.

Let’s go through each of these and look at the impact of each tool.

1) Writing By Hand

Writing by hand has an overall beneficial effect on the human mind (for the science behind this, please read Why Writers Should Write By Hand). These are the effects it has on the writing process:

1. Sensual experience

Writing by hand is a very sensual activity. We need to move our fingers, as well as our hands. These multi-directional movements are complex, activating lots of brain regions. Depending on what letter we write, depending on whether we write in cursive or in block letters, these movements change.

2. Speed

In this case, slow speed is a good thing. It helps us to pay attention to detail in our texts. That’s why this technique is great when you want to do a lot of showing (here’s a blog on ‘show don’t tell’).

Theoretically, the speed can be increased if you use shorthand (or stenography). But an increase in speed would always come at the cost of detail.

3. Involvement in the act of creation

As we move our hands, we create text at once. It makes our work tangible. Tangible work promotes a sense of deep satisfaction.

4. Brain engagement

Scientists agree that writing by hand engages our brain deeply. This promotes learning, memory, and cognition. It’s just very healthy!

5. The inner critic

Writing by hand makes instant editing impossible. In fact, we are so deeply engaged in the writing process that we just can’t listen to our inner critic.

6. More steps required?

Yes, writing with a pen and paper needs to be transferred to a computer if you want to share it or send it in for publication. However, editing is another matter. I have conducted an experiment with a group of online journalists. Each received the same text, brimming with mistakes. Half of the group edited the text online, and the other had a printout. Editing on paper was 50% more successful.

2) Typing On A Computer

Typing is probably the go-to tool for many writers. So, it must have great benefits. And it does. They’re just very different from writing by hand.

1. Sensual experience

Typing engages the senses very little. No wonder the required hand movements are small, one-directional and repetitive. Each letter requires the same movement.

2. Speed

This is the greatest asset of typing. You can produce a lot of text in a fraction of the time you’d need when writing by hand. This makes typing ideal for telling.

3. Involvement in the act of creation

When typing, we create text by proxy. We need a keyboard to translate our hand movements. Therefore, we are less involved in this act of creation. It feels less rewarding. However, you can make this process more tangible by printing your texts when you’re done.

4. Brain engagement

Typing produces less brain activity, meaning we are less engaged (here’s the science behind it all). It seems that typing is just not that challenging (which also makes it effortless!).

5. The inner critic

This is the greatest challenge of typing. Because we’re less engaged with the text, our brain has the capacity to edit as we type. Also, don’t forget that word processing tends to include autocorrection or at least spell-checkers. Typing encourages the inner critic.

6. More steps required?

No, except for editing, of course.

3) Dictation

Dictating has become increasingly popular among fiction writers. It has always been a go-to tool for radio journalists, especially those at the news desk. A radio journalist myself, I can only say, it’s a great way to produce perfect, printable text at a great speed. One of the downsides is that you have to learn how to dictate well. It takes more than speaking your mind into a microphone.

If you’d like to find out more about the technique, read this blog by Sarah Elisabeth Sawyer.

1. Sensual experience

Dictation is a very sensual activity; it involves speech and hearing. It helps you to achieve the same deep involvement with language as writing by hand without the physical strain or discomfort. The activity doesn’t involve any intricate hand movements. However, most people who dictate regularly do so standing up and walking around. This does make it more of a body experience compared to typing.

2. Speed

With proper training, speed increases. You can be even faster than typing. It is very immediate, as you can describe everything as you picture it in your mind. That’s also the downside. Without proper training, you might start rambling. This creates more work in the editing process.

3. Involvement in the act of creation

At the end of a dictation session, all you get to see is an audio file. Yet an audio is even less tangible than a text on a computer. You would need to print it out.

4. Brain engagement

Dictation requires a lot of concentration to produce anything like a written text. Just by hearing your own voice, you activate the language areas of your brain and also the area for social cognition. This could mean that our brain perceives the act of dictating as a conversation.

This is where the strength of dictating lies. As you dictate, you automatically use the speech patterns of spoken language. What a great way to produce dialogue! In that sense, dictation is also a great tool for showing.

5. The inner critic

As you hear your voice speaking a sentence, you do become aware of awkward phrases, and you do edit as you go. But this is mostly on the linguistic level. Editing the content will happen later. Your inner critic will be silenced by the sound of your own voice.

6. More steps required?

Dictation requires more editing than the other techniques. It’s rather hard to stay coherent when we dictate. We can’t read back on what we’ve written. Dictation can lead to too much detail, which involves more editing. Any dictated text needs to be transferred to a computer.

Further Reading: How to Start Dictating Fiction

4) Writing Longhand With A Stylus On A Tablet

Using a stylus to write longhand on a tablet is a compromise that seems to unite the advantages of all other techniques. Some tablet apps even have a feature for dictation. The real advantage of the tablet is revealed when the writing process is finished (see 6).

1. Sensual experience

The hand movements are the same as if we’re writing by hand. There are foils which give your screen a paper-like feel.

2. Speed

It’s the same as writing by hand; it is just as slow. However, this also lets us do a lot of showing.

3. Involvement in the act of creation

Again, it’s much like writing with a pen and paper. We are involved at once, and we see how our creation takes shape. Writing on a tablet is just as rewarding.

4. Brain engagement

The hand movements are the same, and so is the deep engagement of the brain.

5. The inner critic

Much like writing by hand, we need to concentrate so much on what we are doing that we don’t have time to listen to our inner critic. This keeps the inner critic at bay.

6. More steps required?

Now this is where the tablet is so convincing. Apps let you convert your handwritten text to print. No need to type it in! There are even apps which convert speech to text. As for editing, tablets have apps for that as well. How comfortable can it get?

Now that we know the tools, which one will you choose?

What’s The Sharpest Tool In Your Shed?

Whatever the technique, the sharpest tool in your shed is still your own mind. Because you decide which tool to use. Check your text to see what could contribute to it. You need more showing? Then write by hand. You need to get ideas on the page really quick? Then dictate them. See where this leads?

Switch tools from time to time. For example, you could write the body of your text by hand, then switch to dictation for dialogue. Of course, technique-hopping isn’t the answer. That’s why using a stylus and a tablet seems such a great option. It allows you to switch tools right there and then.

The Last Word

There are many techniques to get you writing – I hope this blog has helped you become aware that each tool has something to offer.

No tool is ever the only way to achieve an effect. But it’s important to be aware that the technique you use ultimately shapes your text.

Happy writing!

Source for image: Pixabay

By Susanne Bennett. Susanne is a German-American writer who is a journalist by trade and a writer by heart. After years of working at German public radio and an online news portal, she has decided to accept challenges by Deadlines for Writers. Currently she is writing her first novel with them. She is known for overweight purses and carrying a novel everywhere. Follow her on Facebook.

How Your Writing Tool Shapes Your Text