A few days ago I posted a message suggesting a new WriteRoom feature: typewriter mode. No backspace allowed! No cursor control!
Then I realised that, actually, what I really want is a typewriter. Thanks to an impulsive eBay purchase, I got one. And I'm now in a position to compare WriteRoom and a typewriter side-by-side.
First is the obvious. WriteRoom claims to be basic, but it's WAY more featured than a typewriter. A typewriter is the Neanderthal man to the WriteRoom renaissance man, even if my typewriter has lift-off correction tape.
Second is the less obvious relating to the physical experience. You can't type fast on a typewriter. Mine is electric so can't jam, but it still dropped double-letters if I typed them too fast (some have reported when switching from a computer to a manual typewriter that they initially thought the typewriter was broken; it is simply more mechanically primitive).
Then there's how it affects my writing. It made me start to think about it. When I use a typewriter, I hear the sentence in my head either before I type it, or as I type it. On a computer, I "think on screen" (to quote Will Self). The words start on screen. With a typewriter they start in my head and then work down to my fingers, then onto the page.
This is pretty profound.
The other thing I noticed, and liked, was the finality of a typewriter. Once words are on the page, they're going to stay on the page. But it's more than that. They have more weight. Words on a word processor screen are temporary. They can vanish at any moment. They are quite literally electrons moving at the speed of light.
This is also pretty profound. When I think about it, I realise that I'm subconsciously semi-scared those words will go away in the blink of an eye. I've lost so many files over the years due to power-loss or file corruption. Because of this, word processor words are less than 100% real. Hard to explain, but I hope you follow.
The words are real on a typewriter, in the same way that a $100 bill is real, but $100 spent on a credit card is somehow less real.
WriteRoom is a word processor that I like enormously. I think it's elegant and clever. But we have to acknowledge what it sets out to do, which is to provide distraction-free word processing. But it's still word processing, and, really, it's still high-level word processing. It's not as well-equipped as Word, but Word stopped being a word processor years ago (maybe around version 4 on the PC). Nowadays it's a document processor combined with a layout program.
I've never NOT used a word processor for any kind of writing. I word processed my school and college essays. I word processed my creative writing. I'm not sure if I ever "thought the words in my head" rather than on the screen. While researching typewriters, I read a little about people who had moved from typewriters to word processors, and the elation they felt. Oddly, I think that they're justified. They learned the skills of writing the way they should and their reward was a word processor. I can't help feeling that we should all give typewriters a try at least once, or maybe even that we should all train-up on typewriters and only be given word processors when we've proved ourselves worthy. Particularly those of us who are involved in creative writing.
Copyright © 2008 Jesse Grosjean. All rights reserved.
ClintMacD - April 24, 2008 1:57 PM
Fascinating!
Best wishes, Clint
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John Smith - April 24, 2008 4:50 PM
Thanks Clint.
I've been thinking about ways WriteRoom can bring some of the typewriter experience to the Mac. That doesn't mean emulating the typewriter, warts and all, which is what the Blockwriter project attempted to do. It means taking some of the lesser-known positive aspects of typewriting and recreating them, or working them up to something better.
I've mentioned previously the idea of a database-driven file system for WriteRoom. This would get rid of the subconscious transience feeling I only realised I had when I started using a typewriter. If every single word is written to disk as it's typed, and the user knows this, then it becomes more permanent. Of course, hard disks can still fail, so it's ultimately transient. But not as transient or delicate as electrons on a screen. A database approach would also make it impossible to lose data. Type a word and instantly switch the Mac off — but the data won't be lost.
WriteRoom saves every minute, and that's practically as good, but misses the crucial subconscious link — permanence — that I think can change the way somebody writes.
I also remembered the old Amstrad PCW word processors that were hugely popular here in the UK. These offered typewriter addicts a transition into the world of CP/M computing back in the late 80s/early 90s. You could either word process using a program called Locoscript, or switch to "typewriter mode", where everything typed on screen was instantly printed on the daisywheel printer.
OK, maybe not something as silly as that, but how about a mode of WriteRoom whereby each page was automatically printed as soon as it is full? Then it would be committed to paper — made permanent.
It's not about making it impossible to delete or edit on the fly. It's about making the reader realise the benefits of not working in a mode of thought where they're constantly editing. Make the writer actually write, and think about what they're writing before their fingers tap away at the keyboard.
I'm sure there are other ways of transferring the hidden positive aspects of typewriting to a computer. It's just a matter of having the creativity and vision to see them, and I guess that's what good software design is all about.
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Rachel Greenham - April 25, 2008 5:53 AM
I think you can get everything you want from the commandline of any Unix/Linux system (including Mac OS X) and from the commandline of any Windows system too, though the method would differ slightly.
At a unixoid commandline, just type
And start typing. You can edit each line as you type before pressing return, but pressing return commits it to output.
Just like a real typewriter you do have to do your own carriage returns at the end of each line.
Press ctrl-D on an empty line to finish. (ctrl-D signifies end-of-file; aka EOF).
There are other tricks; for instance I think ctrl-L will force a new page (aka form-feed) on a printer, although while typing you'll only see a ^L on the screen.
You do actually need a printer set up. As I don't, I can't actually test this, but I think it'll work. A similar effect where you just write to a file rather than actually output directly to a printer can be done with:
I think I mentioned that one as a joke before in another comment, but, seriously, that gives you exactly what you're looking for. :-) And it does allow you to at least edit it later.
By the way, if you stop and want to resume typing later appending to the same file, do this instead:
That appends; the single > just overwrites any existing file with a new one.
You can even do both at once, so what you type is written both to a file and to a printer, for that papery feel of permanence and later editability without typing it all in again:
or
The latter appends what you type to the end of an existing file. The first one will just overwrite that file.
You can do this directly from a text console of a Linux/most-Unix machine; getting at the Darwin console in Mac OS X is a bit tricker (it's doable but I can't remember how), but I think some terminal applications (if not Terminal.app itself) can go properly fullscreen.
The point is, Unix is an operating system with a lot of history. It really does go back to the age when people used computers by sitting at a teletype, and all that behaviour is still available to you.
Now get a Unicomp buckling-spring keyboard (or an original IBM Model M with a USB adapter) and get a fairly authentic IBM electronic typewriter feel too! :-)
Finally, and just for fun and only on a Mac:
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jesse - April 25, 2008 7:50 AM
I guess the one thing that I'd add is that WriteRoom defaults (you can change the interval in General preferences) to auto-saving every 5 seconds... but I think your point is still valid, auto-save isn't quite the same mentally as ink on paper.
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John Smith - April 25, 2008 10:59 AM
I'm starting to think it's just impossible to recreate the typewriter experience on a computer. It's like trying to recreate the horse and cart experience using a motor car. You probably could, but it's pointless. The fun of a horse and cart is the fact that it's a cart pulled by the horse. The fun is that it's old, but we're doing it on our modern age. If you were simply to chop the roof off a car and attach a box so you sat 10ft off the road, it just wouldn't be the same.
What we're talking about here is process, and how it can have a bearing on product. Yup, we've entered the post-modern world. Computers just can't recreate the process. They can only emulate it, or simply better it, in the form of word processing. But the process of writing using a typewriter (or by hand) is very different from the process of using a word processor. My contention is that word processors are false idols in many regards, at least during the early drafting stages, unless you can be incredibly self-disciplined.
The other cool thing about typewriters is the romantic aspect, of course. One pictures Ernest Hemingway (who popularised the whole concept of typewriter-driven creation), pounding away at the keys, the act of creation being turned into a physical exercise. I didn't mention that, by the way. Typing on a typewriter takes effort. None of your fingers dancing across the MacBook keyboard. Your fingers become offensive weapons that punch at the keyboard.
I found the following list of writers who use(d) typewriters. I'm not suggesting for one moment that emulating a great writer will turn you into one, but it's an interesting read nonetheless:
http://staff.xu.edu/~polt/typewriters/tw-faq.ht...
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rogueumbrella - April 28, 2008 12:13 PM
I'm interested in the typewriter-word processor debate because I happen to own several fountain pens. Or in other words, I love the tactile feel of 'writing,' and even though I can not profess to be very good at producing interesting or inspiring pieces of literature, inking words onto a page is almost addictive. I remember that somewhere there is literature about how writing (with a pen/pencil?) is addictive -- was it something about the creation of symbols/a symbolic discourse? Whatever, I feel the same way about flipping through a photo album instead of rushing with the forward key through digital pictures. Tactile is heady.
Like a few of the users who posted here, I have a long history of using computers to digitize my thoughts into pixels, words, and pages of paragraphs. Both my parents teach 'computers' (programming/CAD for the one and web/graphic design for the other) and they purportedly related my birth to a BBS community (I must remember to ask just who was in that community) by way of an IBM and a 14.4 modem. Though the tactile feel of pen on paper is erotic in its own way, often I feel dull, as if the mixture of thoughts and words were solidifying before I could finish sculpting them. What's more, and I guess that most of you who type over at least 80wpm feel similar, hand writing feels slow. There is no spell-check, no quick-access dictionary or thesaurus. It is difficult to re-read hand-written text without feeling even more entombed in a concrete prison of fossilized words and thoughts.
As much as I like the solid-state of words as they are written, and I imagine equally so would the printed ink of a typewriter be enthralling, my theory of word processing is that it lets us edit text more dynamically and fluidly, creating on the one hand as a few of you have mentioned space for the lapses of thought, or put conversely, taking away the time for thinking twice, but not without letting ideas that occur much later in our own narratives influence the entire breadth of our discourse. While we remain diligent editors of our word processing, not only may we avoid the brain-less mistakes of writing hurried along by a blinking cursor, we may micro-edit the text, in effect sanding our work as we proceed. This allows us to spend time on wherever our eye -- or mind -- roams, instead of being stuck in a linear narrative of resigned to doom a small tree's worth of paper to the recycle bin.
Or, written more succinctly, no matter how many fountain pens I buy, much to my unconscious consternation, unless I'm persistent in writing -- in my mind; on paper; in digital -- my writing will not improve.
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John Smith - April 28, 2008 2:14 PM
Hi, thanks for joining in the debate :)
Thanks too for pointing out that this isn't about typewriters. It's about writing by hand vs automating via word processing. I chose a typewriter because a brief brush with polio as a toddler means that my handwriting is terrible due to weak wrists. But a pen would work just as well for others, and not just a posh pen. How about a Biro? I write in the children's literature sphere and two of the most popular authors — Philip Pullman and JK Rowling — both write with pens. The only reason a typewriter replaced the pen for most 20th century authors was to avoid wrist ache, I think.
Word processors are very good at processing words. I don't think they're very good at collecting words. In fact, I argue they're bad at this unless you've developed a rigorous technique. So they're good later on. One or two authors I've read about write by hand and then switch to a word processor for redrafting. That, to me, makes perfect sense.
I posit that, since the arrival of the word processor (and writers and journalists who have never known anything but the word processor), words have lost a lot of their weight and power. Compare, say, a piece of journalism from the Times today, to a piece from from 1900. The piece from 1900 will be composed better and it will feel heavier. Part of this is cultural, of course, but I could even argue that cultural changes have been brought about by the word processor. How could we have had lifestyle journalism if copy wasn't easy to throw together? We've never had as many magazines and books. Could that be the case if writing wasn't so accessibly easy?
It's all very interesting, I think.
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rogueumbrella - April 28, 2008 8:37 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/pr...
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John Smith - April 29, 2008 2:13 PM
There's a lot of wisdom there. Words as utility, or words as art? Did the word processor kill the writing star? Did the Internet kill the poet? Should we introduce rationing for words, just like food was rationed in Britain during and after the war?
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rogueumbrella - April 29, 2008 8:11 PM
well, what's your take on post-modernism?
Victoria Woolfe says language has died. Feminisms tell us that language is part of castration, placing a Child in an (patriarchal) Adult order. Jacques Derrida suggests that the world isn't a neat division of castrated/unconstrated, and therefore a complex, fluid relationship exists between the symbolised/symboliser. Haruki Takashi paints 'super-flat' pictures covered with many anime-style eyes, suggesting something can be both an abstract shape and a symbol at the same time; or perhaps drift ethereally between those two stations of meaning.
Perhaps a good start would be to examine our literary cannons and historicize ourselves!
Well, who is in your literary canon?
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John Smith - April 30, 2008 2:46 AM
We're heading WAY off-topic here. But I'm game.
I studied post-modernism at university. I can't remember much about it but I remember Don De Lillo featured in there.
I find postmodernism fascinating on an academic level. I can study it until the cows come home. But on a practical, creative level, I'm starting to think that both postmodernism and even modernism were a step in the wrong direction. They were reactions against forces I can understand but can't personally acknowledge.
In short, you can't beat a good story, and this is what I'm trying to concentrate in my own writing. I've even been returning to mythology (British and Greek -- I also studied Classics during my education) to try and figure out the best way to tell a story. How to make a story compelling. What do readers actually appreciate?
Of course, this doesn't mean a postmodern trick or two can't be used to slap the reader about the face every now and again (such as the narrator stepping momentarily out of the narrative), and I love seeing postmodern tricks on mainstream TV or cinema. But for my own creativity, I'm trying to get back to a time when a story was just a story, and nothing more than that.
The Internet is inherently postmodern because it emphasises process over content. In fact, you could argue that it's post-postmodern because it's about a different kind of content -- volume, rather than quality. It is better to read 20 blogs, to get the best spread of opinion and knowledge, than read one good one. Compare to the old days -- it was better to read one newspaper, than 20. People were defined by the paper they read -- IIRC people would say things like, "I'm a Times man".
But the Internet is a foreign country, and what happens on the Internet stays on the Internet. The Internet is less pervasive than the people who live there might think (I always think the Internet is like a large but practically unknown eastern European country -- it has a culture and infrastructure of its own, but nobody really cares what happens there). I think this was proved with people like Ze Frank, who were huge Internet celebrities, but have zero recognition outside of the land of Internet. He tried to make it in mainstream TV but failed. Nobody cared. He was like a guy who's big in some large eastern European country trying to make it big in America...
Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think the Internet should have any bearing on what you create, unless you're intending it solely for an Internet audience.
Another contentious thing to bear in mind is that the Internet is driven really by young people, and is super-idealistic a lot of the time. There is a dearth of experience on the Internet that allows super-idealism to happen, which is a beautiful thing, but not necessarily a useful thing. This again leads to the creation of a stunning amount of written content but assigning value to the content is problematic. This might be one more definition of post-postmodernism.
And we've kinda come full circle, because what I'm interested in is creating content with value to everybody, no matter where they are. To do this I'm trying to create simply compelling narratives. Not necessarily hackneyed, or imitative.
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rogueumbrella - May 4, 2008 8:13 AM
I always thought the point of the internet wasn't to appeal to mainstream, but to create small autonomous DIY communities, much like the hogbaysoftware community, supported by the users who then come to post on forums and have the software changed to suit their needs. Fan-fiction sites are another great example of this. Just looking at the influence youtube has had on mass media, and the ways in which it used by some teachers, I don't think I agree with your distant european country analogy. But if we're talking about writing novels, then my way of considering the internet supports what you have to say. Inherently a social-conscious space, online space must be non-final for the social discourse so important to autonomous communities, and thus very nature of the networks, to exist. So to write authoritatively perhaps off-line is best. But that doesn't tackle the question of word processing vs. hand writing vs. type writers. By the way, I think that hand writing is actually more fluid than a typewriter, which to me represents the mechanization of the creative process. It's definitely a way to cement your ideas, but with a forced rigidity. If we're talking about epic tales and great stories of the greeks (Finland actually has a rich history of oral ballads), those were anything but 'final', subject to the memory and creativity of each individual recounting/reciting them, different even for the same speaker each time.
What about news websites? Do you think they offer autonomy or authoritativeness, or does a 'comments' section allow for both? Does it matter if the comments aren't actively participated in by the site-side content creators? Is that why alternative media channels on the internet (youtube/alternet/bittorrent/etc) have prospered, precisely because they offer autonomy? Do they offer authoritativeness as well, or does the fact their 'incompleteness', that is, the space offered for an afterwards to comment writers, undermine any authoritativeness?
Huh.
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Guy Dickinson - April 28, 2008 6:37 PM
You might also be interested in Khoi Vinh's (subtraction.com - also notable for being NYTimes chief digital designer) thoughts on this same subject - he lamented on writing constraint and software a while ago - he actually mocked up some software to emulate the same typewriter constraints which you're outlining:
http://www.blockwriter.com/
That never took off, but he did find out quite early on, I gather, about WriteRoom:
http://www.subtraction.com/archives/2006/0601overcomingr.php
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John Smith - April 29, 2008 2:14 PM
Thanks, this is something that Clint pointed out early on. I hope I've successfully argued against what this guy said here.
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Steve Walsh - June 9, 2008 8:44 AM
I have scores of fountain pens, about twenty manual typewriters, and 3 functioning computers. I write for a living and almost always use the computer. I write with what I feel like at the time for my personal stuff, but lately it is almost always the computer. There was a time, about ten years ago, where I could only write on a manual typewriter, and that was after having used a computer for about five years. But the trouble was I was deleting everything I'd written because I didn't like it, and then at the of a few hours would have nothing. The typewriter taught me to push on and edit later.
If you're worried about permanence think of the value of multiple copies. Save after every paragraph and email to your webmail address after every session. If your house burns down you've still got what you're written. That's a nice version of permanence.
I love the sound and feeling of using a manual typewriter. But nobody else in my house likes it at 11pm. I like fountain pens, but I hate my handwriting, especially when I'm writing fast. Plus, it's expensive to get decent paper that takes the ink well.
One day they'll work out something that's the best of all these worlds. For the moment if I had to choose a single writing tool, I reluctantly admit it is the computer.
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