Avi

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Handwritten v. computer-written

ManuscriptThe oth­er day I received a let­ter from a stu­dent. It was short, hand writ­ten (in pen­cil) and informed me how much she liked my book, The Secret School. One ques­tion was asked: “Do you like to write?”

Attached to the let­ter was a note from the stu­den­t’s teacher. “Dear Author. I have asked my stu­dents to choose an author whose book they read and write a let­ter say­ing why they enjoyed it. We would all appre­ci­ate an answer. For my stu­dents this is prob­a­bly the first snail-mail let­ter they have ever written.”

Two weeks ago, I vis­it­ed the Mor­gan Library in NYC. On dis­play were some cuneiform clay tablets from ancient Mesopotamia, the old­est form of human writ­ing. Also on dis­play were Medieval illu­mi­nat­ed man­u­scripts, as well as a Gut­ten­berg Bible (the first print­ed book with inter­change­able type), one of the fifty that exist in the world. 

I am old enough to have had pen­man­ship lessons in ele­men­tary school. But nowa­days, I am so used to writ­ing with a com­put­er; I find it hard to write (by hand) more than a note. 

When we think of writing—particularly in a blog such as this—we are express­ing ideas about the craft of sto­ry cre­ation, not the act of writ­ing. Yet I—and I know oth­er writ­ers who do this too—fuss about the font I use on my com­put­er. I want the font to con­nect to the sto­ry. I take par­tic­u­lar plea­sure in a font that looks as if I am using my old col­lege portable type­writer. I want my books to look good, and in part, I am think­ing about fonts. 

Since com­put­er use has become com­mon­place, long books have become com­mon.  When you write by hand, you hold and engage with every word. 

Maybe we should pay more atten­tion to how we set down our letters.

3 thoughts on “Handwritten v. computer-written”

  1. I am so thank­ful for com­put­ers. For me it mere­ly allows me to work faster and clean­er. For my dyslexic/dysgraphic child, it is his tool to com­mu­ni­cate all the live­ly thoughts in his mind with­out huper-human strug­gle, frus­tra­tion and embar­ras­ment. I tell him often that writ­ing is an process that hap­pens in your brain, your heart and your soul. Pen­cils, pens, com­put­ers and dic­ta­tion devices are all mere­ly tools. For him the com­put­er is the tool that has trans­formed him into a bud­ding writer and a hap­py, suc­cess­ful student.

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  2. As some­one who is dys­graph­ic, the com­put­er has made a big dif­fer­ence in my life, too. For all those who have prob­lems with the act of writ­ing, I say bra­vo for com­put­ers. That said, calig­ra­phy is an art, worth the learn­ing and preserving.

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  3. Typog­ra­phy is real­ly big right now and I pre­dict hand-writ­ten things will come back in the years for­ward. BTW–my daugh­ter is dys­graph­ic too and I did­n’t even know about it until I read your auto­bi­og­ra­phy and real­ized she has the same thing! I told her about you (we have read Doyle togeth­er) and she real­ly felt bet­ter hear­ing that there was a real author with her same chal­lenge. That said, I real­ly cher­ish hand writ­ten let­ters from the past, when I was a girl. Thanks for help­ing me remember!

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