Who Knew?
Image courtesy alexkerhead.
I was thinking this past week about the changes technology has made in the life of the writer. At no time in history have we seen the advent of change as clearly as we have in the last century, except for an invention in Europe that changed the lives of readers world wide.
It once was that a writer wrote his words long hand. In order to share them, the original was loaned out or given away. If he had the time or the money, the book would be copied, and therefore given a wider readership.
Eventually, someone found a better way to produce copies of original works, and at less expense than hiring a scribe. I can imagine should this happen today…scribes hitting the streets with their signs and placards, protesting this “infernal machine” that took away their livelihood. Of course they would object to the printing press.
The press took control away from the scribes and those that hired them. The press created multiple copies, all identical, in which writers could share their knowledge, experience, and flights of fancy. (The press took control away from the church and the ruling class but that subject is for another post at another time). Anyone who could read Latin or the prevailing language could read, and perhaps even own, a book. Lending libraries were common by the early 1800s and “penny presses” were in operation not long after. I can imagine writers from the earlier centuries examining this new contraption and thinking “who knew?”
Skip forward a bit to the invention of the first typewriter. If the press changed how the writer’s works were disseminated, this invention changed the life of the writer himself. Thinking about the original typewriters makes my hands ache with sympathy. The pressure required to strike the keys must have landed many pairs of hands in ice bags and enforced recovery. And yet, we have enduring images of writers from the first and middle parts of the last century pounding away at these machines. While they might have had to retype whole pages and manuscripts with every revision, addition, or extraction, they produced faster. Yes, type they did, in glorious abundance. Their predecessors from the 19th century and all eras previous whispered to each other, “Well now. Who knew?”
A few decades later, electric typewriters, upon which I began my writing life (IBM Selectric, of course!) appeared, along with the fancy word processing typewriter such as my first boss’s secretary prized. With correction tape and ribbon, the electronic touch of the keys, and the reduced need for carbon, the writer’s life improved indeed. The writers of the previous generation massaged their well muscled forearms and muttered, “Who knew?”
And then came the computer. Angels sang from heaven, the earth rejoiced, and writers were in love. Well, most of them anyway. (I know one writer in his 70s that still does his first drafts on an old manual typewriter, though he now does all his revisions on a computer). Here was an instrument that allowed us to revise before we printed, print only the sections we wanted to hold in our hands, and move large blocks of text around to suit our fancy. Longhand writers finally admitted defeat, if not for composition, at least for revision and final draft. No more the expense of hiring a typist or slaving at such a machine yourself. Anyone who could type could use a computer for his work (though some folks, claiming a mutual dislike with their electronic helpers still hired help, now called word processors). Another generation of writers joined the throng. “Can it really do that? Who knew?”
The single biggest change for this writer came with the advent of the split keyboard. Gone were the tendinitis braces (as long as I paced myself) and ice packs. The split keyboard was and is my idea of the best writing invention in the world (after the computer!) The old IBM Selectric was consigned to a garage sale. I am now on my seventh personal computer, but still using my first split keyboard.
The funny thing about the computer, according to William Zinsser (On Writing Well), is that, while it made good writers better, it made bad writers more abundant, and often worse.
Two opposite things happened: good writers got better and bad writers got worse. Good writers welcomed the gift of being able to fuss endlessly with their sentences–pruning and revising and reshaping–without the drudgery of retyping. Bad writers became even more verbose because writing wsa suddenly so easy and their sentences looked so pretty on the screen. How could such beautiful sentences not be perfect?
Writing and language are still at the heart of our governments, our businesses, and our entertainment. The written words and their understood definitions comprise our laws, contracts, policies, and promises. I can’t foresee a time in which that will change. Our best entertainment has always been based in written language, from plays to screenplays, from the first treatises to the most modern novel. While I can see there will be changes in the mediums of delivery, such as the rise of E-Books and devices such as the Kindle and Sony Reader, this fact remains true.
I can only anticipate with excitement what inventions of the future might mean for writers and the dissemination of their words. I also have to wonder if I, in my 70s, will insist on doing my first revisions on that “really old, totally passe computer.” Who knew?
I remember the electronic typewriters with correction tape. I’m in the generation that supposedly “grew up” with computers, but that’s not true with me. We didn’t have a computer until I was in sixth grade, almost thirteen years ago.
I cannot remember what the typewriter was that we had, but I do remember having to look in the stores for the tape for it. It was a fairly modern one, as when you typed, there was a one lined screen that you could see the words on before it appeared on the paper. That had a mini computer in I guess. I remember typing my first “novel” on it–at least the first few pages–before resorting to handwriting it
I think it’s still up in a closet in my parents’ house…
That would be one of the first word processors.
My first boss’s secretary had one. It was a novelty and pretty cool back in the day, lol. Nice to see you again, Dara. 
I wish I had a typewriter. I’ve wanted one for the longest time. I’d make do with a laptop beyond the month of November. Hmm.