THE ADVANCE OF THE WRITTEN WORD

By Sarah Stodola

The printing press was invented, thank goodness, in 1436. It's generally acknowledged that this particular invention's impact on the world is too vast to be calculated. With the printing press came mass readership and, I suspect, the professional writer. More than 400 years after the printing press appeared, we were blessed with the typewriter. A century or so after this, personal computers became ubiquitous as a tool for writers. And then in the 1990s the internet exploded onto the scene, completely revolutionizing the meaning of "publishing."

So how have these advances in the technology of the written word affected the writer? And more importantly, how have they affected and changed the work that they produce? I think the answer must be in the intangiblesóstyle, content, choices of subject matter, and attitude.

Most writers are very particular about the way in which they write. Of course, word choice is a part of this. But what I'm really talking about here are things surrounding the writing process: things like atmosphere, mood, time of day, lighting, and background musicóthe optimal setting in which we can find words to put on paper. The fact is that, whether they like to admit it or not, most writers can't just sit down and write any time or anywhere. Some are more neuroticóoften notoriously soóabout this than others, but I imagine we would be hard-pressed to find a writer anywhere who doesn't have certain preferences in what I'll call their "writing atmosphere."

I, for example, am a morning writer with an occasional nighttime burst of creativity. I like to have music playing softlyóbut only certain kinds of music. I like to have a cup of coffee. And while I seldom consider the following as a part of my writing atmosphere, my computer is actually as integral a part of it as anything. I don't like to write on computers other than my own. My own keyboard is the one I feel comfortable typing on. I don't have to think about the typing part of writing when I'm typing on my own keyboard. It's important for me to have a laptop instead of a desktop, because while I want to write only on my own computer, there are times when I need a change of scenery. I can't rationally explain why. It's just that sometimes, as a writer, you can feel the rut creeping into you, and you have to change something or risk losing the spontaneity of your work. Moving to a different room, or in extreme cases to a coffee shop, can often serve as a preventative measure to writer's block.

In this way, laptops have actually helped the art of writing retain some of its traditional traits. Once upon a time, writers wrote on paper, in notebooks, in journalsóand they were able to take these mediums with them wherever they went. Writing used to be a portable skill. This ended with the advent of the typewriter, not the computer, I suppose. But I have images of writers in the heyday of the 1920s, hanging out in cafés in Paris, scribbling furiously in worn, smudgy notebooks. Whether or not that actually happened as much as I like to think it did, there's no denying that it doesn't happen much anymore. However, walk into almost any coffee shop in New York City today and you're bound to see at least one patron pecking away at a laptop. Many coffee shops even supply computers for their customers.

Whatever their location, computers have indeed become central to the writing process. But not only have they changed the technical process of writing, they've also changed the things we writers write, in some very subtle, yet far reaching, ways.

They've changed our frame of mind, for example, which inevitably affects our writing. One no longer has to plan a piece of writing. We don't necessarily have to have a clear outline in mind of what we are going to write before we write it anymore. Most of the time when I sit down to write a piece, I have a vague idea of what I'm doing, and then I figure out the details as I go along. In the movie Amadeus, Mozart's rival Salieri is amazed at Mozart's ability to write a piece of music out perfectly with just one draft. Mozart is very possibly the only composer ever who could create a complete work in his head before ever touching a pen or paper, and then remember it perfectly, note for note, when he finally did go to write it down. I suspect the same is true for writers. There may have been a genius or two at some point in history who could write a complete essay or story flawlessly on the first try, but if it did happen, it was a miracle, for that simply is not the way the writing process is known to work. Writers make outlines, they write draft after draft of one piece, and they have editors. Many writers publish revised editions of their previously published work. A common trait in writers, in fact, is an inability to stop revising. To write one perfect draft and send it off to the printers is almost unheard of.

However, now that we have computers, we can edit and revise as we go along, rendering outlines and multiple drafts, if not obsolete, then at least much less important. For instance, that Amadeus reference in the last paragraph was the last part of the paragraph I wrote, even though it was technically a part of the first draft. I thought of it toward the end of writing the paragraph, and I immediately went back and inserted it. That would not have been possible with pen and paper, or even with a typewriter. Before computers, I would have had to make a note somewhere on the first draft to add the Amadeus analogy when I got around to the second draft. Now I can add it as soon as I think of it.

How does this affect the final product? It's impossible to say for sure, but it seems that today's technology makes it easier to write a unified work. Making revisions and additions and subtractions to a piece days, hours even, after it was originally written, could cause a work to read disjointedly (although I admit, sometimes the only way to continue with a work is to leave it alone for a while). If you edit as you write, you aren't as likely to lose track of your original purpose during the editing process, since it is now one and the same as the writing process.

Its also possible that computers have made writers less wary of writing. A word written on a computer does not hold the same permanence as one written on paper or with a typewriter, so there is not as much fear involved in putting it there. If you write a word on a computer that in hindsight you decide was a terrible choice, its existence can be stricken from the record with no more effort than a couple of mouse clicks. Not so with the other mediums. I imagine that this fact makes a writer less afraid to begin a piece, or to experiment with a new style, or to write something potentially controversial.

This carries over to the final products produced by writers in this age of computers. If writers are less afraid to write something different from anything they've written previously, it would follow that there is a higher level of experimentation and diversity in the written works that end up getting published. If the pool to choose from is more diverse, then the stuff chosen probably is, too. This must invariably be considered a good development in the world of literature in that it encourages more creativity and innovation.

But there are downsides even to creativity and innovation. Computersóand the Internetóhave certainly made writing a more diverse and innovative discipline. We don't have to rely on a tiny handful of journals and magazines for our literature fix anymore. There are literally thousands of outlets for writers that have sprung up as a direct result of technology and the ease with which it allows people to publish, both in on-line and print publications. Anyone who puts their mind to it can learn Dreamweaver or Quark, and once those skills have been acquired, publishing becomes a relative cinch. However, not everyone who tries something new or bends the rules of literature actually creates something worthwhile. So, while writing has evolved because of new technologies, it has also become a more cluttered and convoluted field. There's more good stuff out there, but there's also more bad stuff to be sifted through in order to find the good stuff.

I don't believe that the extent of technology's impact on the written word has been sufficiently documented, or that its impact is complete. However, it seems a sure thing that writing and literature are not the same things that they were a century or two ago. The mediums afforded by technology are simply too penetrating, too close to the heart of the writing process, for this to be the case. Ultimately, the changes will probably be good. But something will be lost in this evolution, as well. I know that I feel different about writing when I type on a computer than I do when I write on a typewriter or in a notebook. And I really can't pinpoint just how that difference in feeling translates into a difference in my writing, but I know that it must.

And with that, I'm going to run spell-check, click save, and send this file off for publication. After all, I edited it as I went.

Sarah Stodola is a first-year Liberal Studies student. Her academic interests
include writing, cultural history, and modern literature.