The Case for Writing by Hand

Our thoughts take the shape of our tools.

Flip that around and it’s equally true – the tools we use influence the way we think.

This is strange to consider, and perhaps a bit unsettling. We want to think of ourselves as rational actors, and our thoughts the result of reasoned analysis, not influenced by something as trivial as the tool we use to express them. But tools matter.

They matter because we are embodied creatures, not brains in a vat. And the same brain that cooks up characters, dialogue, and descriptions also processes whatever it is that your hands are doing, whether it’s thumbing away at a touchscreen or scribbling on paper. It’s processing everything at once – thoughts and sensations, the cerebral and the tactile. How could they not interact?

A famous example of this is the writer Frederich Nietzsche, who after years of writing by hand switched to a typewriter. This led to an increase in productivity but also, unexpectedly, to a change in writing style. His thoughts came out more clipped and forceful, as though the hard metal in the machine had wormed its way into his brain. When a friend pointed out this stylistic change, Nietzsche wrote back: “You are right. Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.”

I bring this up to make the case for writing by hand. Not all the time, but some of it. (In particular, I’m focused on creative writing.) In the age of text-to-speech technology and increasingly slick word processing programs, it’s easy to think of handwriting as obsolete, the domain of that annoying person in line at the grocery store who holds everyone up as they fill out a check.

Handwriting is slow. It’s sloppy. It doesn’t have spell check. It can’t be saved to the cloud. Basically, it introduces way more friction to the process than we’re used to.

But sometimes friction is what we need. Our brains – and hands – benefit when we encounter resistance. This is especially true for early drafts, which aren’t supposed to feel effortless. Looking at a budding story that’s scribbled and smudged across the page reminds you that it’s a work in progress. All that mess is a physical manifestation of what’s going on inside your head.

There is an artificial neatness to typing. Writing that’s bloated and poorly thought out still looks neat when typed up, with its parallel lines and tidy margins. You could easily trick yourself into thinking the ideas are just as orderly.

More than that, writing by hand engages more of our brains than typing, and also connects disparate brain regions. Handwriting might be harder and slower, but that’s because it’s wringing potential out of our brains that a keyboard never will. This is because writing is analog, while typing is digital. To understand why this matters, let’s consider the most basic definition of these terms – as types of signals.

Analog signals are smooth. They represent a range of values stretched over a continuum. (Think of a hand forming letters on a page.)

Digital signals are choppy, with no in-between. It’s either 1 or 0, on or off. (Think of fingers punching a keyboard.)

If we are expressing ourselves in an analog medium, is it that crazy to think that our thoughts might come out smoother? More integrated? And thoughts expressed in a digital medium could be choppier and more scattered?

Word processors are great for final drafts. Great for editing and revision and all the productivity gains we love taking advantage of. But when you’re starting from scratch – especially with fiction – a blank screen is harsh. It’s overly bright, with a cursor that won’t stop blinking. If you’re stuck, that blinking almost seems like a message:

Oh, so you’ve got no ideas? I can wait all day, pal.

A blank page, on the other hand, is inviting. It wants you to make a scribbly mess. It’s clean. Cool to the touch. Perhaps there are tools that make us less human, but never pen and paper. They enhance our humanity because they’re as analog and messy as we are.