The Human Touch: The Benefits of Writing Longhand

In the era of cell phones, tablets and microcomputers, writing longhand may not come naturally or easily, but there are benefits to mind, body and story.

One benefit of writing by hand is a closer mind-body connection. Using a favorite pen and journal to record ideas, to expand later or just for yourself in the moment, slows the thought process and gives the mind an outlet for those thoughts through tactile sensation. The benefits of list writing, for example, include more than just creating reminders; they also include a sense of release, from the moment the first item appears on the page.

Writing longhand also helps minimize and even eliminate distractions. Not only are you not online (at least not directly), you’re also focusing more directly on the page and the written word. This degree of concentration slows the writing process to enable your imagination to more fully envision and record images, which can lead to better-developed concepts, scenes, characters and stories.

When writers concentrate more fully on their work, they also become better writers, because they’re more aware in real time of their word choices and the effects of those choices. This is called “listening to the work” and trains the writer’s ear to hear the differences between, for example, active and passive voice, and to notice the betterments of using fewer and more precise words to tighten and strengthen stories, whether fictional or real life.

When writers take time to “hear” to their work, they also focus less on fixing it, which yields greater freedom to explore a theme or topic in organic way. When we’re not continually in editing mode, we give ourselves a chance to discover what works in our writing, what doesn’t and why. As a result, we gain mastery over our work and confidence. This helps us learn faster. So if you like to learn by doing and by trial and error, as I often do, longhand is a great way to gain, use and increase your knowledge.

Of course, there are also clear benefits to using a device for writing. First, the process produces text faster and easier than writing longhand. Most programs even correct you as you write, and you can use the program’s spellcheck, grammar check and thesaurus without stepping away from your work. Once you create a piece, it’s a lot easier to save and upload it to work on later, virtually anywhere (pun intended). Of course, you can carry a pen and paper nearly anywhere, too, but it’s hard to beat the convenience of a device to create, edit, save and rework a writing project. These advantages make devices more than convenient for creating first drafts and meeting deadlines.

In reality, you don’t have to make a once-for-all choice of longhand or device for your writing. Each style or project tends to create its own parameters, such as time constraints, energy level, type or style of writing, personal preference and mood.

When I was growing up, for example, I preferred writing longhand for journal entries and poetry. I still do. There’s something inherently pleasing about opening a journal, especially a new one, taking out a favorite pen and sitting down to write on a pristine page, like first footsteps in snow. For me, it’s a way to uncover and explore my thoughts and emotions, especially when something is happening in my life that I want to examine. Those instances deserve the human touch, through sufficient time and close attention.

What Pain Can Teach: Writing of and Through the Tough Times

Whether we write fact, fiction or both, pain informs and can enhance our work. To make the most of what we’ve endured, however, we must be mindful of what and how we write.

Many artists create their best pieces from the pyre of suffering. Beethoven went deaf at 45; Georgia O'Keeffe struggled with depression. Author David Foster Wallace struggled with depression and addiction. Artists work through their pain, around it, with it, from it. To make the most of what we’ve endured, we might consider the advice of author Dorothy Sayers in her essay “Why Work?”, and allow our experience to “serve the work”.

Born in Oxford, England, Sayers is best known for her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, but in all endeavors Sayers believed that while many feel that work, in whatever form, ought to serve the community, there is a “catch” in this line of thinking. Her reasoning as a person of faith was that there is a “paradox about working to serve the community”, and there are three reasons why this is true. First, a person can’t “do good work if you take your mind off the work to see how the community is taking it.” Second, “the moment you think of serving other people, you begin to have a notion that other people owe you something for your pains; you begin to think that you have a claim on the community.” Third, if you aim to serve the community, “you will probably end by merely fulfilling a public demand—and you may not even do that.”

In her book The Forest for the Trees: An Editor's Advice to Writers, Betsy Lerner made a similar observation about checking the community pulse on what to write. “People who try to figure out what’s hot and re-create it are as close to delusional as you can get. Once a trend is actually identified it is usually too late; your work will be regarded as opportunistic, as jumping on the bandwagon…” While some writers may be altruistic enough not to consider the potential return on their investment before they start writing, once a thing is written and received, or not—for the community is not awaiting with baited breath the words of the writer’s imagination—that is the moment when the writer realizes just how much of what he or she has written was not for the work—meaning the integrity of the project—but for the sake of a response. Even where there is a legitimate public demand for treatment of a particular topic, where is the artistry in putting the cart before the horse?

So what about us? Should we write of our painful experiences? If so, how? Moreover, why? If we do decide to explore a difficult experience, should there be parameters or guidelines to enable our writing to benefit us and others without bringing harm?

I know a writer with a chronic health condition who eventually decided to record the experience via an essay on a national website. What made this person write of the condition and share it that way? First, in researching the topic, the writer learned of alternative medicine options whose treatments were helpful. This made the writer think, if these helped me, they could help others. Since the information wasn’t yet mainstream, efforts to surface it did help others. Just as important, maybe more so, by that time the writer was talking about the topic with friends and family. In other words, the time was right, not just for the topic but for the writer.

I also know a writer who wrote about sexual assault and found that writing about the incident helped her and others. So what made her take this big step? First, she was inspired by the bravery of one of her students to write of a similar instance. Second, she tested the story on friends before sharing it widely. Surprised at how many people echoed her experience and encouraged her, she gained confidence that sharing it widely could help still more people: those who have endured sexual assault and close to them. In this example, the steps she took were both incremental and affirming.

These two examples, both about writing nonfiction, share several commonalities:

• The writer wrote not only for personal gain but also for others.
• The writer selected a trustworthy medium related to the topic.
• The writer wrote the story when the time was right, and first put the writing aside to consider what to do with it before sharing it.
• The writer had a trusted friend, someone with firsthand experience, read the work before the piece was sent and shared.
• The writer tested the experience on a smaller local audience before going global. Once on the web, it’s forever, or at least it feels that way.

If you don’t want to write about a painful experience directly as nonfiction, you might consider fictionalizing it. One way to do this is to consider the emotional truth of what happened. In other words, what was the lesson learned, and how might it become the theme of a poem, flash fiction, a short story or a novel? If you write fiction and have been through a difficult experience, and the further one goes along in life, the more one goes through, you might allow your experience to inform, not dictate, the work or its direction. The points above regarding nonfiction writing also apply to fiction.

There’s no rule that says a writer has to write about a painful experience and share it with others. We can write about what happened and decide not to share it. Either way, what we write, how we write it and who we are because of what we’ve been through can be enhanced by what we’ve experienced.