Writing Advice: The Benefits of Writing Longhand

There are benefits to writing your work out with a pen before you commit it to type, namely the reread is unavoidable,and the process of getting out of your imagination is slower and therefore more deliberate. I saw an interview with Herman Wouk once where he said he wrote all of his novels this way. I believe Stephen King also is known for working with a pad and pen before using a keyboard.

Drawbacks:
1. Since it makes the work more deliberate, more physically difficult (writing a 5,000 word piece is physically difficult), there is often, towards the end of the piece, the temptation to rush, to get it done with as quickly as possible. While this is not always a bad thing, you don't want to screw up an ending because your hand hurts either.

2. It takes longer to get something out. If you are a working writer the object is to get the thing out and on an editor's desk as soon as possible. You should be able to get this without hurting the quality of your writing.

3. If your handwriting is like mine you might have trouble reading the stuff you have written, especially if you your hands were hurting when you wrote.

4. It's twice the work. You have to think the stuff up, write it out then you commit it to your word-processor at a later date. It might sound like you would have been doing the same thing anyway, but in practice it feels like much more effort.

5. Twice the paper. If you are one of those people who hangs on to hard copies of everything you write, you will need some extra space for your legal pad pages plus your copy paper.