by Elizabeth S. Craig, @elizabethscraig
I visited my parents a couple of weeks ago during my children’s spring break. We also helped them to clean out their attic. (It’s hard not to take advantage of having a hale and hearty 15 year old boy in the house.)
One of the things that was uncovered up there was my father’s electric typewriter. He was an English teacher and typed quite a bit, so it was a pretty nice model. My daughter was completely enchanted by it and asked if we could take it home (she’d been asking about my typewriter, but it’s definitely gotten buried somewhere in a closet or our own attic.)
Amazingly, my parents still had an ink cartridge for the typewriter in a desk and headed right to it, and handed it over to my daughter. (My head exploded just a bit at this….had to wonder what else they’ve held onto!) We drove back home to North Carolina and my daughter immediately asked for me to show her how to work the typewriter….but I was already busy unpacking us and cooking supper.
The next day she asked me again to show it to her…..but I was cooking Easter dinner (seems to have been a good deal of cooking lately.) I was a little impatient, I’ll admit, and told her I was sure she could figure it out. This is a ten year old who spends a great deal of time on the computer, understands social media, and is a fair little typist at 45 wpm.
And she had, y’all, no clue.
She couldn’t figure out where to roll the paper in on the roller, where to line it up on the little silver ruler on the typewriter, where to stick the ink cartridge in. That she had to hit return for the thing to go to the next line (no word wrap on typewriters). And—there was no way for her to correct her mistakes, either.
But put her with any cell phone and she intuitively interacts with the device—enlarging pictures and text on the screen by that reverse-pinch that this generation has down perfectly.
The fact that I thought the typewriter would be intuitive to a lifelong, very experienced computer user (a computer native) who’d never seen a typewriter and the fact that it really wasn’t to someone born in 2001, just goes to show how fast and far and quickly everything has changed. It illustrated to me how fast the world changed. At 41, my life is evenly divided between life on a typewriter and life on a computer.
What does the computer revolution mean for writers? It means that we can write faster. That writing is easier. It means we have the luxury of creating horrible first drafts…deleting or rearranging text is easy. It was the first step toward today’s proliferation of writers and the large number of books that many writers have written.
Recently, I’ve noticed amazing changes in both the television and music industries (which have also been impacted by the changes in technology.)
HBO now offers an online subscription service to provide online viewing. They’ve enhanced older episodes to identify in the sidebar each new character who comes onstage–giving their picture and a paragraph explaining their connection to the protagonist and the storyline.
In the music industry, independent musicians who previously would never have been able to attract a following without signing with a major label are now able to reach audiences directly. Their singles are sold through venues like Amazon and have the potential of reaching the millions that songs by the mainstream artists do.
General wisdom states that writers should simply keep writing as much as their schedule allows and focus on writing the best books possible. I think this is still the best approach. But I think we need to also start mulling over a little bit some out-of-the-box approaches that can be better utilized by the new technology…as we start moving into the future.
Things like extras (enhanced books)
Alternate endings for books is something I’m seeing more of lately. I actually love the idea of having different killers for a mystery. I change my murderer enough for this to be an easy thing to write.
Casts of characters could provide a useful reader reference if we’ve written in a large cast.
Interviews with the authors can provide readers with a behind the scenes look at the novel’s creation.
Chapter teasers from upcoming releases—this makes a tremendous amount of sense from a marketing perspective and provides the author with a firm deadline that he might not otherwise have with a self-published book.
Down the road (honestly, probably not too much farther down the road) we’ll have to think about other aspects of these extras—maybe music, mp3 clips (recorded interview, for instance), forums (social commentary on our books—while actually reading our books), picture slideshows/video, related articles…
I’m not mentioning this to scare anyone. But I think that the more open we are to this change, the better we might adapt (and ultimately profit) as these changes start happening.
When I was busily striking the keys of my typewriter while writing essays in high school, I’d have been overwhelmed if you’d talked to me about Skype and Facebook and Twitter. I’d have been overwhelmed even at basic word processing — icons for underlining and bolding? Font choices and font size? Things that are intuitive now were once completely confusing.
What I think this means to me is that I’m going to try to change my still old-fashioned notions of what a book is. It means I’ll be adjusting my parameters for “creative.” It means realizing that, in this new age of reading, writers will have to not only be creative with words but with marketing and effects.
But the most important thing, as always, will be the story we give our readers. The packaging can be slick and interactive, but it won’t mean a thing if the readers don’t care about our story.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
To me, the future seems full of promise and excitement for writers. We just have to be open to it. What do you see, though, when you look ahead?
I think that’s true that we have to be open. We can’t stop technology or new ideas, so we need to figure out how it can work for us.
The book of the future might be where you open the cover and you are literally drawn into the book to be one of the characters.
Teresa
Elizabeth – We had a similar experience explaining record albums to our MP3-listening daughter. And you’re so right about what’s happening out there with books. There will be evolution and new enhancements like audio and visual clips and so on. People will experience a book in a lot of different ways and I think you’re right that authors need to be open to it. But first and foremost, they need to create stories and characters that interest people. That comes first. Otherwise it won’t matter how the story is packaged.
As always, Elizabeth, I do enjoy your posts. I have struggled with little joy in learning some of the new technology, but recently came to understand that change is always part of life and we have to learn to embrace the change and keep on learning. That excites me, because learning to me IS fun. As I get ready to launch my first e-book, I may still get frustrated at times, but I will still learn and grow. Thanks.
I see amidst all the hard work – a lot of creative freedom.! Great post.
I’m looking forward to the enhanced books. Some authors – David Farland – have already done this. On iTunes he has an app for the iPad for his book NIGHTINGALE. Very awesome!
I loved my typewriter, and often wonder how I managed not to have sore wrists the way I had to hit the keys. I am smiling at your daughter’s attempts to get it to work.
The kids hardly know what a typewriter is anymore.
The computer revolution has opened great possibilities for both science and writing. At work I do scientific computing on a 1000-node quad-core Linux cluster. When I’m traveling, I write on a small light-weight lap-top. Great development in technology since my first computer, a Commodore 64 that I bought in 1982 >:)
Cold As Heaven
Journaling Woman–There are some books that I would LOVE to be drawn into. Wouldn’t that be amazing?
Margot–Ha! And how we had to dust off the record needles to make sure the record would still play? And how the records would scratch and skip? My kids think that’s all so funny! (As they listen to Pandora on the computer.)
Suz–Congratulations to you! And you’re so right…learning *is* fun. It’s easy to forget that because of the frustration factor, but it’s true.
Laura–The fact that it allows us to really open up and be creative really makes a difference. I don’t outline…but I wonder if we’d *have* to outline if we were still on typewriters. There was little room for error…such a pain to correct stuff.
Glynis–It was practically exercise, wasn’t it? Not so much for the electrics, but I even remember typing on the manual ones. We really had to hit those keys!
Cold As Heaven–Exactly. Or they might know what it is from seeing one in a book or on TV, but have no idea how they work (like mine.)
I think the Apple 2E was the first computer I messed around on…at the public library. I remember losing an entire research paper on it. Bleh.
At first, I think, yikes! one more thing to do!
But, then, I think, this is doable IF we plan ahead. Don’t wait until the book is written. Make notes on extras that could be included. If you cut a storyline, don’t delete. Save it in case it could be an extra. If characters are having a dinner party, think of what they might be serving. Maybe you could include recipes. The list could go on and on. Just plan ahead so it’s not such a chore to gather at the end.
I definitely can’t imagine writing a book on a typewriter, but if that was all we still had then I wouldn’t know anything else. I do enjoy the luxury to edit and move text at will though.
I don’t know if I would like too many bells and whistles on books, but alternate endings sound interesting. It would be cool if different editions were available based on how interactive an experience you want. In terms of quality… I know a lot of people say ebooks have decreased it, but I’m kind of hoping the proliferation of self-publishers will push those authors to do better to stand out from the pack.
Great article. Reminded me of conversations with my 7 year old and that was about VHS tapes.
The biggest challenge for me as a writer is keeping up with all the new networking programs. It seems I get an email every week to join one I’ve never heard of. I was slow to join that band wagon, but I recognize that it’s something I need to do. Thank God most of them can be linked an intergrated with each other.
I’m with you Elizabeth. I’d like to be a character in my favorite books. What an adventure that would be. Although, it might hinder our writer lives a little. :-)
Love it! I had a manual typewriter in high school. I dug it out for my kids when they were younger. They had a ball playing with it. You had to press so hard on the keys for them to work!
Wow–what an eye-opener! You just gave me a BRILLIANT YA idea–imbedded soundtracks for books. A lot of YA books have music that is important to it, and YA readers (many–not me) can read and listen to music at the same time–how cool would it be to have a song start playing when you hit a certain part of the book? I also, for more complex stories… would love embedded footnotes. I haven’t read a lot of fiction with footnotes, but Dracula had them and I loved how they enhanced the story. it might help OLD CLASSICS be more approachable–all that old vocabulary or reference to things we don’t regularly learn–that you sort of need an English class to appreciate… Then again, I know that marks me as a geek to want to know that stuff… but say… War and Peace where each character has half a dozen names… put the cursor on it and a screen pops up with a reminder that has all of them…
The changes are happening so fast now. I think at this point, anything is possible.
That your daughter couldn’t figure out the typewriter amuses me. I wrote all my short stories by hand, but the first novelette I attempted was on the typewriter. (Thank God for correction ribbon.)
I read somewhere about implanting directly into the brain. That step scares me.
I must admit I hated typewriters! I wrote a lot of media releases in my previous life and the boss always had something to change and that meant retyping from scratch again.
My Darcy Vibrates…
Your daughter and a typewriter…that cracks me up! I tell ya, I recently read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and I thought about the author, and how she had to write that book. It really made me appreciate how easy we have it now!
Helen–VERY good point, Helen–make notes for ourselves as we write. It really will make things so much easier at the end!
Elke–It’s a little frustrating to keep up with the networking, but luckily some of the applications don’t require our daily presence. For LinkedIn, I just update it a couple of times a year (same with Goodreads.)
I think if I could be one of my favorite characters in a book, I might never come out of the book!
Hart–That would be amazing for YA! You could even collaborate with an indie artist. And embedded footnotes for the classics, etc–I’d love it. Especially with those books with 30 characters or with family trees at the beginnings of the books.
Diane–Remember the chalky dust we’d get on our hands from that correction tape?
Nick–I tried writing a book on a typewriter 20 years ago and it was a major pain.
Wouldn’t the alternate endings be cool? Sort of like the “Choose Your Own Adventure” books.
Jemi–Isn’t it amazing that they’re so interested by it? It’s like archeology to them or something.
Alex–Can you imagine having a thriller or a horror novel implanted in your head? Ack. I’ve gotten to be such a scaredy cat when it comes to books. It would scare me silly….
Enid–I’m a fast typist, but my accuracy is off sometimes. I had some jobs like that, too, and was still typing letters in the 90s. Lots of White-Out and correction tape. It was such a pain…
Julie–We do! Sometimes I think about it. The very first manuscript I tried writing was when I was 22. It was on a typewriter. I think I was more frustrated with the typewriter than I was with my inability to effectively write my story on the page (and that’s saying something.)
I am SO with you on this, Elizabeth! And I remember the typewriter in our house. It was pretty amazing because it had correction fluid built in. The technology! Ha!
Great post–thanks!
I learned to type on an old manual Underwood typewriter in high school. My stubby little fingers were too short to reach the number keys. I’m thankful for technology. Now I can reach the number keys.
I learned to type in highschool but didn’t own one til later. I remember when correction tape was invented and the typewriter could back up and erase a whole line! It was very cool, lol! These are exciting times we live in:)
Hi, Elizabeth! I just found your blog, and I love it. I was just telling my daughter that when I was a kid we didn’t have a computer, and she looked at me, very sad, and said, “Oh … were you poor?”
And I still remember how confused I was when I actually started using one – with a mouse and everything! Eeek!
But change really is possible … and exciting!!!
Can’t wait to read more!
Open and flexible – two extremely important qualities for a writer in today’s market. The entire publishing industry is changing so fast now that writers have to grab on to what they can make work for them. Great post.
I’ve always enjoyed change and found it exciting, but the publishing world changes today are keeping me on my toes. It’s frantic and fun, all at the same time.
Jill–Oh, I’d have loved one with built-in correction fluid!
Diane–The kids have no idea! My daughter asked me if I was allowed to cook on the microwave when I was her age. Ha! Like we had one!
I was so completely frustrated with computers when they first became available in my region–and I was in high school! I guess I was just past the point of quickly absorbing new technology by then. :) And I think you’re so right–it’s exciting!
Leslie Rose–And we don’t have to pound the keys!
Lady Gwen–I actually had one of those with 1-line memory! I was *so* impressed with it! Seemed very high-tech at the time (late 80s, early 90s).
Carol–I think you nailed it–open and flexible.
I think I see opportunities.
But there are also funny aspects to writing and publishing today such as me having to explain to a reader of “A Dyeing Shame” how it can be bot the first and the third Myrtle mystery :)
I think the possibilities are endless. No more gatekeepers blocking us from producing and sharing our art and finding the audience that craves it.
I used to play with my grandma’s old manual typewriter.
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