The Pen and the Key by Micah Ferris

Imagine a modern writer. No, not the romantic image of a candlelit Keats – or a bearded, quill-bearing playwright.

These days, you might be lucky to find a writer with a pencil in their pockets (the cooler ones tout fountains and moleskins) . But an ever-growing percentage of our creative population may be found drumming words onto an electronic page, instead of scuffing away their lead and ink.

The more ergonomically challenged writers among us may be easily identifiable by tell-tale back deformities, from being hunched over computer screens year upon year. It seems that our writing method has been upgraded – a new generation of us now channel our inspiration directly into computers. Yet there are still those of us who cling to the tradition of pen and paper. Here I ponder the two.

Unless thrown aside or set alight, paper is not affected by viruses, does not crash and instead, offers the writer a more contemplative mode. It may be a simple assertion to make, but putting pen to paper is a different physical experience to typing directly into a glowing screen. Each word is hand shaped. There is more pressure on the fingertips and you get ink in your fingernails. On the page, errors take longer to erase. 

With pen and paper, I find that individual words stand out. Perhaps the brain subconsciously highlights them, but I certainly do write fewer of them on the page than I do directly on-screen  For me, the computer encourages a sort of manic, creative mode, whereby the brain, sending frantic signals to the hands, generates a stream of consciousness flow. My thoughts are less inhibited. I just write them down and think about it later.

On the computer, there is a greater temptation to delete. There is also less room for the eye to identify error. And cutting and pasting words, sentences and paragraphs grants the writer a freedom within one space that would normally be reserved for sheets and sheets of paper.  Seemingly infinite possibilities present themselves when it comes to formatting. It is less censored. I can write whatever the hell I want on-screen because to me, words on paper seem more definite. 

But at the end of a long day’s work, does my tech-savvy, stream of consciousness style of keying in my pages produce better work than if I had painstakingly written every line as I imagined it? 

MS Word is certainly responsible for greater quantities, with files littering my electronic desktop. But by the time the piece of work has been edited, cut away and polished up, several versions later I am usually left with something rather succinct – which begs this question: Is the one mode simply a more extended route to the same conclusion?

Is it all down to preference? Personal programming? 

Tell me, which do you prefer – the key or the pen?

Micah Timona Ferris

The Unofficial 'Brit Writers and Writers Everywhere' blog.