NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #19/NN_1992_19.iso/spool/misc/writing/2796

Internet Message Format | 1992-09-04 | 3.2 KB

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From: [e-mail] (Fred Welden)
Newsgroups: misc.writing
Subject: Re: Editing on Computer or Hardcopy
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 4 Sep 92 14:16:06 GMT
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In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Chuq Von Rospach) writes:
|[e-mail] (Thomas Beagle) writes:
|
|>I used to say that I could never edit on a computer screen.
|
|I still do. And to be honest, sometimes I cheat and do it anyway.
|(I invariably regret it, too).
|
|>After a while, entering changes on paper and then transferring them to
|>my essays got to be too much work. I started editing on screen, and
|>actually found it quite easy.
|
|That's the problem. Editing on screen is 'easy'. Editing, however, is never
|easy. I've found in my work, and in the work of most people that speak about
|it honestly, that editing on screen leads to really sloppy, incomplete
|editing. Why? I'm not entirely sure. On a physical/physiological level,
|staring as closely at a screen as you have to do for editing enhances
|eyestrain and tires the eyes, which reduces comprehension and focus.

I usually print out hard copy only when I want to show what I've
written to someone else.  I wrote an entire novel on a Commodore 64
using PaperClip, which means 24 lines of 40 characters, and no one
who's read it has had any complaints about sloppiness.  I'm sorry it
hasn't been published so you could judge for yourself.  :)

I've also written upwards of 10,000 lines of C code in my current job
that work just fine without ever having printed out a single file of it.

The only hypotheses I can spin out to explain this:

1) I do my real writing in my head.  As I've said before, the process
of putting it down in a text file is, for me, more like taking
dictation from someone with an attention deficit disorder than creating
anything at the time.

2) My writing, like my C code, tends to consist of small meaningful
blocks that are arranged in a larger esthetic (in the case of fiction)
or functional (C code) patterns.  Electronic editors work very well for
concentrating closely on the contents of a small block, then cutting the
whole chunk out and moving it to where it belongs.  This is, in fact,
very much my working style.

Before I began using electronic editors I absolutely hated to move a
string of paragraphs from one part of a story to another, even though
that's where they should have been, because it meant scissors and tape
or retyping whole pages.  I also tended to use my typos, if you know
what I mean.  Electronic, on-screen editing has definitely improved my
writing--made it easier, and made the results more what I intended to
write in the first place.

Just another data point for your collection.

--
--Fred, or another blind 8th-century BC  |  [e-mail]
        Hellenic poet of the same name.  |