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July 2, 2016 11:41 AM Subscribe
Matthew Kirschenbaum talks to The Atlantic about his book on the history of word processing, what early word processing looked like, early adopter Len Deighton, and how writers of all kinds adapted to the new technology.
I was reading Greene's The End of the Affair lately and noted that the narrator (who was a writer) counted out how many words he wrote every day. It's something which is so trivial today but which must have been a little odd in the late 1940s, and rather a hassle. The narrator marks with pride that he always puts the precise number of words on the cover of the copy he sends to his publisher.
posted by Emma May Smith at 12:08 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Emma May Smith at 12:08 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
I remember hearing someone in the '80s say about an author "he doesn't write, he word processes", as if this were indicative of some great shortcoming.
posted by idiopath at 12:10 PM on July 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by idiopath at 12:10 PM on July 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
I was reading Greene's The End of the Affair lately and noted that the narrator (who was a writer) counted out how many words he wrote every day. It's something which is so trivial today but which must have been a little odd in the late 1940s, and rather a hassle.
Anthony Trollope, in his Autobiography (published posthumously in 1883):
When I have commenced a new book, I have always prepared a diary, divided into weeks, and carried it on for the period which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In this I have entered, day by day, the number of pages I have written, so that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the record of that idleness has been there, staring me in the face, and demanding of me increased labour, so that the deficiency might be supplied. According to the circumstances of the time,—whether my other business might be then heavy or light, or whether the book which I was writing was or was not wanted with speed,—I have allotted myself so many pages a week. The average number has been about 40. It has been placed as low as 20, and has risen to 112. And as a page is an ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain 250 words; and as words, if not watched, will have a tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I went.
posted by thomas j wise at 12:14 PM on July 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
Anthony Trollope, in his Autobiography (published posthumously in 1883):
When I have commenced a new book, I have always prepared a diary, divided into weeks, and carried it on for the period which I have allowed myself for the completion of the work. In this I have entered, day by day, the number of pages I have written, so that if at any time I have slipped into idleness for a day or two, the record of that idleness has been there, staring me in the face, and demanding of me increased labour, so that the deficiency might be supplied. According to the circumstances of the time,—whether my other business might be then heavy or light, or whether the book which I was writing was or was not wanted with speed,—I have allotted myself so many pages a week. The average number has been about 40. It has been placed as low as 20, and has risen to 112. And as a page is an ambiguous term, my page has been made to contain 250 words; and as words, if not watched, will have a tendency to straggle, I have had every word counted as I went.
posted by thomas j wise at 12:14 PM on July 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
I like that in this Epic Rap Battle of History not only is George R R Martin's DOS word processor famous enough to get a prominent background appearance, he also appears to be playing Zork on it.
posted by Artw at 12:20 PM on July 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by Artw at 12:20 PM on July 2, 2016 [4 favorites]
I just read this book, and ended up skimming it because it's a history I lived through and it was all very familiar to me. I started college in 1983, and took a special section of freshman composition in which we learned to use word processors to write our papers, but typewritten papers were still common. By 1985, I was routinely word-processing papers in a computer lab on campus, and I got my own computer for the first time when I went to graduate school in 1987. I was also a writer and reader, so was very tuned in to these arguments about how heartbreaking it would be to lose drafts and notebooks that chronicled a writer's work, or that writing would become "too perfect" or, alternately, that it would never be finished because making a few more changes would always be easy, or that writing on paper with pen was somehow more organic, &c.
It felt kind of tiresome to me then, and reading about it all brought that back. This is not a criticism of the book, which is an interesting look at how writers alternately (or sometimes simultaneously) feared and embraced this technological change, and how they, being writers, made it into a philosophical and artistic issue about the creative process, its authenticity, and the perceived quality of the completed work, in which personal preferences are turned into creative imperatives and given more weight than they necessarily deserve.
I have had every word counted as I went.
I love the passive voice of this. He didn't count the words; he had someone to do it for him. Wife? Daughter? Paid secretary?
posted by not that girl at 12:28 PM on July 2, 2016 [12 favorites]
It felt kind of tiresome to me then, and reading about it all brought that back. This is not a criticism of the book, which is an interesting look at how writers alternately (or sometimes simultaneously) feared and embraced this technological change, and how they, being writers, made it into a philosophical and artistic issue about the creative process, its authenticity, and the perceived quality of the completed work, in which personal preferences are turned into creative imperatives and given more weight than they necessarily deserve.
I have had every word counted as I went.
I love the passive voice of this. He didn't count the words; he had someone to do it for him. Wife? Daughter? Paid secretary?
posted by not that girl at 12:28 PM on July 2, 2016 [12 favorites]
in which personal preferences are turned into creative imperatives and given more weight than they necessarily deserve.
This is a great way of putting this observation, which I've made myself before, too, but struggled to articulate. Thanks for this little gem of clarity...
posted by saulgoodman at 12:35 PM on July 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
This is a great way of putting this observation, which I've made myself before, too, but struggled to articulate. Thanks for this little gem of clarity...
posted by saulgoodman at 12:35 PM on July 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
I remember hearing someone in the '80s say about an author "he doesn't write, he word processes", as if this were indicative of some great shortcoming.
perhaps quoting Norman Mailer's famous "That's not writing, that's typing" diss of "On The Road"
posted by thelonius at 1:06 PM on July 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
perhaps quoting Norman Mailer's famous "That's not writing, that's typing" diss of "On The Road"
posted by thelonius at 1:06 PM on July 2, 2016 [5 favorites]
I literally just learned yesterday about Len Deighton and his MT/ST. Get out of my brain, Artw!
posted by BungaDunga at 2:30 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by BungaDunga at 2:30 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
Get out of my brain, Artw!
Sorry, that requires surgery at a very special clinic....
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:58 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
Sorry, that requires surgery at a very special clinic....
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:58 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
I'm a translator, and when I got into the industry, it still had some holdovers from the days of typewriters: it was fairly common to get paid by the "page," where a page was defined as an arbitrary number of words or characters that happened to work out to about the number of words/characters you could expect to see on a manuscript page.
I don't have any clients that pay by the page anymore, but there can be disagreements about the number of words, because (as it turns out), every word processor has slightly different word-counting tactics. MS Word is what my clients use to count words, and as luck would have it, it's the stingiest word-counter—it counts hyphenated words as one word, doesn't count numbers, etc. I don't use Word if I can avoid it, and take the count from whatever I'm working in unless I remember "Oh yeah, we got into a dispute about this before, I need to export to Word and count there."
I translate from Japanese, and the history of word-processors in Japan is a little different. Because of the difficulty of typing the language, typewriters obviously never caught on, and handwriting continued to be acceptable for serious business correspondence. Standalone word-processor devices became relatively popular there before personal computers became popular in the USA, and hung on for a little while even after PCs had become established. So a lot of the documents I received were handwritten, or had been typed on a device that would have no easy way to export files to a standard PC (Japanese cellphones are sometimes called "Galapagos phones" because they evolved in isolation, and the story with word processors was the same). These were faxed or even fedexed sometimes. I think the last fax I received was in 2001. Today, I frequently receive virtual piles of e-mail messages that have been printed out, scanned, and e-mailed to me. This is always for litigation discovery, and is done intentionally to frustrate searching through the e-mail for keywords.
posted by adamrice at 3:22 PM on July 2, 2016 [9 favorites]
I don't have any clients that pay by the page anymore, but there can be disagreements about the number of words, because (as it turns out), every word processor has slightly different word-counting tactics. MS Word is what my clients use to count words, and as luck would have it, it's the stingiest word-counter—it counts hyphenated words as one word, doesn't count numbers, etc. I don't use Word if I can avoid it, and take the count from whatever I'm working in unless I remember "Oh yeah, we got into a dispute about this before, I need to export to Word and count there."
I translate from Japanese, and the history of word-processors in Japan is a little different. Because of the difficulty of typing the language, typewriters obviously never caught on, and handwriting continued to be acceptable for serious business correspondence. Standalone word-processor devices became relatively popular there before personal computers became popular in the USA, and hung on for a little while even after PCs had become established. So a lot of the documents I received were handwritten, or had been typed on a device that would have no easy way to export files to a standard PC (Japanese cellphones are sometimes called "Galapagos phones" because they evolved in isolation, and the story with word processors was the same). These were faxed or even fedexed sometimes. I think the last fax I received was in 2001. Today, I frequently receive virtual piles of e-mail messages that have been printed out, scanned, and e-mailed to me. This is always for litigation discovery, and is done intentionally to frustrate searching through the e-mail for keywords.
posted by adamrice at 3:22 PM on July 2, 2016 [9 favorites]
I feel like sketching, painting, photography, and so on, there are places for handwriting, typing (on a typewriter), using a word processor, and so on. I'm just old enough to have gone through the transition from typewriting to word-processing as a student and I remember being amazed at my increased productivity.
By the way, if you've never seen one you should do an image search for Japanese typewriters. They are AMAZING.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 4:33 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
By the way, if you've never seen one you should do an image search for Japanese typewriters. They are AMAZING.
posted by LastOfHisKind at 4:33 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
A friend of mine who was an early adopter and a newspaper hack, also an inveterate tinkerer and (as so many such) a world-class prevaricator, set up his word processor so that as he typed, it multiplied the word count by his word rate and displayed the amount earned in a taxi meter style display in the top right hand corner.
He gave it up because, as he said, it made deleting paragraphs infinitely harder.
(And let us not forget the golden years of WordStar v Word Perfect sniping)
posted by Devonian at 5:30 PM on July 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
He gave it up because, as he said, it made deleting paragraphs infinitely harder.
(And let us not forget the golden years of WordStar v Word Perfect sniping)
posted by Devonian at 5:30 PM on July 2, 2016 [2 favorites]
In an essay discussed previously here, about how he structures his work, John McPhee writes a lot of words about the early Word Processor he adopted, and kept alive long after its creators folded.
posted by notyou at 6:46 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by notyou at 6:46 PM on July 2, 2016 [1 favorite]
Writers meeting the new technology was also discussed here previously. In which I mention having owned a Smith-Corona word processor. I think I can safely say I was the first person at my university to write a master's thesis on a personally owned word processor. This is perhaps my greatest unsung claim to fame.
posted by bryon at 11:59 PM on July 2, 2016
posted by bryon at 11:59 PM on July 2, 2016
I was going through college and adapting to processors around the same time as not that girl, and my experience was processors were great for drafting because I could touch-type and "catch my thoughts" (or keep up with them) a little better than with a manual typewriter or handwriting. But I didn't prefer the processor to a manual when writing artsy, personal letters to friends, and couldn't compose poetry at all.
I felt fortunate to have three different methods for composition, and still do I suppose.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 12:16 AM on July 3, 2016
I felt fortunate to have three different methods for composition, and still do I suppose.
posted by lazycomputerkids at 12:16 AM on July 3, 2016
I remember when the first word processor (an Amstrad) arrived at the weekly newspaper where I worked as a reporter in the mid-eighties. Neon green type on a black screen. It was available to all of us on the newsdesk for feature writing (as opposed to news writing), but for many months I was the only one who'd go near the thing.
We all used manual typewriters for the vast bulk of our writing there then. When we wanted to amend copy we'd literally cut a paragraph out from an earlier draft with scissors and glue it in place before passing the collaged copy on to the subs' desk. By the time the document reached them, it had often had so many layers added that it looked like something a kindergarten's arts and crafts class had slapped together.
The sound of the six-strong newsdesk going full-blast on press day was quite something to behold - so much clatter and bang from the massed typewriters that people would duck under their desks so they could hear what their contacts were saying on the other end of the phone. By 1990 or so, all the typewriters had been replaced with Apple Macs and the newdesk's glorious clamour became just a memory. Sigh.
One of Fantagraphics' recent Complete Peanuts volumes contains a strip showing a character using a manual typewriter much like the ones we had on that newspaper. The book's publisher very sensibly added a footnote explaining what this mysterious object was. I can see why they felt this was necessary for any readers under 30 or so, but man, it made me feel old.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:43 AM on July 3, 2016 [7 favorites]
We all used manual typewriters for the vast bulk of our writing there then. When we wanted to amend copy we'd literally cut a paragraph out from an earlier draft with scissors and glue it in place before passing the collaged copy on to the subs' desk. By the time the document reached them, it had often had so many layers added that it looked like something a kindergarten's arts and crafts class had slapped together.
The sound of the six-strong newsdesk going full-blast on press day was quite something to behold - so much clatter and bang from the massed typewriters that people would duck under their desks so they could hear what their contacts were saying on the other end of the phone. By 1990 or so, all the typewriters had been replaced with Apple Macs and the newdesk's glorious clamour became just a memory. Sigh.
One of Fantagraphics' recent Complete Peanuts volumes contains a strip showing a character using a manual typewriter much like the ones we had on that newspaper. The book's publisher very sensibly added a footnote explaining what this mysterious object was. I can see why they felt this was necessary for any readers under 30 or so, but man, it made me feel old.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:43 AM on July 3, 2016 [7 favorites]
When my father was chairman of the chemistry department at MIT (1977-1982), at some point he gave all the secretarial staff standalone word processors. Upon discovering these new machines they came to his office in a group, said that they didn't work with computers and threatened to quit en masse. He said something along the lines of, "All I'm asking you to do is keep it on your desk for a year. Use it if you want to use it. Don't use it if you don't want to use it. If you feel the same way at the end of a year, I'll have it taken away and you'll never hear about it from me again." Needless to say, at the end of a year the only way to get those machines back would have been to pry them out of their cold, dead hands.
posted by slkinsey at 7:54 AM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 7:54 AM on July 3, 2016 [2 favorites]
perhaps quoting Norman Mailer's famous "That's not writing, that's typing" diss of "On The Road"
posted by thelonius
That was Truman Capote, not Normal Mailer, on the Dick Cavett show. Mailer was super pissed, because he had thought that he "won" the show with all of his carefully articulated pontifications, only to find out later that all that anyone was talking about was the unprepared and tipsy Truman Capote's tossed-off quip.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:11 AM on July 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by thelonius
That was Truman Capote, not Normal Mailer, on the Dick Cavett show. Mailer was super pissed, because he had thought that he "won" the show with all of his carefully articulated pontifications, only to find out later that all that anyone was talking about was the unprepared and tipsy Truman Capote's tossed-off quip.
posted by StickyCarpet at 8:11 AM on July 3, 2016 [4 favorites]
ah thanks - I had that wrong then
at least I didn't say that Einstein said it
posted by thelonius at 12:18 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
at least I didn't say that Einstein said it
posted by thelonius at 12:18 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
It was Mailer who described Hunter Thompson's gonzo journalism as "tennis without a net", though - which was a very similar point.
posted by Paul Slade at 2:10 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Paul Slade at 2:10 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
MetaFilter: something a kindergarten's arts and crafts class had slapped together.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:11 PM on July 3, 2016
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:11 PM on July 3, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZzb_6LtMjY&t=103
posted by NortonDC at 9:52 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by NortonDC at 9:52 PM on July 3, 2016 [1 favorite]
As my family were early adopters of computers (first one in '78 when I was 6), I always used a word processor. So, of course, I now have a lovely collection of manual typewriters.
WordStar. Man, that brings back memories. So much frustration trying to get it to print correctly on the dot matrix printer. Damn thing always left the wrong amount of space, leading to an inevitable printing over the perforated tear line.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:52 PM on July 4, 2016
WordStar. Man, that brings back memories. So much frustration trying to get it to print correctly on the dot matrix printer. Damn thing always left the wrong amount of space, leading to an inevitable printing over the perforated tear line.
posted by fimbulvetr at 12:52 PM on July 4, 2016
The first time I was in a newsroom, it was clattering, buzzing chaos - phones ringing, people shouting, typewriters bashing away. The last time I was in one, it was utterly silent, just a few people in headphones typing (or just as often, merely mousing) in their own little worlds.
See also - smoking at work, the lunchtime pint, lightboxes, scalpels, contact tape., linen testers, cover meetings... all gone, like chip wrappers in the rain.
I have edited copy you people wouldn't believe.
posted by Devonian at 7:03 AM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
See also - smoking at work, the lunchtime pint, lightboxes, scalpels, contact tape., linen testers, cover meetings... all gone, like chip wrappers in the rain.
I have edited copy you people wouldn't believe.
posted by Devonian at 7:03 AM on July 5, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm glad to see Steven King's Wang get a mention.
posted by MarchHare at 9:15 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by MarchHare at 9:15 PM on July 5, 2016 [1 favorite]
I have edited copy you people wouldn't believe.
I feel your pain, brother.
An old mate of mine, chief sub on the paper where I then worked, was once presented with an article about the Danish economy which was so confused, so sub-literate and so carelessly put together that no-one on the subs' desk could figure out what the hell its author was trying to say. They took their revenge by headlining it: "Something written on the state of Denmark".
posted by Paul Slade at 2:21 PM on July 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
I feel your pain, brother.
An old mate of mine, chief sub on the paper where I then worked, was once presented with an article about the Danish economy which was so confused, so sub-literate and so carelessly put together that no-one on the subs' desk could figure out what the hell its author was trying to say. They took their revenge by headlining it: "Something written on the state of Denmark".
posted by Paul Slade at 2:21 PM on July 7, 2016 [1 favorite]
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posted by Artw at 11:42 AM on July 2, 2016