![]() But like all software, word processors were designed for a specific purpose (even if in some cases that purpose has got a little blurred), and to that end it's worth remembering that just because Word tends to be our first go-to these days for tasks for which we might previously have used pen and paper, it is not a replacement for all that we do with paper or files (after all, we cannot play tic-tac-toe in a Word document nor turn it into a paper airplane - unless we print it first). Whether you love them, are indifferent to them, or blame them for increasing the temptation of endlessly tinkering with your text like a modern William Langland, word processors are so much more than typewriters. I'm so used to hitting "Undo" nowadays that when I break a mug or put my foot in my mouth in real life, I find myself mentally reaching for the Cmd-Z keyboard combo. Cut, Copy and Paste have removed a great deal of agony from the way we edit and revise documents, and while we now take the ability to select a word and type over it for granted, I'm sure Peggy would have appreciated just how much repetition and time such seemingly small features can save when she was ordered to re-type that letter in the first episode of Mad Men. Even ignoring the vast number of tools that modern word processors now have built into them, from mail-merge to bibliography management, it's easy to forget just how revolutionary programs such as WordPerfect, WordStar and Microsoft Word (and, to a lesser extent, the physical word processors that preceded them) were when we first started using them in place of typewriters. In an earlier post, I said that the word processor was essentially a straightforward replacement for its analogue equivalent, the typewriter, but that statement was overly simplistic. Just as how-to-write books usually (with the exception of Stephen King's excellent On Writing) inspire cynicism in many writers, so do their software equivalents - you know, writing software.īut Microsoft Word is writing software, and those who look down their noses at writers using dedicated "writing software" instead of a plain old word processor may find themselves in turn looked down on from above the noses of those clacking away at an Olivetti. Many of us have a natural tendency towards conservatism when it comes to the tools we use and rely on, but when it comes to software aimed at writers there seems to be an extra layer of cynicism that I think is rooted in something else: "writing software" has, for many, become synonymous with what is really "story theory software." There is a whole industry of "how-to-write" software out there software that, at its worst, promises to turn your fuzzy idea into a multi-million-dollar blockbuster by following on-screen wizards (which is a sweeping generalization in itself - there is some great software out there founded on some very interesting and well-respected story theories, such as Dramatica Pro and Contour). ![]() It is undeniably true that many - most? - professional writers do only use Word, and it may well be true that my grouchy invented straw man does indeed only need Word and an idea, but does that make it an unbreakable rule? More importantly, does it follow, as is so often the implication, that a work written in software intended to make the writing process a little easier is therefore somehow worth less? (Actually I quite like the idea of Flaubert working at a mill.) Jane Austen didn't need (spit) "writing software" to write Pride and Prejudice and Zombies!Īnd why, that Dostoyevsky/Flaubert/Tolstoy was written with cold gravel on a paper bag while the author was working twenty-nine hours down at t'mill. At some point, however, in the writerly discussion equivalent of Godwin's law, there will come the inevitable growl: They then get some helpful replies, pointing to Word alternatives, or to software like our own. Someone asks what software other writers use or recommend. Such exchanges often take the following form. But there is a truth here, even if it can't be pinpointed to age, and it's one I run into occasionally when I see our writing software discussed in writers' forums. I am tempted to use this as an explanation for my immunity to the charms of the iPad, but my mother, who will be a septuagenarian next month and won't thank me for saying so, loves the thing, so I know that really age has nothing to do with it and I'm probably just an early-onset curmudgeon. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things. Anything that's invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it. Anything that is in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.
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