Paper Writers: what happens at submission time?

[Dario D.]

Hi all.

I have a quick question: What happens when a paper-writer (not me) is done with his/her book, and has to start submitting manuscripts?

Do they have to transfer the entire book onto a computer and print, or is there some other way? (pretty sure most agents don't accept handwritten submissions)

[spacejock2]

Years ago my mum used to type up manuscripts for writers. Nowadays the cost of something like that would probably pay for a new computer.

I think you'll have to type it up, unless you're owed a few really big favours.

There's also the issue of letting the only copy of your MS out of your sight. That would be enough to have me chewing my fingernails to the bone.

[alleycat]

There have been more than a few writers who wrote their book in longhand and then had someone else type it. Erle Stanley Gardner had a whole secretarial pool (although I think he dictated his rather than writing them).

[ORION]

I'd tell them time to learn how to use a computer LOL...Not only for submissions but for all the contact and revising necessary for publication.

[Linda Adams]

They could have it professionally typed. Cost an arm and a leg though, but there are people who do that near any university.

[steveg144]

I wouldn't attempt a book-length project on paper (the idea of transcribing all those words into a Word doc would just depress me too much) but recently I have been doing more and more of my short pieces (essays and short stories and drafts of posts for my blog) on paper. I write them out into one of my Moleskine notebooks using my sparkly shiny new Waterman fountain pen. I believe I have certain, shall we say, "brain problems" that manifest themselves as the need to write a lot, so I find this is great therapy because it "slows down" my brain (I can type one heck of a lot faster than I can write legibly, I'll tell you that). Once it's done, I let it percolate for a week or so, then keywhack it into Word, run spell-check, twiddly lightly (I've found that my handwritten pieces tend to need a lot less nth-draft twiddling than those pieces that start out in Word), and I send it off. It's a bit more work, but I think it's improved my writing.

[WittyandorIronic]

Hi all.

I have a quick question: What happens when a paper-writer (not me) is done with his/her book, and has to start submitting manuscripts?

Do they have to transfer the entire book onto a computer and print, or is there some other way? (pretty sure most agents don't accept handwritten submissions)
((This is not a commentary on how you phrased the OP, but my lame headspace))

Haha! How the information age has changed me! For the life of me I could not figure out what the hell this thread was about until I read the comments. I kept thinking, "Paper-writer? Like a journalist? Or is that some weird literary over descriptive way of saying author?"

For whatever reason, it never occurred to me that you literally meant writing on paper... wow. TV and the internet have apparently finished frying my brain.

So my over digitized, highly computer reliant, would-die-without-spell-check-and-dictionary.com, advice is: Bummer. Start typing, dude.

[L.Jones]

Long story about overbooking writing projects led to me having a lot of trouble keeping my eyes on the screen and so I've written the rough draft of my wip longhand and am paying my college age son to type it up. I will do the editing and a LOAD of adding at the computer but the break has been wonderful and I discovered that I wrote much faster because there was not editing as I went along, I wrote and handed it off.

The longhand writers that I know mostly key in the work as part of their editing process, btw.
annie jones

[JimmyB27]

((This is not a commentary on how you phrased the OP, but my lame headspace))

Haha! How the information age has changed me! For the life of me I could not figure out what the hell this thread was about until I read the comments. I kept thinking, "Paper-writer? Like a journalist? Or is that some weird literary over descriptive way of saying author?"

For whatever reason, it never occurred to me that you literally meant writing on paper... wow. TV and the internet have apparently finished frying my brain.

So my over digitized, highly computer reliant, would-die-without-spell-check-and-dictionary.com, advice is: Bummer. Start typing, dude.
You're not the only one who thought like that.

[CaroGirl]

Paper writers must be extremely careful in a strong wind. It's best to always carry a large, heavy rock, especially outside or around open windows.

[James D. Macdonald]

As far as I'm aware no one accepts hand-written submissions. (Exception: if the book is calligraphed, and the calligraphy is part of the package.)

Someone is going to have to keyboard it.

[TheIT]

I wrote the complete first draft of my current novel WIP longhand. Typing it in became my first revision, and now I'm revising it using the computer. For backup copies, I scanned jpeg images of my notebook pages into my computer.

Whatever works. For me, I find composing easier if I write longhand, but revising seems to be a combination of rewriting on paper and typing.

[Straka]

There's also the issue of letting the only copy of your MS out of your sight. That would be enough to have me chewing my fingernails to the bone.

I believe C.J. Cherryth send in a hand written manuscript way back in the day and the publisher lost it.

[David I]

Paper writers must be extremely careful in a strong wind. It's best to always carry a large, heavy rock, especially outside or around open windows.

Indeed! It's a favorite plot point in movies to have only one copy of something, but it makes me very nervous.

Even in movies as recent as Love Actually, the writer is banging away at a typewriter--so his ages can blow into a pond.

Film directors love typewriters. In fact, in movies, writers still seem to use a disproportionate number of mechanical typewriters--they haven't even gone electric. It's ever so much more cinematic to have that bangety-bang going on--and you can do those close-ups where we see the typebars hammer each letter onto the page.

It's ever so much more pleasing than scribble-scribble or the modern clicky-cliky-clicky. Plus you can lose your manuscript in a fire. Or, like happened to Hemingway in real life, have all your manuscripts written to date in a suitcase that gets stolen.

[Gillhoughly]

I see a hand written submission it goes straight back to the writer or into the shredder. I don't have time to decipher handwriting or even neat printing. Unless you can print perfect New Times Roman:

A) Learn to type. It won't taint the words, promise.

B) If physically unable to type, there are dictation programs available. These are at present clumsy and slow, but useable.

But typing is faster, even with just two fingers.

Yes, you can hire someone to type, but it ain't rocket science, and the spell checker is really, REALLY cool!

Sure, some writers had typists taking dictation, but they could afford 'em, and because they were writing FAST.

Back then a typist who could clack away at a manual typewriter with speed and accuracy possessed a valuable skill--and also knew how to mess with carbons and changing the ribbon! Computers have taken away much of that physical effort. I'm sentimental about my old K-Mart portable that typed my first three novels, but hate using it now.

C) Learn to type.

I started with the old hunt and peck style and made it work.

Now I'm pretty fast at it, still using just three fingers on each hand and the right thumb, and I totally look at the keyboard!

D) LEARN TO TYPE.

[Dana-Lynn]

I used to write all of my stories out in long hand. For my novel, I started it in long hand, then typed it into the computer. It was great for editing purposes as I typed.

:D

[JoNightshade]

For the record, it also took me a while to figure out what a paper writer was (my mental image was a little paper doll jumping on a keyboard).

Sometimes when I get stuck, it helps if I switch to paper. Once it starts flowing again, I switch back to typing and plug it all in, editing as I go.

[CDarklock]

I keep wanting to just go berserk yelling "LONGHAND! It's called LONGHAND writing!"

But that would be rude. ;)

I used to write longhand. I was digging through a box the other day (I seem to be missing some of my world notes, which means I have at least seven notebooks full of background on my WIP's world) and came across a legal pad containing a lengthy portion of a story with a first page heading that said "Chapter 5". It goes on for some ten pages. It seems to be a good story. I wish I could remember chapters 1-4, or at the very least find what comes after chapter 7.

But I never even considered what to do if publication time came.

[Richard White]

My first novel I wrote long hand (115K), and then typed it in on the weekends (only one computer at the time and my wife needed it for classwork (she's a computer scientist).

I found writing it and then typing it in gave me my first set of edits. In a way, it was good because I didn't go back and edit the long hand material (maybe drew a line and said, "See Insert A" and then did some extra writing on a separate sheet of paper. I plowed through the novel in pretty good time doing that, plus I was able to take the sprial notebooks with me to work and get some extra writing in that way.

Sometimes, I think I'm going to try that again. Just to see if by changing things up, I change up the ol' creative juices.

[CDarklock]

I think writing longhand is great when you're first starting out. In another box, I found a short story entitled "The Whoojums" which I wrote when I was about seven or eight. It's quite amusing; it still has the A+ on it from when I turned it in as a third-grade writing assignment, but today I just cover my face and can't believe I ever wrote this crap.

Writing in longhand forces you to think longer about what's going to happen. My brain always works faster than I can write, even typing, but when you're going at 3 words a minute (I'm mildly dysgraphic) you do a lot more editing and continuity checking with the extra cycles. Over the years, that becomes automatic, so today my first drafts look a lot more like other people's third drafts.

But if I tried to write longhand now? Oh, hells no. I'd end up switching to shorthand so I could keep up, and I'd still throw the pad away in disgust within a couple hours, as I headed back to the PC.

[Soccer Mom]

I often write parts of my novels in my trusty notebook. It's my own combination of longhand and short notation.

[jessicaorr]

For the life of me I could not figure out what the hell this thread was about until I read the comments. I kept thinking, "Paper-writer? Like a journalist? Or is that some weird literary over descriptive way of saying author?"



That's what I thought too! I couldn't possibly write an entire book longhand. I'm far too spoiled.

[Jeremy]

Woah! Writing a whole novel in longhand! That’s impressive, I could never do that.

Anyway, I would treat the handwritten MS as a first draft and then do a complete rewrite of it into a word processor program. Many authors suggest doing a complete rewrite for a second draft anyway. (Check out step 11 from this author (http://www.deepgenre.com/wordpress/admin/craft/how-to-write-a-novel-part-2#more-480))

That’s what I would do if I was in that situation, good luck!