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Saturday, August 28, 2021

Retyping

Of the books I’ve read on creative writing, this one is the most comprehensive. 




Burroway offers some advice that’s relevant to typewriter users, who may sometimes have wished that they had a more easily alterable, digital text.

   

 So don’t bewail the need to retype your work as you transfer it from typescript to computer. It may be a blessing.

(Scanning is also an option, but it may introduce errors that are tedious to correct. I retyped my novel, and don’t regret it.)

3 comments:

  1. Excellent advice. I am writing a biography of the man who inspired the character of James Bond, and I've found that as additional information about him has come to hand, it's not always easy to fit it seamlessly into what I've already typed. I can see myself writing the whole thing again, from scratch.

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  2. I write the whole book in draft by typewriter, scanning to OCR daily. This a dozen times now. I then correct spelling and minor errors. When the book is finished I then do the rest on the computer. I wouldn't enjoy rewriting on a typewriter, because I would make too many mistakes again!

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  3. I figure that by the time I finish writing my first novel on my typewriter I should be a good enough typist not to make any mistakes. Oh - silly me...

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