I was reading a history of typewriters and learned something wild about the first drafts of famous novels

I was browsing a used bookstore in Phoenix and picked up this old book about writing tools. It said that Jack Kerouac typed 'On the Road' on a single, 120-foot scroll of paper so he wouldn't have to stop to change pages... I always pictured him just using a normal typewriter with separate sheets. It makes me think about how the physical act of writing can shape a story. Has anyone else come across a weird fact about how a writer worked that gave you a prompt idea?

4 comments

4 Comments

murray.robert1mo agoTop Commenter

Heard Hemingway wrote standing up, true?

henry_ross1mo ago

Read that Truman Capote wrote lying down.

ruby6595d ago

That thing about Hemingway writing standing up... I heard he used a bookshelf as a desk. Kinda makes sense though, all that action in his stories, maybe he needed to be on his feet to capture that energy. But Capote lying down seems the total opposite, like he was sinking into the words instead of standing over them. I read somewhere that some people think the position you write in affects the rhythm of your sentences. Definitely makes you wonder what kind of weird habit might unlock something in your own work.

green.iris1mo ago

That Kerouac scroll fact always makes me picture the crazy energy in that room. It reminds me of what henry_ross said about Capote, how a writer's weird habit becomes part of the work's rhythm. I once tried writing with my non-dominant hand to force slower thinking, and it sparked a whole character who was clumsy but determined.