Lars Eighner's Homepage Writers' Workshop FAQ: Q. What do I need to know about electronic word processing?

Q. What do I need to know about electronic word processing?

A. Unfortunately, probably as much as you can learn.

Great books will continue to be written in pencil on Big Chief tablets or to be typed on upright manual typewriters. However, we have already reached the point that handwritten manuscripts are not considered for publication. And the day is not far off when submissions will have to be in electronic form. While electronic formats remain imperfect and conversions between various electronic formats are worse than imperfect, hard copy -- which is to say "paper"-- will have to accompany many electronic submissions.

We are not yet quite to the point that paper submissions, without electronic versions, cannot get a hearing. But that day will come within perhaps the next ten years, certainly within the next twenty. A beginning writer, of course, needs to write. Whether that writing is done with a state-of-the-art word processor or with a pencil on a Big Chief tablet, hardly matters. The essential skills of effective writing do not depend upon the tools used. Electronic tools make certain clerical tasks easier. But they can do nothing for character or plot, and a run through an electronic spelling checker and an electronic grammar checker is not a revision. No one should hesitate to write because of a lack of electronic tools, but those who do have them, especially those beginning a career that may extend for twenty or thirty years or longer, ought to learn something about electronic tools when they get them.

Q. What is ASCII?
Q. I'm writing a book with many color illustrations and photographs, but the pictures make even two- or three-page sections enormous files that take a very long time to load, save, and back up. It takes a long time even to move the cursor around on a page. How should I handle photographs?
Q. Should I get an ink-jet or a laser printer?