Shakespeare had to know how to sharpen a quill and dip it in ink. Hemingway had to know how to use a typewriter.
You need to know how to use a computer.
Computer skills are completely imperative for the modern writer. And I don’t just mean opening up whatever word processing application that comes with your computer and banging out a manuscript. I mean basic familiarity with Microsoft Word, navigating e-mail and the Internet, preferably some knowledge of blogs and social networks, and all of the resulting etiquette and formatting rules.
Your agent and editor are going to want to communicate via e-mail. They’re going to want you to send your manuscript in a compatible format. Your editor will probably want to do your line edits by commenting and highlighting in a Word document. Your typeset manuscript may arrive for your review as a PDF. Your cover will certainly arrive as a PDF. Even if you don’t have a blog your publicist may want you to write guest blog posts, and thus will want you to know what makes for a good one. Or they’ll set up a Facebook or Twitter account for one of your characters that they want you to maintain.
None of these people in the chain are going to be happy if you insist on doing this stuff on paper and phone, if it’s even possible to do it on paper. And hopefully you have a sense of how emotion can be difficult to perceive accurately in an e-mail and thus adopt a proper e-mail “tone” when you’re communicating.
Whenever I bring this topic up, people often ask me, “What if an author sends you a completely brilliant manuscript through the mail, only it’s been handwritten in pen and they don’t know how to use a computer?”
Here’s what I’d say: I’d call the author, tell them their manuscript is completely brilliant, and politely ask them to send it to me in a Word document. If they don’t know how: no better time to learn.
To be sure, everyone along the way will be unfailingly polite if you’re learning these skills and no one is going to kick an author to the curb just because they struggle with some computer tasks.
But things are competitive out there, and computer skills should be considered as much a part of an author’s toolkit as metaphors and foreshadowing.
Besides, have you ever tried to write with a quill? Shakespeare would have traded a kingdom for a laptop.
Other Lisa says
@anon (the not-deleted anon) asking about editing – google "editing marks" – I've found some great pages online that illustrate the marks and explain their meanings.
Anna C. Morrison says
I remember writing poetry on a typewriter. I can't even imagine going backwards in time, technologically. I find it difficult to believe there are writers out there who do not know how to use e-mail or a word processing application. But like you said, no time like the present to learn!
Donna Hole says
Matilda:
I followed your simple advice about creating a blog last night, you know, just to show that not just any – – person – – could do it. And guess what, I think I did it! You notice I have a blogger profile now 🙂 And yes, I'm right proud of myself. Thanks for the advice.
But, I lost me!!! I THINK I created a blog, but now can't find it.
Anyway, I digress. . .
For people using the OpenOffice program:
I checked it out at the .org site but find it has really very little info on the features itself.
Would I use it instead of my Works program, or in conjunction? What makes it different than Works, beside the editing feature?
I've seen several demonstrations of Vista – its what my office uses now and thank God I don't really do any letter typing at work – and I didn't like it. My son has it on his computer and I still don't like it. I'm still using XP, but I probably bought the last computer on the market that still had it available. Is this OpenOffice program as different from Works as Vista is from XP?
………..dhole
Andrew says
Donna, download OpenOffice and give it a shot.
You'll find it straightforward, and much better than Works. Works is useless, because it doesn't play nice with anything that people actually use.
OpenOffice can handle files from both Word and WordPerfect. It can also convert your document to pdf.
And it's free.
dan says
Do we need a new word for the new-fangled kind of "reading" we do on screens?
by Danny Bloom
Are you reading this — or — are you screening this? How you answer
this question will determine whether you get to the bottom of this
column.
Alex Beam, writing in the Boston Globe on June 19, fired the first
volley in this now-national
discussion. "Do we read differently on the computer screen from how we
read on the
printed page?" Beam asked rhetorically. His column was headlined by a
savvy Globe copyeditor: "I screen, you screen, we all screen."
The answer to Beam's question is, of course, yes. From most of the
research that has come in so
far from academics in
North America and Europe, the answer is clear, although not everyone's
in agreement with what it all means.
zippy1300.blogspot.com
dan says
Bill Hill, a former Microsoft typeface designer from Scotland who is
now based in the Seattle area, told me that one reason that "reading"
on screens is still a bit problematical is because "we are still
paying the price of an engineering shortcut taken sixteen years ago."
I asked Mr Hill to explain this to me, and he replied: '' Sixteen
years ago, when the programmers at the NSCA were creating Mosaic, the
first Web browser, they made an engineering decision based on
expediency. They took an easy option –for which we're all still
paying a huge price in terms of the readability of the Web."
The engineers asked themselves:"How do we display content?"
They said: "Pagination's hard. The easy way is to display it all in a
bottomless window, so the reader can scroll through it. Then it
doesn't matter how much content there is on a Web page."
But according to Mr Hill and most other Web readability experts,
scrolling is much less suited to the way humans read than paging
through content.
"The human visual system — the eyes, the muscles which control them,
the optic nerve and the brain — operates like a high-speed,
high-resolution scanning machine," Mr Hill told me. "When reading, it
scans four targets per second, taking only 25ms to move from one
target to the next, each target about 5-7 characters wide."
"Type, and layout, has evolved over the 5500 years since writing
systems first appeared," Mr Hill continued, "and especially since the
widespread adoption of Gutenberg's moveable metal type — to optimize
for the way human vision works. Sure, you can learn to make do with
scrolling to read, if there's nothing better. And there's no choice on
the Web today.
And that's what we need to fix to make reading — and design —
first-class citizens on the Web."
Mr Hill, who believes in the power of printed books and in a rosy
future for e-books as well, says fixing the Web's readability won't be
easy, but that it can be done.
"It'll mean re-educating the design community in a new paradigm," he
said. "But it'll be worth it."
So, Dear Reader, er, Dear Screener, if you have scrolled all the way
down to the bottom of this seemingly bottonless guest column, let me
ask you one more time (and your comments and feedback are very welcome
in the comments section below): Were you reading this commentary, or
were you screening it?
————————-
Danny Bloom, ("60 going on 100"), is the author of over a dozen books
in English, Japanese and Chinese. A freelancer writer and blogger
based in Taiwan, he does not own a computer and has never even seen a
Kindle or BlackBerry or an iPhone.
Katy says
Quick question: if you are asked to email your manuscript to an agent, should you send it in PDF? It sounds basic, but I honestly don't know.
Thanks
-Kate
cheap computers says
I think its very important nowadays to learn the basic skills of computer.
logitech speakers says
I created my own blog with some very informative contents i implemented lot of things like emailing and links to other sites but i have a doubt on how can i implement manuscript in my blog?
Gretchen says
Sadly, there are some people who I am convinced do not have what it takes to wrap their head around computers. These are smart, creative, educated, and capable people who are completely confounded by concepts such as a directory structure. I'd hate to see them pushed aside by the publishing world. It probably happens.
I've supported various software packages, operating systems, and hardware for more than 20+ years. Sometimes it's a matter of taking the time to learn a new skill, and sometimes it isn't.
Even I with all those years of experience behind me, I still occasionally do the most inconceivably stupid thing possible. I go and post a poorly constructed, punctuated, or thought through comment on a public blog contradicting the opinions of a well-known literary agent. (How stupid is that?)
Or even worse, I say over Wednesday dinner with my octogenarian parents…
"Sure Dad, you should get a computer. I'll help you with it."
Gretchen says
Or post comments to a blog that's six months out of date. DOH!