The Case for Paper: Handwriting vs Typing

Most writing practice tips focus on getting words on the screen faster. But what if the secret to better drafts isn't speed at all? The handwriting vs typing debate has been around for decades, and for good reason: each drafting method activates something different in your brain and on the page. Here's what working writers have discovered about using paper strategically—not as nostalgic throwback, but as a tool for producing stronger work.

Paper as Your Slowdown Switch

A common complaint from writers: when writing by hand, they can't write as quickly as they can think. Frustration builds because the brain runs two sentences ahead, and the hand can't keep pace. Handwriting forces a slowdown.

But maybe that slowdown can be the point.

Using paper forces consideration of every word more carefully. Sometimes the computer demands the same careful attention, but there's a difference between the two—and it's not just about speed.

Writing longhand brings a strange atmosphere. It feels almost performative nowadays. The computer seems intimate, private—everyone has one, everyone's always typing into phones or laptops. But there's something vulnerable about writing on a page. People lean over and look. A notebook can be accidentally left behind. Words just sit there, exposed on the paper, while typed words hide behind passwords and folders. That vulnerability and exposure may actually change what you're willing to put down—and often for the better.

The Typing-Up Advantage: Your Secret Revision Layer

Once you've embraced paper as your slowdown tool, the next layer emerges: the revision built into retyping.

The process of typing up handwritten drafts can work as a powerful advantage—if you disengage that part of your brain that considers it a tedious step. Falling into the trap of thinking of it as stenography, just reading handwriting and transcribing whatever appears on the page, misses the opportunity entirely.

Typing up provides an intermediary draft between what occurs on the page and what goes onto the computer for the first "real" draft. Everyone has different naming conventions for draft numbers, but consider the handwritten version as version 0.5 and the first typed version as the true first draft.

Some level of interpretation always happens when moving handwriting to the computer. Even when making a pass as a pure stenographer, typing exactly what's there, pauses happen naturally (revisions, additions, subtractions) so that the first computerized draft often doesn't closely resemble what sat on the page.

Are We Really Recommending a Hand-Revision Step, Too?

Another layer of revision, to your taste: do a hand-editing pass on the paper before typing. Reading through, crossing things out, putting little stars in, adding sentences with arrows pointing to where they belong. By the time the first computerized draft exists, the work has progressed considerably further than if someone had just sat down at a Word document from the start.

Famously, Lauren Groff—that extremely prolific writer who just knocks novels down one after another—writes everything by hand for her first draft, then throws it in the garbage. Maybe she ceremoniously burns it. Either way, Groff gets rid of that initial rough draft on paper and types up or writes by hand again that same story, keeping only what feels important, what's stuck in her mind from the initial draft. That's an extreme form of this approach.

To try it yourself: After your handwritten session, don't transcribe immediately. Wait a few hours or a day. Then, as you type, give yourself permission to change anything—cut whole paragraphs, add new ones, rephrase sentences that felt clunky. Treat typing-up as your first real first draft revision, not data entry.

When to Use What

These drafting methods vary from project to project. Sometimes there's an urge to get something down fast, not forget it, to have hands move faster than brain—and that's what the computer offers. When confidence runs high about getting a particular thing down, when it's less about the particulars of sentences and more about capturing an idea in rough form to massage later, the keyboard makes sense.

But even then, many writers print those pages and make edits longhand on the printed paper before implementing those changes. In all versions of this process, paper eventually appears.

Here's a simple framework:

• Brainstorming or capturing ideas quickly: Computer

• Working on prose that needs to be deliberate and careful: Paper first, then type up

• Revising a draft that isn't working: Print it out, edit by hand, then implement

• Stuck and don't know what to write: Paper, with a timer, no stopping allowed

The handwriting vs typing question isn't really about choosing sides—it's about knowing which tool serves which purpose. Paper slows you down when you need to be deliberate. The keyboard captures ideas when speed matters. And typing up your handwritten draft? That's where your revision lives, hiding in plain sight.

Building these writing practice tips into your routine doesn't require a complete overhaul. Start with one handwritten session this week. Notice what shifts. At Hewes House, we help writers at every stage discover the drafting methods and revision techniques that actually work—through book coaching, developmental editing, and a community that understands the mess and magic of getting words on the page. Your story matters, and you're not alone in telling it.