How to Master the Technical Aspects of Writing

Prior to the early ’80s, my word processor was a circa 1950 Remington typewriter. It weighed about fifteen pounds and pressing the keys was like playing whack-a-mole. I only had one ribbon for it, so when it got to the end, I reversed the reels and went back through it. With each passing letters had more and more gaps in them. That the keys were so worn, most of them smudged together, helped with that. I did the editing with White-Out. Backups? Forget it.

Around 1983, I got an Apple IIe computer with the AppleSoft suite of software, sort of an early version of Office, and discovered Nirvana. Maybe it wasn’t Nirvana, but since I’m listening to Kurt Cobain swear that he don’t have a gun, it came to mind. The point is, I discovered cut and paste, save as, and all the other magical technology that sprouted up about that time. I’ve been a geek ever since, so I've always embraced the technical side of things.

Even as a beginning writer, I’m sure you are using an adequate word processor and know all the standard functions that make them so indispensable these days. But I wanted to cover other technical aspects of writing, the workflow of writing, and the organizational side of writing. It’s not as sexy as cobbling together the next masterpiece, but it will help you save time and frustration down the road. So without further ado…

Software for Writing

You are probably using Microsoft Word or Apple Pages as your word processor. Since those ancient days of Applesoft, word processing software has grown and matured. Most of us grew up with that software, learned to type and write on it, and are comfortable with the functionality. But as a writer, I would urge you to get away from your existing word processing software. After all, you are not processing words; you are writing. You are a writer.

There are two principal reasons I want you to move away from word processing. I will return to one of them in the section on backups. The other is that I want you to separate the writing process from the editing process. Of all the changes I have made since I began writing, none has had a bigger impact than this. When I am writing, I write. Later, usually the next day, I edit. What this means is that while I am writing, that’s all I’m doing; cranking out words. I’m not thinking about sentence structure, spelling, or grammar. I’m writing.

And for that, you don’t need all the bells and whistles of a word processor; you need a text editor. This could be something as simple as Notepad or TextEdit. Again, under the backup section, I will explain why that’s not a great idea, but it would get the job done. You can type with no distractions on a plain white background, just like I did with that old Royal. Even if the software has basic spellcheck, turn that off. I don’t want you worrying about red squiggly lines. Just write.

Software for Editing

Once you are through with the first draft, do your first pass back through it in the text editor. This isn’t so much about spelling and grammar as it is about cohesion and structure. Does the article still make sense? Does each sentence make sense? Just do a quick pass and correct major, glaring problems. Save the document and then copy and paste (don’t you love it?) the entire thing into your editing software.

There are many choices out there, and I will not do a thorough analysis here, but I want to discuss a few. I’ve only used it twice, but if you are writing a book, I think your best choice would be Scrivener. It may even be your one-stop-shop for the entire process, but I would still urge you to turn off all editing for your first draft. If you are just writing articles, it may be a bit much.

Probably the most popular choice is Grammarly. I have used this off and on for years. It’s pricey, but it works very well, and there are plugins to make it work in your browser windows and most other software. It’s non-intrusive and catches most errors. Just don’t take its word for everything; you are still the final judge of what is ‘correct.’ The free version does most things, and you should at least get that one.

No matter which version of Grammarly you choose, I want you to do your editing in its web-based app. It has a nice clean interface, and its assistant is in a sidebar with a lot of different options. You get more options with the paid version, but the free one will definitely get the job done.

The other major option is ProWritingAid. It doesn’t really have a functional free version, but the paid version is much cheaper than Grammarly. This is what I am currently using (sort of, I’ll get back to this in a minute). Instead of a sidebar, it has a lot of functions across the top and has many more options than Grammarly. Sometimes, it’s too many options. You can go down the editing rabbit hole and never come out again. But once you get used to it, picking the tools you like and need is easy.

While I pay for ProWritingAid, I still keep the free version of Grammarly. They both catch most errors, but they also both catch things the other misses. So typically, I do all my edits in ProWritingAid, and then when I paste the almost final version onto the site where I am publishing it, I will let Grammarly give me the last polish.

I don’t worry about plagiarism because I know all of my work is original and I rarely paraphrase other content. But if that is something you want to double-check, know that both these products have a plagiarism checker. I wouldn’t suggest using them, however. Grammarly includes theirs with the free version and PWAs is and added cost. But neither is the best choice.

I would suggest using CopyScape. You give it a few bucks from PayPal and it charges you a few cents each time it checks a document. The actual cost depends on the length of the article. I use it to find my content out on the web, and I have had it find things that Grammarly did not. Even if you’re not worried about plagiarism, it’s useful to see where your content has ended up.

Software for Backups

Besides being a writer, I am a photographer. I have over 50,000 images in my portfolio. One thing I have learned the hard way is backups. Most people know about backups, but don’t worry about them until it’s too late. Don’t do that. I make sure that every one of those images is in at least three places at all times, one being the cloud. It doesn’t do any good to have three backup hard drives connected to your computer if your house burns down.

I have followed the same advice with my writing. More or less. First for the writing part. Even though Notepad would suit my needs and would give me the first copy on my hard drive, that’s the only place it will be until I do my normal backups and my editing. Instead, I prefer a cloud-based note-taking app. For the past ten years or so, that has been Evernote. It’s good, but it’s far from the only choice. OneNote, Google Docs, and several others do the same thing. With Evernote, I have the original on my hard drive. Within minutes, if not seconds, it’s also in the cloud. And from there, I can access all my content from my tablet, phone, or any internet-connected device anywhere in the world. This is a good thing.

So, as soon as I finish with the first draft, without doing anything, my document is already in two places, one of which is the cloud. Then, as soon as I paste it into my editing software, it’s in a third place. My workflow is that, as soon as I finish with the edits, I copy and paste that version back into my original, overwriting it. You may save it under a different name for version control, but I know my first draft is pretty useless as is, so that’s how I do it. You do you.

Then, when I paste the final version into my blog or onto Medium, it’s now in a fourth place. So, with no extra effort or software, my writing is backed up thoroughly. Since I have procedures in place for my photography already, they are also backed up to my external hard drives. But the point is, in case of a computer crash or other disaster, you don’t want your writing to disappear. You also want to be able to quickly find and retrieve anything you wrote, no matter how old it is. The article linked below, I first wrote in 2005, but when I wanted to retrieve it to publish in Medium, I had it within 38 seconds.

Writing is a creative process and you shouldn’t get bogged down in the technical aspects. That is why I want you to do your first draft unencumbered by technology. But you are still typing in bits and bytes of data, so it would benefit you to become familiar with the technology. It’s there. Let it work for you.

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