Etched in Ether

The word processor is not, never mind what some writers say, "just a better typewriter." It is a modification of the relation between the writer and the language . . .

Writing on the computer promotes process over product and favors the whole over the execution of the part. As the writer grows accustomed to moving words, sentences, and paragraphs around -- to opening his lines to insertions -- his sense of linkage and necessity is affected. Less thought may be given to the ideal of inevitable expression. The expectation is no longer that there should be a single best way to say something; the writer accepts variability and is more inclined to view the work as a version. The Flaubertian tyranny of le mot juste is eclipsed, and with it, gradually, the idea of the author as a sovereign maker.

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