The Great Manuscripts On A Typewriter!

By Susan Reichert, Editor-in-Chief for Southern Writers Magazine 

If you write your stories using your computer then you will appreciate not having to use a typewriter. As a young girl, my grandfather had a manual typewriter in his office and I can remember him putting the paper in, turning a knob until the edge of the paper would show just enough that a bar would come over the paper and hold it down. Then he would hit each key to make words. When he let me, I would try to hit the keys but being a little girl, it took a lot of effort to hit the key hard enough to make a letter.

Though through the years the manual typewriter gave way to the invention of a motorized typewriter, and it became easier to hit the keys. I for one am glad they finally invented the computer key board we use for our writing today.

Did you know one of the early users of the typewriter was Mark Twain? I believe it said he started writing on a machine in 1876. I can’t imagine what that must have been like when comparing it to the manual my grandfather had in the late 40’s. You can go to http://mentalfloss.com/article/80104/19-authors-and-their-typewriterspub and read the letter he wrote to his publisher. He claimed he wrote his manuscript for Tom Sawyer on a typewriter.

Some historians think that his book Life on the Mississippi, published in 1882, was the first manuscript submitted to a publisher in typed form. Let’s face it, he is the only one who really knows.

There were other writers who came along who wrote their stories on a typewriter such as: L. Frank Baum,  author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; Ernest Hemingway, author of A Farewell To Arms; Orson Welles, author of Citizen Kane to name a few. If you recall, these books contain many pages–can you imagine the length of the manuscripts?

For writers today, we have our computers to use. These keys are so much smoother and easier than the old typewriters these authors used. I thought it only fitting to bring this up to remind us all that we are very fortunate in having an apparatus to use for our writing that is so easy compared to the machines these authors had to use. Can you imagine the manuscripts they might have written if they had had the computer plus google?

I think sometimes we forget how good we have it. So, the next time you sit down at your computer to write, give it a little pat, say a thank goodness, and begin your manuscript.

Stuck in the Middle

by Gary Fearon, Creative Director, Southern Writers Magazine


The great philosopher Taylor Swift once said, "I love the ending of a movie where two people end up together. Preferably if there's rain and an airport or running or a confession of love."  I think I might have seen that movie. 

Of course, what we don't see is what comes afterwards.  We usually don't see the happy couple getting blood tests, dealing with paperwork at the registrar's office, trying to lose weight for the wedding, or arguing a year later because someone didn't take out the trash. 

"If you want a happy ending," said Orson Welles, "that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." Indeed, most stories end at the point where there is a happy ending, a resolve, or a sense of hope.  Ever since man began telling stories, beginning / middle / end has been the standard. 

But in the early days of film, movie makers realized audiences would keep coming back week after week if they were given a story that has no ending.  Thus were born short features like Flash Gordon, Superman, The Perils of Pauline, and other cliffhangers starring recurring good guys, bad guys and damsels in distress, some literally hanging from cliffs until the next installment.

That same serialized approach became a staple of radio once it came along.  Even Amos & Andy had its roots as a fractured drama, complete with a somber opening theme.  Then, only a couple of decades later, soap operas dominated TV.  Romance and drama are a natural mix for a storyline that has no ending.  No sooner is one problem solved when three more come along.

NBC keeps its biggest mystery unrevealed on The Blacklist

Today, the "continuing story" concept is more popular than ever.  It's all over nighttime television, from Game of Thrones to Downton Abbey to The Blacklist. Miss one episode and you'll miss some event so pivotal that you'll be scratching your head down the road.

But these are not simply long sagas with no end.  Each episode includes its own weekly situation to be dealt with, and while we are still baited with a cliffhanger, we receive some satisfying conclusion to the drama du jour.  Otherwise it would get frustrating to invest repeatedly in something that never pays off because the story is forever stuck in the middle.

We have an inherent craving for resolve.  Like the tales we tell, our lives contain constant ups and downs, but when we succeed, the world doesn't stop to acknowledge each victory with "THE END".  We love a hero we can identify with and feel the elusive sense of closure through.

If we've written solid characters, their lives could continue beyond the ending of our story.  Choosing the most satisfying place to close the epilogue is how we give readers what they desire.  They are thankful for happy endings, because real life tends to be one big cliffhanger.