Before I launch in, a big caveat: write and plan by hand if you can. If you can’t, don’t even bother reading this. I vividly remember a phone GP telling me in 2016 to “go for more walks” – clearly missing the bit on my notes that I needed a wheelchair to leave the house. No-one needs to hear the benefits of something they can’t do. So if that’s you and writing by hand, read The Joy is in the Doing instead!
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Still here? Then I’m assuming you can write by hand, so here’s why you should!
Why writing by hand is such a wonder
The research I used to quote on this showed that people wrote faster, better, and more by hand than typing. But that study looked at children and was in 2009. We’re adults and we’re even more digital now. So should we still write and plan by hand?
Yes! This 2025 research round-up shows an astonishing array of benefits:
- You process information more deeply.
- You retrieve memories better.
- You’re more creative.
- You can regulate stress better.
- You’re more mindful.
- You draw out more nuanced feelings.
- You increase your agency.
- You increase your focus.
Exactly what we need for planning stories, especially novels, and for writing poems: full focus and concentration, a clear memory, creativity, subtlety. Everything we want from and for our writing: immersion, mindfulness, a sense of agency, a flow-state.
(Btw, that article’s written in a weird “Well done you for being a Better Person” way, but you don’t have to be Already Superior, you can just write by hand more and enjoy the benefits.)
And this 2025 study, The Neuroscience Behind Writing: Handwriting vs. Typing—Who Wins the Battle? found that “Handwriting activates a broader network of brain regions involved in motor, sensory, and cognitive processing. Typing engages fewer neural circuits, resulting in more passive cognitive engagement. Despite the advantages of typing in terms of speed and convenience, handwriting remains an important tool for learning and memory retention, particularly in educational contexts.”
Writing by hand has other practical benefits, too:
- You can write anywhere. Leave your work desk and write somewhere else in the house. Leave the house, if chores / people are distracting, and write in a coffee shop or pub garden. If the weather’s lovely, write outdoors. (My Tips for a Summer of Writing has heaps of suggestions on that.)
- You escape digital distractions. Paper has no incoming notifications. No tempting buttons just a click away. No thesaurus, search engine, or (heaven forefend) genAI as a flow-stopping crutch for every momentary doubt. It’s just you, the ink, and the paper.
- You can’t word-count. Word-counting is the enemy of focus and flow: it takes you from the joy of doing into measuring the worth of writing with a ruler. When you can’t word-count, your focus stays inside the writing itself.
The immersion, joy, and focus of planning and writing by hand, surrounded by felt-tips and post-its, transforms the experience. I bloody love my laptop, but it’s not for composing on. I will hammer through my inbox on the keyboard, for speed and convenience, but for poems, stories, even this blog post, I pull out my pen.
Your pen
You absolutely need a good pen to write by hand, but that doesn’t mean forking out a fortune. As I wrote in my Top Ten Tips for Students, ballpoints rely on friction to pull the ink out, which is why they tire your hand so much. Fountain pens don’t use friction: they just glide, and they don’t have to be expensive. With the pricy ones, you’re often paying for a brand name and a more expensive case: even the cheap ones have perfect nibs. I use a £10 Helix and it’s a dream.
If you’re left-handed, try fineliners or gel pens. To test a pen, hold it lightly between two fingers and drag it gently across the page. If it leaves a clear line, it's a good ’un: it doesn’t need friction to work.
Your paper
What you write on is completely up to you and will often vary from project to project. For novels and short stories, I write on A4 lined paper, which I staple together as I go. For extended freewriting or poems, I use hardcover Paperblanks or A5 notebooks, which fit in my handbag. (I like a hard cover to press on.) People with pockets often like Moleskin journals, as they fit easily and comfortably into pockets.
If you use notebooks, make sure they’re ones you’re not afraid to use wantonly. I used to stick to “Black n Red” notebooks or the plain-coloured WH Smiths ones, as the pretty ones felt too special to use. These days, whenever someone asks what I want for my birthday or Christmas, I say “A hardcover Paperblank notebook, just a bit bigger than A5, with lined paper, ideally one of the Medievalish designs”: I now have plenty, so I can use them fearlessly!
If it’s an artisanal notebook, make sure the paper is hot-pressed. Often, handmade and craft-fair notebooks use cold-press paper: the fibres will catch on your pen and the ink will bleed. Apart from that, write on whatever's easy for you to write on and to carry where you want it.
Typing up
You will want digital versions of your writing, of course. These days, I type up when I’ve drafted a scene – then print it and redraft or edit by hand. Sometimes, I save typing up to warm me up at the start of a session or for low-brain parts of the day (I have a 4pm brain-slump). Some people write a whole story then type up. Type up when it suits you and your process.
Just as you want a pen that doesn’t hurt, you want a typing-up arrangement that doesn’t hurt. At minimum, that means putting the handwritten text vertical: use a recipe-book holder or balance it against a heavy jar with a crocodile clip and cardboard to hold it in place. If I have lots to type, I also raise my laptop with a couple of thick books, so it’s at eye level, and use a separate keyboard at desk level, for maximum ergonomics. When I was too ill to sit up at my desk, I contrived a cunning arrangement with a lap tray, side-table, recipe stand, and a very thick book.
Make your typing-up easy and enjoyable, too:
- Put on a playlist. It’s entertaining and also helps with the rhythm of typing. Ideally, a playlist with no vocals in a language you understand, so the words don’t distract you. I love it as a chance to listen to all the music that I’ve still got stashed on iTunes which I can no longer carry about with me!
- Hide the screen distractions. Switch off any notifications and switch to full screen, so you don’t see that familiar task-bar with all its workish associations. In Word, you can also hide its distracting bottom bar that keeps counting words, pages, etc, so you can just focus on typing.
- Type fast and free. Change your settings to not underline any spelling or grammar errors. Switch your autocorrect on and let it autocorrect misspellings. Don’t backspace if you misspell something: just do a spell-check at the end.
- Add your own autocorrect shortcuts: I have dozens of these now. Pa = pirate accordionist. nihs = New Inn Hall Strait. As well as phrases you type often, add your own regular spelling mistakes: my most common one is “catpain” for “captain”.
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Writing by hand and then typing up may seem like a waste of time when you “could’ve just typed it in the first place”. But when the writing itself is faster, easier, richer, and more joyous, when you can hold onto so much more of the story, be more creative, and write with so much more nuance, when you can write anywhere, when uncapping your pen becomes stepping into flow, it’s so, so worth it.
What's more, when you discover how much more freely you write by hand, how much more you produce when you’re focused and in flow, you realise this actually is the faster way. As so often, the scenic route of the path of joy ends up much more efficient than the “efficient” way.
And yes, I did write this by hand!
If you want to dive into writing by hand and you’re looking for a regular practice or a notebook project, the 30 Days of Writing will be just perfect for you: inspiring writing guidance for poems and/or flash-fiction (very short stories), to use daily or at whatever pace suits you. Including suggestions for how to manage the word-count of flash-fiction when you’re writing by hand!
You can start here and try the first three days for free. And as a launch treat, you can get the whole thing for 10% off until the end of tomorrow 31 May, with the coupon code: 30DAYSLAUNCHTREAT. Happy writing!
