It's been so interesting handwriting one of my current WIPs instead of typing it. It's an epistolary novel, so I figured writing the rough draft by hand would give my protagonist a more organic letter-writing voice/style, and also help me notice if/when a letter is getting unrealistically long given that the character didn't type it.
It also SIGNIFICANTLY slows down my thought process as I'm writing, which I feel is helping me write in a much more streamlined way; I have to think carefully about what I want to physically write down and what is superfluous, and so I don't go on for pages and pages about backstory or worldbuilding. I'm sure a large part of this is because I'm writing as one character directly to another, so I'm able to perceive the audience not as the book's reader, but as the friend that the protagonist is writing to. So she obviously wouldn't go on a huge rant about backstory because her friend already knows what there is to know about her background. So that's nice, because I tend to info dump in my typed rough drafts, maybe because I can type just about as quickly as thoughts come to me. If that makes sense. :p
How about you? Has anyone else noticed the ways handwriting a story changes your process in significant and/or subtle ways?
