Writing Instrument

What I want to look at today is the question of how much technology - If, um, a pen can indeed be called technology perhaps I should say the instrument of writing - affects a writer's style and level of production. I also want to consider other factors that may have an effect on prose style, such as personality, educational background, and so on. Now, production levels aren't so hard to measure in relation to the writing instrument used. The quill pen, for instance, would need continual re-filling and resharpening, which led to a leisurely, balanced style of prose full of simple sentences. Writing took a lot longer than now and the great novelists of the 18" century - Fielding, Smollett, Richardson - had a relatively small output, though some of their books ran to an enormous length. By the middle of the 19th century, the fountain pen had been invented. It didn't need such constant refilling, which can account for the more flowing, discursive style of, say, Dickens and Thackeray, as well as their tremendous output. Then came the typewriter, whose purpose, once you got the hang of it, was to speed up the writing process and was therefore much favored by journalists. This, it seems to me, gave rise to a short-winded style characterized by short sentences. A short prose style, if you like. Dictating machines and tape recorders led, as one novelist complained, to writers becoming too conversational, rambling and long-winded. Henry James, although he didn't use these machines, dictated his later novels and, well, some might agree with this accusation. Well, it looks as though we're going to have to leave word processors, computers, and, of course, the way film and its narrative techniques have affected writing style for another day.