[stylist] JAWS and Our Craft

[William L Houts]

Glancing over some recent messages concerning screen readers and 
writing, I thought I'd pony up some experience of my own.  In general, 
my experience with Jaws as I carry on with my second novel has been 
spectacular, especially when considering that blindness itself is, to 
put it mildly, somewhat sub-optimal.  I wrote my first novel using JAWS 
with the Eloquence synthesizer  (I'm one of that screen reader's older 
customers --my serial number is only five figures long).  And as I 
prepare to plunge into the last third of my current book, I'm seeing 
that my writing has actually improved.  And I think that might be 
because writing with a screen reader forces the writer to pay attention 
to each and every word in a sentence, and make editorial decisions based 
on rock solid standards about things like run-on sentences and the use 
of ten dollar words where two dollars would serve the purpose just as 
admirably.  Also, nowadays I have no patience for adverbs which clutter 
up my prose line.  Noun, verb phrase period, that's the way many of my 
sentences go.  Well, no, actually that's a bit of a lie.  I write a 
comparatively poetic prose line, but it's rooted, I think, in elementary 
grammar, the exception being when I think a semicolon and dependent 
clause might be called for.

Anyway, I'd like to  know how other folks look at their writing from a 
technical perspective, and whether they feel that writing with a screen 
reader has helped or harmed their craft.  Any takers?


--Bill












-- 
"Let's drink a toast now to who we really are."

           --Jane Siberry