Nanogenesis: Keystrokes, Movements, and Technological Affordances in Digital Literary Writing Processes

Samenvatting

The advent of home computers in the 1980s and the subsequent use of these devices by literary authors to write their novels and stories introduced numerous challenges to the study of the literary writing process (genetic criticism). The digital writing environment obscures the writing actions by default, complicating analysis. Despite these challenges, the digital environment also offers new opportunities for genetic criticism. This paper discusses the use of keystroke logging software as a solution to the difficulties posed by digital writing and as a means of acquiring new insights into the creation of texts and the creative process. It emphasizes how the temporal dimension of writing, captured through keystroke logging data, facilitates a novel type of ‘nanogenetic’ research. Through various examples from Jens Meijen’s writing of his story “Constellaties”, this paper defines nanogenesis and reflects on how this tracing of the author’s movement can facilitate research into the technological affordances, the relation between reading and text production, and the writing dynamics regarding narratological aspects of the text.