Showerthought: I learned a weird fact about old typewriters that gave me a story idea

I was watching a documentary last night and they said the QWERTY keyboard layout was partly designed to slow typists down to prevent jamming on 1870s machines. That made me imagine a fantasy world where magic spells are cast by typing, but the old, slow keyboard is the only thing keeping a terrible power in check. What's a surprising historical detail you've used as a prompt starter?

3 comments

3 Comments

black.mark2mo ago

Man, that's a brilliant twist on the QWERTY thing... the idea of speed itself being the danger. Really gets the brain going.

wade_lewis2mo ago

Oh that's a great idea for a story! So what's the specific terrible power in your head? Like, is it a demon that gets unleashed with typing speed, or some kind of reality-warping spell that goes wrong?

kaiblack1mo ago

You know, it's funny you bring up the QWERTY thing because I've been down a rabbit hole about old ink formulas lately. There was this early 20th century printer's ink that had arsenic in it for color, and when you handled the type long enough it would get into your skin. I keep thinking about that for a story where knowledge is literally poisonous to touch. The pages look beautiful but after twenty minutes your hands start to tingle. It makes me wonder how many other everyday objects from history had these hidden dangers nobody talked about.