Backspaces, Retypes, and Idle Time: The Small Signals That Make a Draft Look Genuinely Written
A backspace that fixes a typo. A five-second pause before a hard sentence. A word typed, deleted, and replaced with a better one. A cursor that sits idle for two minutes while the writer stares at the screen. None of these moments feel significant while they are happening. They are the ordinary texture of writing, so automatic that most writers never notice them. But together, they are what separates a document that reads as genuinely drafted from one that reads as simply deposited.