“Wouldn’t work” is maybe a strong word for these cases, but in Misery, Paul Sheldon’s busted-up typewriter keeps losing keys, which you can visually see in the typed-out segments of the new book he’s being forced to write.

Also, Flowers for Algernon (the short story, at least) uses a similar trick with Charlie Gordon; the book is Charlie’s journal, and you can visually see >!his writing progress from very simple sentences filled with typos, all the way to dense, highly intelligent monologues and scientific findings. It makes it even more heartbreaking when his intelligence starts to recede, and you watch him not only panic as he feels his mind reverting, but lose his literacy as his writing gradually returns to what it was before.!<

Glad you picked up The Lost World too! I remember enjoying it about as much as the first novel and was gonna recommend it.