Pity about good people making mechanical writers (7)
I believe the answer is:
typists
'mechanical writers' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being plural nouns.
Perhaps there's an association between them I don't understand?
'pity about good people' is the wordplay.
'about' indicates an anagram.
'good people' becomes 'sts' (I am not sure about this - if you are sure you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'pity' anagrammed gives 'typi'.
'typi'+'sts'='TYPISTS'
'making' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for typists that I've seen before include "They operate character printers" , "Keyboard operators" , "short of key players" .)