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Has anyone written with Voice Recognition, such as Dragon Naturally Speaking? My dad uses it for his anthro-stuff, and he says can go about 140 W.P.M. He also says that it is WAY more accurate than it was a few years ago.
I type by touch at 85 W.P.M., and I know a mistake the instant I've made it, so I can backspace in no time at all. I think that all of the editing Voice-rec would cause would only frustrate me.
posted
There are too many issues with formatting, sentence structure, punctuation, and more. I couldn't ever use voice recognition, as it would take away too much of my control over my prose, and I'd have to go back and spend many tedious hours fixing everything.
Posts: 233 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I have always wanted to try one of those things. My typing skills SUCK! I would like to be in the 85 wpm range but I am not. I can almost type by touch, but I still look at my fingers occasionally. Ok, about every three words or so. So a voice system is very intriguing. Any body know where to look for a good one that would break the bank?
Posts: 471 | Registered: Sep 2003
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posted
I could never do it! I have to write through my hands, whether using a keyboard (preferred) or a pen. I've tried dictating stuff on occasion (when my hands were occupied with a baby, when my carpal tunnel syndrome was really bad), and while it's fine for nonfiction, I can't do fiction that way.
Posts: 73 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
I write for 2 to 4 hours at a time and on 2 different computers. I just can't see myself talking to myself, out loud, for that long. I'm sure that after 100 pages i'd have a sore throat. That doesn't count the time it takes to learn it.
posted
I've tried to use a couple of the voice recognition software packages. The bigest problem is the investment in time to get it even close to accurate. If you are not a very articulate (not to mention accurate) speaker, in a quite environment, it just isn't worth the trouble.
As far as how fast I can type, it doesn't matter. I can type much faster than I can come up with what I want to put in my story. So overall, the keyboard is still the best way for me.
posted
Every so often, I hear from someone who has a "great story" they want written, but they don't know how to go about getting it written. (I just know I'm going to hear them offer to let me write it for them--and we can split the money 50-50!)
I tell them to get a tape recorder (and an audience, if necessary), and TELL the story into the tape recorder, then get it transcribed somehow. That way, they have something on paper that can be edited and developed.
I think voice recognition software would be great for people like that, though I really wonder how many of them would actually go to that much trouble. (It would be easier to get some writer to write it for them, ya know?)
posted
Dragon--when I have about ten loads of laundry to fold--I can "write" and fold at the same time. You do have to learn a lot to go with it, but once you do, it is a good tool, just like anything else out there.
Shawn
Sheesh edited--I wrote this after a ten hr work shift.
[This message has been edited by srhowen (edited April 01, 2004).]
posted
They don't usually see it that way, milord. The really frustrating ones think that since they came up with the idea, the story is still half theirs.
They don't understand that ideas are everywhere and are not copyrightable.
Jane Yolen has said more than once that the question "where do you get your ideas?" really bugs her because it makes it sound like coming up with the ideas is the hard part.
Some people really do think that it is, though.
When I find someone like that, I tell them that most writers have so many ideas of their own that they want to write, there's no way they'd be interested in writing someone else's idea (unless the person with the idea wants to pay the author, in a ghost-writer kind of arrangement).
This is also the answer I give to people who are worried that someone is going to steal their ideas. Since ideas aren't copyrightable, they are completely stealable; but it isn't the idea that's crucial, it's the execution, the writing, the characters, the setting, the description, the words, the style--all things that each writer brings to an idea, and each writer would bring differently to the same idea.
posted
I remember we started one of the 1000 ideas thread. Not that it reached anything close to 100, but well. I know Christine did a story from it as well as I did.
Well, the results were drastically different. Even if you made an outline and had two writers write from it, the stories would still have major differences.
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