THE Group for Authors! discussion

original question: Just Wondering if anyone has used or is using Dragon (AKA Dragon Naturally Speaking ) to write with.

You've already heard this from many of the others, but my Dragon Dictate sits (metaphorically) gathering dust. As someone above mentioned, we speak differently than we write and that, alone, gets in the way of my process. What's more, the time I may have saved speaking the text is lost when I need to correct it, and there was often so much to correct that I gave up.

Stephen wrote: "Just Wondering if anyone has used or is using Dragon (AKA Dragon Naturally Speaking ) to write with. I have been kicking the idea around a little bit and think the investment would be worthwhile. B..."

There is no easy way. I have not used Dragon or any other such software. Why? You still have to edit the book.A Song of Africa

Dictating your writing works for some people, but others can't adjust to the difference between the spoken and written word. I've tried Dragon off and on. For some reason, I can babble to myself, other people, and even get on-stage with no problem, but put a mic in front of me and suddenly the cat's got my tongue. And not only do the mishearings mean you've got more editing than if you typed it (granted, my version is old, but still), but they're sometimes so hillarious they break your train of thought. And I don't know why, but the version I used--even though Dragon got the words separate-- after a while, it would start entering everythingintothewordprocessorsturngtogetherwithnospaces.

What I’m using Dragon for is reading back my MS in text-to-voice mode. Their voices and method of reading a story are much better than most text-to-speech software’s. Hearing your story read back to you can be a big help in spotting awkward transitions and lines that when spoken don’t mean what you meant them to. A big help in editing your work. Try it, you might like it.

Ronald wrote: "Stephen wrote: "Just Wondering if anyone has used or is using Dragon (AKA Dragon Naturally Speaking ) to write with. I have been kicking the idea around a little bit and think the investment would ..."
I have used Dragon numerous times over the years. I was a Vocational Rehabilitation Counselor. The cheaper additions like Dragon Version 9 are frankly more trouble than they are worth. You spend a lot of time correcting mistakes. Don't get me wrong, I am glad the product exists and the professional version is the best, and it could be I needed a much better microphone as well. Just be aware that you may find it cumbersome. I would try a few pages first before I dictated the whole document. I like the idea of having it read the document back though. I could just read it aloud myself and save the money. Best of luck. D.M.. Lee

I had problems with mics, too. Either they didn't hear what I was saying or they tried to transcribe my breathing. No goldilocks point.

Have tried Dragon but I find it more cumbersome than the straightforward method—more editing because (as others above have stated) it misunderstands words, runs words together & I can't create smoothly.

Best response:

Edward wrote: "I think if you are best able to tell a story verbally as opposed to writing it down because we have different voices when we speak vs when we write, then it might be a good idea, but filled with additional work you'll have to do later to clean up.
You'll have to weight the cost/benefits. It'll be worth it if that's the ideal way for you to initially tell the story - just to get it out.

Otherwise, I think it's the laziest idea I've heard in a while (if it's just to avoid the labor of typing)..."

I never heard of Dragon before this thread, so color me ignorant. But anyway, the principal question first should be what are you aiming to achieve? A better book, or a faster book?

I think it could be brilliant to somehow go into a mental space where you can just ramble out a great book. You might take six months to prepare and three hours to record. You might take no time to prepare, and just record and see what you get. But what you're doing is getting ideas and recording them in a way that you might not be able to achieve when fussing with the typing process. Cool, let's see what you get, but then let's see what you make of it when it's done and you're revising, editing... maybe writing anew while using your recording as a source.

O.K., that's creative process, and that takes some kind of voice recording. That's not a time to be dictating full-stops and apostrophes. When it's done, whether you type up transcripts or use some automated process is a wash, because either way you'll have a mess of material to work with and a long process of whipping it into a book.

When it comes to working out the little details, asking yourself why this word, why not that word, should I introduce another clause, should I break the sentence here, is this the place for an em-dash... there's no way you can work those questions out faster than you can naturally type, unless injury or disability get in the way of your ability to type. For someone who's at risk of ruining their hands through repetitive stress, dictating makes sense. For someone who can type just fine, type it your own damn self.

Unless you have a direct channel to God and can speak perfect books, there's no getting around the fact that writing a good book is a long painstaking process, compared to which the time necessary to type a couple of hundred thousand words is nothing. But recording/dictating could be a way to get out ideas, or sentence forms, that you might not be able to get out in writing at a slower pace. You might find that dictated dialog, internal monologue, or stream-of-consciousness passages work better than slowly crafted passages in some cases, and not others.

But anyway, I'm just rambling. Try what tempts you and see how it works. I might compose my next book with Tarot cards... or maybe even seek that direct channel to God.

I wasn't suggesting using Dragon to compose, only to read back what you have already written, I abandoned Dragon quickly when I discovered two things. First, Dragon trues to take over your entire computer. It seems to believe you want of use voice commands to do everything. Second, it's read-back function is not sophisticated as I had supposed it would be. It's no better--and not as good as--many free software packages that are available. It also slowed my Word down to a miserable crawl. So I uninstalled the damn thing and won't ever touch it again. $60 down the tube. Well, it wasn't the first time and it won't be the last. Live and learn.

Paul wrote: "Best response:

Edward wrote: "I think if you are best able to tell a story verbally as opposed to writing it down because we have different voices when we speak vs when we write, then it might be ..."

That's one of the reasons some people have found dictating a story doesn't work for them. On the other hand, there are plenty of authors past who dictated their stories to a secretary--a good typist can do over 90 wpm, which can just about keep up with a dictater who's used to talking for dictation.

And that's the main advantage of using voice recognition. For most people, 40 wpm typing is about as good as it gets, while they can talk at around 125 wpm. Yes, there's a bit of training to talk in a way the software can best comprehend you, but it's less involved than learning to touch-type. Older software has to be told where to put punctuation, I believe newer software can guess to an extent--periods and commas, anyway.

And have you investigated Tarot for Writers by Corrine Kenner? I've been thinking about getting it, and I'd very much like to hear from anyone who's actually used tarot to write their books. (I've been doing spreads for characters in my favorite books as a way of learning to read the cards, but I'm still not at all confident in what the cards are saying.)

G. wrote: "I wasn't suggesting using Dragon to compose, only to read back what you have already written, I abandoned Dragon quickly when I discovered two things. First, Dragon trues to take over your entire c..."

I've got an older version; it's not only much less RAM, but not that aggressive. Though it has a weird tendency to stop bothering with spaces when it inputs to my word processor.

I use Dragon (AKA Dragon Naturally Speaking ) to write my novels. I think it's great! It helped me get a good first draft of my latest novel, "All For Love: The SuperStar," in only four months!

I prefer typing and seem to think better that way but use Dragon to save my poor hands. I dictate a few sentences and go back and correct and move forward. It's still a bit faster than typing everything and my hands feel better.

Stephen wrote: "Just Wondering if anyone has used or is using Dragon (AKA Dragon Naturally Speaking ) to write with. I have been kicking the idea around a little bit and think the investment would be worthwhile. B..."

C.J. Ellison and a number of writers she knows have begun dictating their novels with great success. I personally could never do it. My fingertips are much better writers than my lips are. ;-)

I bring this up because CJ has spent the past couple of years developing a writers' planner--a paper planner for writers to track their marketing, their writing--to corral all the bits of a career writer's life into one place and keep everything tracked and on schedule.

As a side project, she created a different planner that helped her dictate her books. It has the kind of pre-planning needed, and what she calls micro-scene planning where ahead of time you work out enough details of setting and emotion and characters and such that the dictation flows really well--for those who like writing this way.

So if that interests or helps anybody, look for Plot Your Work on FB, and comment that you want to know more about her scene-planner/dictation planner.

I doubt if I'm supposed to put a direct link, because that would be promoting. But it sounds like something some of you may be interested in, even though I'm not!

[Disclaimer: I have been a beta-user of her writers' planner since the beginning and love it, so I don't want the fact that I do intend to promote her planner through videos and such later seem to be why I inserted this info here. It's not. It's because I think some of you may be interested in what she did, whether you decide to try it or not.]

My writing passion truly blossomed after my disability all but prevented any significant volume of typing. In fact, my disability first sparked my interest in sharing my words.

I am a better writer BECAUSE of voice-to-text technology. The methodical manner of organizing thoughts in my head, so I can lay out/format/punctuate correctly actually improves when I speak. I rarely use filler words when speaking (uhm, like, etc.) but my typing was full of THAT, REALLY and other words used to keep my fingers busy as my mind developed the next sentence.

VTT is a win for the ramblings of this condemned man! 😃
http://neverstopneverquit.com/books/

I tried several versions of Dragon, but I didn't like it. Perhaps I mumble, but accuracy is not good enough. Besides, I find dictating more tiring and clumsy (especially the punctuation).

I still find typing on a good mechanical keyboard much easier. With mechanical switches, the letters appear before the key reaches bottom so you are really touch typing.

Kevin wrote: "My writing passion truly blossomed after my disability all but prevented any significant volume of typing. In fact, my disability first sparked my interest in sharing my words..."

Modern technology is a wonderful tool, particularly for those with disabilities. It certainly levels the "playing field" in a lot of ways. I've never used Dragon, but am glad it's available for folks like yourself. A blind friend of mine has been instrumental in increasing my awareness of electronic accessibility, thus prompting my plans for my soon-to-be-launched website to be handicap accessible.

An amusing aside: When the Dragon software was first introduced, it still had a lot of flaws, inevitable in any new product. I heard a report on NPR by a woman who decided to try it out. She spoke into the software for some time, then the doorbell rang and her dog began to bark. When she came back to read what Dragon had recorded, she was dismayed and disgusted to find that the erudition of the dog far surpassed her own.

Kevin wrote: "My writing passion truly blossomed after my disability all but prevented any significant volume of typing. In fact, my disability first sparked my interest in sharing my words.

I am a better write..."

For me, the exact opposite is true. I can babble to myself all day, but put a mike in front of me and I choke up. When typing, I'll back up and retype without thinking about it until the words say what I want them to, but in speaking, I can get totally derailed.

Wendy wrote: "For me, the exact opposite is true ..."

That's why there's chocolate and vanilla. And coffee and strawberry and black raspberry and rocky road and ...

Agree - horses for courses. Tried Dragon a few times and found even with my atrocious typos on the laptop - I ended up with more product at the end of a session.