I've written a few stories in years past and posted on ASSTR at the time. Enough to appreciate the amount of effort it takes to write a decent story. Mighty difficult, tedious, time-consuming....many other challenges.
I have wondered about the use of voice recognition or dictation software for story composition. Has anyone tried it, or successfully utilized it as a tool? I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions.
I have worked as an editor with an author who is blind and uses voice-recognition software.
My impressions about the software are:
* It is probably okay for first drafts. It might even work as an aid to creativity, but that would depend on the author.
* All available software is pretty dumb when it comes to homophones. The author and editors need to become more careful for those.
* It is utterly tedious for the revision process.
I think there is a definite place for software which reads out text for authors. The voices available now sound pretty natural and hearing your text makes many types of errors much easier to catch.
I think there is a definite place for software which reads out text for authors. The voices available now sound pretty natural and hearing your text makes many types of errors much easier to catch.
Building on that, text-to-speech software, rather than OCR or speech-to-test, is useful for catching errors which can frequently avoid detection. The key is to read in reverse order (i.e. you read each paragraph in normal left to right, top to bottom order, but you start with the last paragraph in the story and then proceed to each previous one).
But then, that's a whole different kettle of stink! 'D
I have wondered about the use of voice recognition or dictation software for story composition. Has anyone tried it, or successfully utilized it as a tool? I would like to hear your thoughts and opinions.
If you're using text to speech software is the only way you're going to HEAR our thoughts and opinions, otherwise you're going to read them. :)
I've used it before, but my problem turned into something simple. I can type faster and more coherently than I can speak. If I was using it for a rough first draft, it would be fine. My problem is I will also edit as I'm writing - so I'd speak a paragraph, see where the software made errors in transcribing, then try to fix those on the fly. Then I'd forget what I was saying and have to go back again, or I'd think of something different.
When typing like this, at least for me, it's easier to just put the words onto the screen and keep my train of thought on the tracks. I may ... I do ... still make typo's and errors, but it's a lot easier than actually having to watch what I say show up on the screen.
I've tried it and it doesn't work well for me. I write differently than I speak. It also interferes with my creative process as I think much faster than I talk and talk much faster than I type. I use the time gap between thinking and typing to evaluate and edit what I am doing.
When I add talking into the mix it interferes. Plus, as I now have intermittent Aphasia I can randomly go mute which is no help. Lol.
When I add talking into the mix it interferes. Plus, as I now have intermittent Aphasia I can randomly go mute which is no help. Lol.
Ha-ha. Sorry to poke fun at your affliction, but authors going 'mute' isn't that uncommon of an affliction, especially mid-story as they continue to wrack up dreaded yellow flags on their stories.
I have wondered about the use of voice recognition or dictation software for story composition.
Remember that software was originally intended for either the Blind or Legally Blind users. In that frame of usage it has improved a lot, but there is still a huge range of improvements to be made. For them as well as anyone else using that type program. Its just one of many tools available. For example spell checker programs will only report actually miss-spelled words not words that sound right but don't have the correct meanings.
