Pros and cons of dictation?

Using dictation does not come naturally to me, so I type things out on my computer instead.

If an idea jumps into my mind I shoot myself an email about it. Kind of a reminder thing. That's as far as I go there

It works for some people, not so much for others, I imagine.

Me, I have a minor speech impediment and hate the sound of my own voice, plus I like my ideas to bounce around in my head without leaking out my mouth-hole before they make their way to my typing fingers. And I think better when typing or writing. But I know several authors apparently still dictate their stuff, either to capture ideas or to actually write the story (with Dragon software.)

I think like everything else in writing there is what works for you and what doesn't. Dictation isn't my thing so I normally carry a notebook with me and if it's not at hand (for example walking down the streets) I normally use the Notes App on my phone. That's what works for me.

I haven't but Siri is pretty accurate with speech-to-text I've found. This is an interesting idea to be dictating while driving. I'm not sure I could ever speak fluently enough to make it work for more than a sentence or two. I could see doing it for quick ideas or stream of consciousness stuff.

I wrote a short story using Windows' speech recognition once. It worked but I'm much more comfortable typing. If necessary I'll write in a Google Doc on my phone before I'd dictate. (I really wouldn't want to dictate in public, though I have dictated a couple of notes while walking the dog).

Zoe R said:

Does anyone use dictation to keep writing while they can't be at a keyboard?

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What God made a yellow legal pad and a ball point pen for.

caw

I'm a pretty visual person. I need to see the words in front of me to get them down in a cogent way. Maybe it's just what I'm used to, but I imagine that if I tried to dictate prose from the top of my head, I'd end up rambling and repeating myself and losing my train of thought a lot more than I do when writing. And it would be distressing not to be able to see a sentence I just wrote in front of me to check if it makes sense or not before going on.

Of course, dictating coherently might be yet another skill that one can improve with lots of practice, but verbally telling a story from scratch feels like it comes from a very different part of my brain than writing does. I think I'm a very different person in writing than I am when I speak.