The second week in the Fictation online course goes into the nuts and bolts of dictating fiction. I really like this section of the course because of the exercises that Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer gives.
The exercises are really quite excellent for getting you into the mindset to dictate your own fiction, as opposed to other exercises from other books I’ve read, which merely get you used to dictation in general. Her exercises ease you into the mindset of where you need to be in order to start dictating fiction, which is a completely different skill than dictating a journal or an email or any kind of nonfiction.
This week in the roadmap, she also has you watch the first two videos of the next segment in her dictation online course, in which she videotapes herself dictating some fiction, although she does fast forward through most of it. But the parts that are in real time show exactly how fast or slow she’s speaking, which is really helpful to give an example of how fast you can dictate fiction even when you don’t think you’re speaking very quickly.
She starts off in the first video working on the outline for the book she’s going to work on, and she dictates much of it into her computer. I really liked that, and what I want to do is use dictation on my walks to work on the outline for my next book. There are some things I need to get in place first, which I can only do in my computer, but once I get the skeleton outline down, I can dictate the details of each scene while I’m walking, which I think will help me to get my outline done faster than normal.
When I first started dictating seriously, I would do these exercises recommended by other dictation books that I had read. Not all of the exercises were bad, and some were quite useful. I think it depends on the type of person you are.
One exercise had you do a two-minute dictation of the scene, then a five-minute dictation of the scene, then a 15 or 20-minute dictation of the scene, which worked to get your head into the scene before you actually started dictating prose in the 15 or 20-minute dictation session. However, after a while, I found that tedious because I didn’t want to go through the scene so many times, especially if I thought of something interesting in the five-minute dictation and then couldn’t remember it in the 20-minute dictation. Cutting and pasting scraps of dictation from one place to another can be kind of difficult for me. It’s one of the reasons self-editing is difficult for me.
But I have to admit that doing a few exercises before starting your dictation session can be very useful. The exercises that Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer suggests are much more targeted toward your actual writing as opposed to exercises that have nothing to do with the book you’re writing. That’s probably why I like the exercises so much. I don’t feel like the exercises are wasting my time dictating something that I can’t use or that is a little difficult to use in my writing.
Dictation was absolutely not easy for me. It felt like I was trying to pull something out of my body that didn’t want to come out. The writing was stilted, although that might also have been because of the types of exercises I was doing at the time.
Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer often says that you just need to practice, and eventually the dictation will become easier. While I do agree with her, sometimes it’s hard to just hear that, especially when the practice itself is so difficult. Five minutes of difficulty dictating one day is not going to make you want to dictate again the next day.
What worked for me was simply forcing myself to do the dictation on my book. When I first started out several years ago, I would do five or ten minutes of exercises, which usually involved some journaling by dictation. It was helpful to get me used to the sound of my voice, but it didn’t make dictating fiction any easier.
However, I committed to dictating book two in my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, even if it was going to take me longer than it would have by typing. I dictated the book a little every day, but only about 45 minutes or an hour. I didn’t try to dictate longer because my brain would just get too tired. Also, if I dictated for an hour, the cleanup would be an hour and a half or two hours, so I didn’t want to dictate more because the cleanup would just take longer.
My dictation speed was horrendously slow in the beginning, and I can’t say it really picked up all that much by the end of the book, but it did start to pick up by the time I started dictating book 3. I never got to 5,000 words an hour or anything like that, but I could consistently dictate between 2,000 and 3,000 words an hour, usually closer to 2,000.
The true magic of dictation was the act of forcing me to dictate for an entire hour while out walking. There wasn’t anything else for me to do and so I would work on my book for an hour. It forced me to get the words down, and when I returned and saw that I had written 2,000 words, that was a nice hit of dopamine that made me more likely to try dictating the next day.
The only time the dictation didn’t work for me was when I was suffering from IBS. I had a lot of intestinal cramping and nausea, and I couldn’t walk for very long because of the pain. I stopped dictating and walking and typed the next manuscript or two.
But once I managed to get my IBS better under control, and once I found an enzyme that would enable me to eat a greater variety of foods without pain, I started walking and dictating again. Starting again was just like starting over, but I got used to it fairly quickly.
Walking and dictating have been great for my health, both physical and mental. The walking helps my IBS, to a small extent, and being outdoors keeps my mind fresh as I write the next chapter.
If you’ve been thinking about dictating, I highly recommend Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer’s dictation course. It’s a bit expensive, so you can try out her dictation boot camp, which at the time of this writing is only $37, and you get a discount on her dictation course if you take the boot camp.
Out of all the dictation books and courses I’ve tried, I definitely like this one the best so far. Her methods are very pragmatic. It’s too bad she doesn’t go much into Dragon NaturallySpeaking or Dragon Anywhere software, but I can understand that that might be too high a financial investment for most people.
By the way, I get nothing for endorsing her course. I just really liked it a lot, especially since I’ve tried so many books and courses on dictation over the years.
For someone just starting out in dictation, I think her course really is the best that I’ve seen. It makes dictation very accessible to people, especially those who have had problems with dictation in the past.
If you’ve been wanting to try to write faster using dictation but you’ve had too many hurdles in your way, this course might be very beneficial for you.
The exercises are really quite excellent for getting you into the mindset to dictate your own fiction, as opposed to other exercises from other books I’ve read, which merely get you used to dictation in general. Her exercises ease you into the mindset of where you need to be in order to start dictating fiction, which is a completely different skill than dictating a journal or an email or any kind of nonfiction.
This week in the roadmap, she also has you watch the first two videos of the next segment in her dictation online course, in which she videotapes herself dictating some fiction, although she does fast forward through most of it. But the parts that are in real time show exactly how fast or slow she’s speaking, which is really helpful to give an example of how fast you can dictate fiction even when you don’t think you’re speaking very quickly.
She starts off in the first video working on the outline for the book she’s going to work on, and she dictates much of it into her computer. I really liked that, and what I want to do is use dictation on my walks to work on the outline for my next book. There are some things I need to get in place first, which I can only do in my computer, but once I get the skeleton outline down, I can dictate the details of each scene while I’m walking, which I think will help me to get my outline done faster than normal.
When I first started dictating seriously, I would do these exercises recommended by other dictation books that I had read. Not all of the exercises were bad, and some were quite useful. I think it depends on the type of person you are.
One exercise had you do a two-minute dictation of the scene, then a five-minute dictation of the scene, then a 15 or 20-minute dictation of the scene, which worked to get your head into the scene before you actually started dictating prose in the 15 or 20-minute dictation session. However, after a while, I found that tedious because I didn’t want to go through the scene so many times, especially if I thought of something interesting in the five-minute dictation and then couldn’t remember it in the 20-minute dictation. Cutting and pasting scraps of dictation from one place to another can be kind of difficult for me. It’s one of the reasons self-editing is difficult for me.
But I have to admit that doing a few exercises before starting your dictation session can be very useful. The exercises that Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer suggests are much more targeted toward your actual writing as opposed to exercises that have nothing to do with the book you’re writing. That’s probably why I like the exercises so much. I don’t feel like the exercises are wasting my time dictating something that I can’t use or that is a little difficult to use in my writing.
Dictation was absolutely not easy for me. It felt like I was trying to pull something out of my body that didn’t want to come out. The writing was stilted, although that might also have been because of the types of exercises I was doing at the time.
Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer often says that you just need to practice, and eventually the dictation will become easier. While I do agree with her, sometimes it’s hard to just hear that, especially when the practice itself is so difficult. Five minutes of difficulty dictating one day is not going to make you want to dictate again the next day.
What worked for me was simply forcing myself to do the dictation on my book. When I first started out several years ago, I would do five or ten minutes of exercises, which usually involved some journaling by dictation. It was helpful to get me used to the sound of my voice, but it didn’t make dictating fiction any easier.
However, I committed to dictating book two in my Lady Wynwood’s Spies series, even if it was going to take me longer than it would have by typing. I dictated the book a little every day, but only about 45 minutes or an hour. I didn’t try to dictate longer because my brain would just get too tired. Also, if I dictated for an hour, the cleanup would be an hour and a half or two hours, so I didn’t want to dictate more because the cleanup would just take longer.
My dictation speed was horrendously slow in the beginning, and I can’t say it really picked up all that much by the end of the book, but it did start to pick up by the time I started dictating book 3. I never got to 5,000 words an hour or anything like that, but I could consistently dictate between 2,000 and 3,000 words an hour, usually closer to 2,000.
The true magic of dictation was the act of forcing me to dictate for an entire hour while out walking. There wasn’t anything else for me to do and so I would work on my book for an hour. It forced me to get the words down, and when I returned and saw that I had written 2,000 words, that was a nice hit of dopamine that made me more likely to try dictating the next day.
The only time the dictation didn’t work for me was when I was suffering from IBS. I had a lot of intestinal cramping and nausea, and I couldn’t walk for very long because of the pain. I stopped dictating and walking and typed the next manuscript or two.
But once I managed to get my IBS better under control, and once I found an enzyme that would enable me to eat a greater variety of foods without pain, I started walking and dictating again. Starting again was just like starting over, but I got used to it fairly quickly.
Walking and dictating have been great for my health, both physical and mental. The walking helps my IBS, to a small extent, and being outdoors keeps my mind fresh as I write the next chapter.
If you’ve been thinking about dictating, I highly recommend Sarah Elizabeth Sawyer’s dictation course. It’s a bit expensive, so you can try out her dictation boot camp, which at the time of this writing is only $37, and you get a discount on her dictation course if you take the boot camp.
Out of all the dictation books and courses I’ve tried, I definitely like this one the best so far. Her methods are very pragmatic. It’s too bad she doesn’t go much into Dragon NaturallySpeaking or Dragon Anywhere software, but I can understand that that might be too high a financial investment for most people.
By the way, I get nothing for endorsing her course. I just really liked it a lot, especially since I’ve tried so many books and courses on dictation over the years.
For someone just starting out in dictation, I think her course really is the best that I’ve seen. It makes dictation very accessible to people, especially those who have had problems with dictation in the past.
If you’ve been wanting to try to write faster using dictation but you’ve had too many hurdles in your way, this course might be very beneficial for you.
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