Tools for Writing 1 - The Joy of Dictation

I use Dragon Dictate for about half of my drafting. By switching back and forth from typing to dictating, I have cut my chances of repetitive stress injuries in half, but there are other benefits:

• Now that the program allows for a more natural flow of words (vs. one word at a time), I get to hear the prose, especially the dialogue, from the time of its creation.
• I write about 20% faster with dictation.
• I am discouraged from rewriting as I write, which keeps me in a creative mind and avoids interference from the editor in my head.

For me, adjusting to dictation was as difficult as my transition from writing by hand to using a typewriter and from using a typewriter to using a computer (about a month of upset in each case). But I will admit that I have advantages in being a bit of a techie and in having early experience (as part of IBM Research) with dictation. This is not to say that the experience is painless or perfect, even today.

• Dictation seems to work better with nonfiction than fiction. The names and cadences of dialogue seem to throw the program at times.
• Sometimes the emotion is muted because fully acting things out makes for strange errors. Also, I am tethered by my headset.
• When I see an input error, it distracts me from the drafting. This usually is only a slight bump in the flow. However, I have been known to get frustrated and fight with the system (and angry voices do not transcribe well.)

Nevertheless, I would hate to go back to just typing. For one thing, I like the "feel" of dictating. Just as some writers edit better from printed copy and some brainstorming works better with a pencil and piece of paper (in my case, a poster-size page), dictating provides an option for capturing mood, emotion, and flow that other approaches do not. When I begin a writing journey, it's as if I have a fleet of cars rather than one vehicle for commuting. That gives me one more edge as I explore the limits of productivity.

 

Draft 4 - Style and the Fast Writer

An Officer and a Gentleman includes scenes where the character struggle through an obstacle course. No one runs the course with any style or grace the first time through. Elegance comes with practice and repetition.

Drafting your story is like running that course the first time, lots of stumbles, falls, and backtracking. With rewriting -- and attention to all those things from mechanical problems to what it sounds like when you read your prose aloud -- your style emerges in its full strength. Renee Miller has written an excellent blog entry on rewriting for style. As Damon Knight put it, "style is the music that comes out when you turn the crank." He counseled against worrying about style directly.

And yet, I find that there are decisions I make at the drafting stage that have a huge impact on style. The first is choosing the audience. This immediately constrains my word choice, the rhythms and the pacing. Think of it as dressing appropriately for a party or a conference.

I also do over half my drafting using dictation (Dragon Dictate). It helps me get a lot of words on paper and discourages any temptation for looping. But it also gets me hearing the sound of the words from the very beginning. That sound is a bit artificial to accommodate the program, but I've gotten used to that over time, and saying the words out loud with constraints is still preferable to hearing them in my head.

In particular, it helps me to get a sense of the characters. In good times, they do a lot of talking to me, and voicing their dialogue encourages them to keep the conversation going. Since dialogue is about a third of the final text, really hearing those sentences come out jumpstarts my feeling for the style of the work as a whole. I often will do an entire writing session with nothing but my characters talking to each other.

Finally, the style gets a boost in the draft stage just because this is a time when the passion goes from spark to forest fire. Choices that engage me lead to ideas and images that ultimately turn this story into a good friend. Any story I've completed evokes a distinct feeling in me - the same sort of beyond the description, body/mind feeling I get when someone names a person I know well or a city where I've spent time walking the streets. This feeling is directly connected to style for me. At the beginning, it may not flow. By the end, I hear unique music that comes out when I turn the crank.

Draft 1 - Stop endless looping

Do you go back after you draft a page, a paragraph or a sentence and immediately begin fixing it? Even worse, do you write a little further, and then go back and do some more fixing on what you just "fixed"? I call this looping, and it is the most common impediment to productive writing among my students. It can lead to complete paralysis, and there's a reason for that -- the part of your brain that composes is not the same part that edits.

Shifting back and forth wastes time and energy. Even worse, it provides an opening for editor in your head (who hates everything) to seize control. Most productive writers separate the act of drafting and the act of editing. As Casey Wyatt says in her blog,"I can fix it later."

If you don't loop, don't start. If you have a habit of looping, it can be tough to break. Here are a few suggestions:

• Give yourself permission to write badly. Do this every day for at least a week. Remember, it can always be fixed later on.
• Join a writing sprint (as Casey does), race against a timer, or use a forced march program like Write or Die! Some of my students have also found it useful to shrink their text editing windows down so they can only see a line or two at a time.
• Keep you forward momentum (and avoid distracting research) by inserting a word or symbol whenever the exactly right word, number or fact doesn't come readily to mind. For years, I have put the word "bagel" into my texts, and then searched for the bagels. (Luckily, I don't write about food.) I heard Jenna Kernan speak recently, and I was delighted to hear she uses the same technique, inserting asterisks (***).
• Use a dictation program. I use Dragon Dictate for at least half my drafting. It works better for nonfiction than fiction, but it still is faster than typing for me. And it is almost impossible to loop when you are dictating.

 However you do it, break the habit of looping. You'll probably find that your productivity will increase significantly, even though you will be spending more time later on editing.

Do you loop? Do you have a trick to stop yourself?