The Wall Street Journal had a great article last Friday: “How to Write a Great Novel”, reflections by 11 novelists on how they approach writing. Since the article is subscription only, I’ll feature one writer per day here, highlighting their process with a key excerpt from the article.
Today’s writer is Nicholson Baker, whose novels include “The Mezzanine,” “Checkpoint,” and “The Anthologist.”
He wrote his first novel, “The Mezzanine,” by dictating to a voice recorder during his commute to work. For his recent novel “The Anthologist,” a first-person narrative by a frustrated poet who’s struggling to write the introduction to a new anthology, he grew out a beard to resemble his character, put on a floppy brown hat, set up a video camera on a tripod and videotaped himself giving poetry lectures. He transcribed about 40 hours worth of tape, and ended up with some 1,000 pages of notes and transcription. Creating the voice of a rambling professor “was something I had to work on a lot in order to get the feeling of being sloppy,” said Mr. Baker.
Do any of you use a tape recorder for your writing? I did for K-9 when I was traveling up and down California to do my stand-up comedy gigs, working out possible beats and character business, transcribing the entire mess when I had a break, and then hashing out the plot based on that. But never since that since script.
How about you?
I've got a digital voice recorder for 'taping' interviews etc, but I'm way too self-conscious and horrified by my own voice to use it for writing purposes.
In fact, I prefer getting even a very rough version of stuff down on paper/screen and then shaping it from there, where I can see it better (literally and metaphorically).
Y'all MUST check out Baker's book A BOX OF MATCHES. It's a beautiful diatribe on the life of a writer and seeing each day with 'fresh morning eyes.'
Also, though I haven't read it since college, but VOX was a remarkable read, a dialogue-only volume of two people conversing via a phone sex line.
Oh and as to utilizing a voice recorder, I do but sparingly. I have enough distractions to getting my work done, the last thing I need is the excuse that I should "listen to the tape one more time, then I'll be inspired," y'know?
No tape recorder for me. IF something's important enough for a writing project I write it down and throw it in a file for later use.
- E.C. Henry from Bonney Lake, WA
I'd feel like an idiot using a voice recorder.
Google Docs and a list app on my phone are never far away, so I can add ideas/solutions to documents as I think of them.
I've never used a voice recorder. I type pretty fast, and actually recall from a temp job years ago that I seem to type slowest when trying to type from dictation tapes. My guess is if I tried to record my writing it would only come out sloppy and confused.
I've been experimenting with voice recognition software. You speak into a mic & it automatically types it into your document.
I'm a terrible typist and been tryng to keep it to a minimum. If I ever make it big first thing I'm gong to do is hire an assistant to type up my shit! LOL.
The sofware works OK, still makes lots of mistakes which i have to correct by hand.
I use Dragon Naturally Speaking by Nuance. I think 10 is the latest version. Got it off Amazon for about $40.
I haven't yet used one but I may once I get a voice recorder phone that's easy to use.
I can see recording some notes and doing a speech to text.