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Overcoming Writer’s Block with Automated Transcription

by | Sep 24, 2018 | Writing

Use Automated Transcription to Break Through

If you’re a writer  —  of books, essays, scripts, blog posts, whatever —  you’re likely familiar with the phenomenon of the blank screen, a looming deadline and a sinking feeling in your gut that pairs poorly with the jug of coffee you drank earlier.

If you know that rumble all too well, maybe this blog post will help you get out of your rut. At the very least, it’s good for a few minutes of procrastination. The core idea is that thinking out loud is less arduous than writing. And it’s now easier than ever to combine the two, thanks to recent advances in speech recognition technology and automated transcription software.

Use automated transcription to overcome writer's block

Introducing Automated Transcription

Dictation is nothing new,  and plenty of writers have taken advantage of it. Carl Sagan’s voluminous output was facilitated by his process of speaking into an audio recorder, to be transcribed later by an assistant. And software like Dragon’s Naturally Speaking has offered automated transcription for people with the patience and budget to pursue it.

But it’s only been in the last couple of years that automated transcription has reached a sweet spot  —  of convenience, affordability and accuracy — that makes it practical to use it more casually. It’s useful for generating a first draft. It presents an alternative approach to the painful process of converting the nebulous wisps inside your head into something you can actually work with. This process is called idea extraction.

Part I: Extraction

Here’s how the automated transcription process works. Since everyone is different, borrow what works for you and forget the rest :

  • Pick a voice recorder and start talking. Try it with a topic you’ve been chewing on for weeks   or for an idea that flits into your head. Don’t overthink it; just start blabbing.
  • The goal is to tug on as many threads as you come across and follow them as far as they go. These threads may lead to meandering tangents, and you may discover new ideas along the way.
  • A lot of your new ideas may be embarrassingly bad. That’s all right. You’re already talking about the next thing! Unlike when you’re dealing with text, your bad ideas aren’t staring you in the face.
  • Consider leaving comments to yourself as you go. For example, “Maybe that’d work for the intro.” Your notes come in handy later.
  • These recordings can run anywhere from 20 to 80 minutes. Sometimes, they’re much shorter, in quick succession. Whatever works for you.

Part II: Transcription

Once you’ve finished recording, it’s time to harness the Power of Technology! The last couple of years have seen an explosion of tools related to automatic speech recognition (ASR), thanks to huge steps forward in the underlying technologies. When you import your audio file into the ASR software, it uses state-of-the-art machine learning to spit back a text transcript a few minutes later. That transcript won’t be perfect — the robots are currently in the “Write drunk” phase of their careers. But for your purposes, it’s good enough. You just need to be able to recognize your ideas.

Once you have your automated transcript, your next step is up to you. You can:

  • Export your transcript as a Word document and revise it from there.
  • Fire up your voice recorder again to dictate a more polished take.
  • Recognize that only a few words in your audio are worth keeping. That’s all right, too, since it didn’t take you too much time.

Tips for Perfecting Your Transcription

  • Use a recorder device or app that you trust. Losing a recording is painful — and the anxiety of losing another can derail your most exciting creative moments.
  • Audio quality matters when it comes to automated transcription. If your recording has a lot of background noise or you’re speaking far away from the microphone, accuracy is going to drop. Consider using earbuds or Airpods, so you can worry less about where you’re holding the recorder.
  • Find a comfortable space.You’ll find it a lot easier to let your mind “go for a walk” when you’re alone and comfortable in your environment.
  • Speaking of walking: why not go for a stroll? The pains of writing can have just as much to do with being stationary and hunched over. Walking gets your blood flowing  — and your ideas too.
  • If you’re musical, try playing a familiar tune while your mind wanders. There’s something about playing the same four-chord song on auto pilot for the thousandth time. It keeps your hands busy and lets your mind go to new places.

The old ways of doing things — whether it’s with a keyboard or a pen  —  still have their advantages. Putting words to a page can force linear thinking that’s otherwise difficult to maintain. But for getting those first crucial paragraphs down, for building keystone ideas into concepts and paragraphs, consider talking to yourself. It will jumpstart your writing, help you overcome writer’s block and give you more ideas for future work.

This article about automated transcription was originally published by Descript. It appears here with the author’s permission.