Fiction Writer’s Toolshed | Practical Tools for Authors
I record a lot of what I make into my phone. Every episode of this podcast starts as some kind of voice memo, and I use recordings for many of my worldbuilding pieces.
Speaking gives me a different way into the work. I can get rough material down without staring at a paragraph and trying to fix it before I continue.
My current best approach is something I’m calling say it first: draft out loud, get the recording into text, and work with what you made. Here are four ways to talk a scene, three pitfalls I learned from, and nine ways to begin.
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Fiction Writer’s Toolshed
Say it First: Drafting Your Fiction Out Loud | ep 021
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Your mouth doesn’t have a backspace key
Speed is part of the appeal of speaking a draft. But the part I find especially useful is that I can’t keep deleting and rewriting a paragraph in front of me. I say it, and it’s there in the recording.
I can repeat something or try another version. Both versions remain available. That helps me make an actual rough draft instead of agonizing over the same opening.
The recording doesn’t need to turn straight into manuscript prose. It might give me a scene’s structure, a character’s vocabulary, or one useful detail. Those are things I can develop.
Four ways to talk a scene
These modes generate different kinds of material. Try the ones that seem useful and notice what comes out. You don’t need to memorize them or do all four.
1. Tell it like a story
Recount it as if you were telling someone what happened.
In my example, a person arrives home tired from work. The lights are already on. He knows the kitchen light is tricky to turn on, so whoever is there has probably been in the house before.
I can keep talking from there. One observation gives me something to respond to, and the next detail starts to appear. This is the workhorse of the process for me: telling the story gives it momentum.
2. Talk the bones, but leave gaps
Sometimes I know pieces of a scene without knowing how they fit. I can still speak those pieces.
I might move between rough prose, stage directions, and camera directions. I can also say what I don’t know yet. A placeholder lets me move past a gap that might otherwise keep me at the keyboard or send me off to research.
This is where I’d start most people. Freely talking and brainstorming can produce a rough structure or a useful bit of material, even when you can’t tell the whole story yet.
3. Be the character
Speak as the character in first person and present tense. There doesn’t have to be a scene. Talk about whatever they can’t stop thinking about.
Try three or five minutes, as I suggest in the episode. Listen for their vocabulary, what they choose to say or avoid saying, and what they keep circling back to.
Much of this may become character notes rather than prose on the page. It can still give you raw character moments to draw from later.
4. Do a camera pass
Stay outside the characters’ heads. Describe what a camera could see: who moves, who stays still, where people stand, and what surrounds them.
This is the external-only lens I mean in the episode -- I correct myself when I initially say it backward. You don’t get to explain what someone feels during this pass. You have to look at what’s visible.
If your dialogue feels like two floating heads talking, this can help you find the physical scene around them. Take the director’s seat and say what you see.
Turn the recording into text you can work with
The basic process is to record, obtain the transcript, and bring the text into your writing document. Then you can correct it, decide what’s useful, and develop the material.
I mention Voice Memos on iPhone, Recorder on Pixel, Samsung Voice Recorder, and Otter in the episode. Transcription support depends on the device, software, language, and sometimes region. Check the instructions for the tool you already have.
- Apple Voice Memos transcription instructions (opens in new tab). Apple supports transcription on iPhone 12 or later, with language and region limits.
- Google Pixel Recorder transcription instructions (opens in new tab). Available languages and features vary by model.
- Samsung Voice Recorder instructions (opens in new tab). Transcript Assist needs a compatible Galaxy device and supported software and language.
- Otter’s Basic-plan limits (opens in new tab). This is an optional alternative with limits on transcription and imports.
Use the full transcript as your starting material. A generated summary serves a different purpose and won’t preserve everything you said.
Three things I learned the hard way
Transcription makes mistakes
Proper nouns can turn into other words. A character’s name might come back as several similar-sounding alternatives. Using a temporary label like “main girl” or “MC” is one way to keep going.
Expect to check the text. The goal is useful material you can work with.
The punctuation won’t always match what you meant
I pause a lot when I talk. A transcriber may treat those pauses as sentence endings and scatter periods through the text.
That’s manageable for me. I can fix punctuation when I’m working with the draft.
Make a sound check outdoors
I once recorded about fifteen minutes in conditions where you could barely hear what I was saying. The transcription couldn’t pick it up either.
If it’s windy, make a sound check with the microphone or headphones you’re actually using before you commit to a longer recording.
Nine ways to get started
The modes give you a lens. These give you a particular thing to try.
1. Don’t add a backspace key
Keep going instead of stopping to rerecord every stumble. Leave the rough takes in. You’re gathering material; the transcript can be messy.
2. Tell it to one person
Imagine a particular face. You can imagine mine if that helps. Having someone specific in mind gives the telling a direction.
3. Let a walk give you a boundary
Choose a familiar stopping point: the end of the block or a route you know. In the episode, I call this “your walk is the word count.” The practical value is the built-in start and stop. It won’t produce an identical number of words every time.
4. Record the mundane first
Say what the weather is doing, what the room looks like, or what time it is. You’ll probably cut that material later. It can still warm you up and give you a way to begin.
5. Say “brackets”
When you reach a question you haven’t answered, mark it aloud and keep going. “Brackets” gives you a place to return to rather than interrupting the draft to research.
6. Record a worry track
If you’re doubting the scene, give the doubt a minute or two. Say why you think it might not belong or where you think the plot hole is. Then continue.
Sometimes saying the worry out loud starts bringing possible solutions into view. It gives the uncertainty somewhere to go in the recording.
7. Set a seven-minute timer
Speak until the timer rings. Stop then, even mid-sentence.
For some people, having that small box to operate in feels liberating. You get to finish a bounded piece of work, and you may find yourself wanting to do it again.
8. Use your body and voice
If you’re drafting a confrontation, use the volume and movement of the scene. Stomp around your house a little. Say the line as the character might say it.
Getting physically involved can bring out lines and details I wouldn’t have found at the keyboard. Try it with a scene you’ve been avoiding.
9. Start with a fixed first line
I start this podcast the same way each time so I always know how to enter the script. You can give yourself a familiar entrance too.
It can be as ordinary as naming the place and describing it. The opening doesn’t have to be exciting, and you don’t have to keep it. It gets you into the act of making something.
Choose a way in
Tell the story. Talk the pieces you know. Be the character. Look through the camera. Choose something to say and give yourself a way to begin.
Then bring the recording into text and see what you made. A rough passage, a character detail, or a clearer sense of the scene gives the next stage something to work with.
If preparation keeps replacing the writing, listen to and read Fiction Writing Free Dive… or Die, an invitation to make something without waiting for the perfect setup or a place in a larger project.
A related conversation about starting and self-editing
Steven Puri and I explore cold starts, losing momentum midway, and judging a draft before enough material exists. We also discuss the familiar opening line as a warm start.
Listen to and read Writer’s Block and Flow State: Start Writing, Stay Focused (with Steven Puri).
Fiction Writer’s Toolshed: Practical Tools for Authors is a Make Exist podcast hosted by Tim Kearney. It offers hands-on training for fiction writers to diagnose writing problems, build their skills, and finish more work.