Dictating your novel and cleaning up speech

Published on August 17, 2026 · Roberto Sirolo · 2 min read

Writing by speaking changes your working rhythm: the sentence is out before you've had time to judge it, and for anyone who freezes at the blank page it's often the quickest way to get moving. The price is that dictated text is spoken text, and it needs cleaning up.

How it works in NovLore

The microphone button is in the editor toolbar and in the new-work wizard. The transcription is done by the browser through the system speech APIs: it's free for everyone, because it doesn't go through a paid AI provider. You dictate in the book's language — the app maps the language codes to voice locales — and the speech is inserted where your cursor is.

On Firefox the button doesn't appear: that browser doesn't expose the speech API.

How to dictate well

Don't stop to polish. The point of dictation is speed: if you break off after every sentence to correct it, you've lost that. Dictate a whole block, then reread.
Short takes. Sessions of a few minutes are more manageable than a half-hour monologue, both for you and for the transcription.
Dictate dialogue. Lines read aloud sound false or true straight away: dictation is a great test bench for how your characters talk.
Decide the punctuation yourself. You can dictate it out loud ("comma", "new line") or add it afterwards: pick a method and be consistent.

What to leave to AI after

Speech has repetition, restarts, "you know", "I mean", sentences that set off again halfway. Removing them is editing, not writing: it's exactly the kind of mechanical work AI does well without touching your choices.

At the end of a session NovLore offers correction of the dictation at an intensity from 1 to 5:

1–3 — light cleanup: filler, false starts, punctuation. Fast profile.
4–5 — rewriting for flow, with more freedom. A more careful profile.

At the high levels reread closely: convenience rises, but so does the chance the AI "fixes" a choice you made on purpose.

Frequently asked questions

Does dictation use credits?

The transcription doesn't: the browser does it. Only the AI correction of the dictation uses credits, in proportion to the level and the length — and above the threshold the app shows you the cost first.

Is dictated text less "mine" than typed text?

No: the words are yours, spoken rather than written. The voice of an author who dictates is still their voice. The risk comes afterwards, if you let high-level correction rewrite it too much.