A look at today’s apps, aids and methods.
I’m currently coaching a memoir author who is writing her story with talk-to-text software. Editing her work has me thinking about how many options writers have today compared with not that long ago when the only choices were to type your words on a typewriter or sit with a pen and legal pad and write out your stories longhand. Even though I don’t use a lot of the latest bells and whistles, I find it useful to explore how technology can help—or hurt—your memoir writing process.
At one extreme: AI
Although you’ll still have to supply your stories, AI can do all the writing for you. At this point no one knows whether AI will take over writing from humans, but right now publishers do not want your AI-written memoir. So let’s take that off the table.
Still, AI can do some of the lighter lifting. To learn what all AI can do, I went to the source and just asked AI. To quote ChatGPT, “When starting out, it can be difficult to know where to begin or how to structure your life story. AI tools can prompt questions, suggest themes, and help you map out key events and timelines. This guidance can make the initial stages of writing feel less overwhelming and provide a clear framework for your narrative.” I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I’m not going to bother.
Also according to ChatGPT, some AI programs can identify holes in your narrative, redundancies and inconsistencies. These slip-ups are really common when you’re writing a long, themed narrative, so this area of help is useful, too, for memoir authors—even though I rely on myself instead.
My advice is not to feel above consulting AI to see what it can offer you. There’s no shame in partnering with AI to help you with structural elements or even some rewording. Maybe you’ve written a very long sentence and want to see how it can be summarized. That’s okay. On the other hand, if you have confidence in your writing, don’t feel pressured to use AI just because it’s available.
Grammar checkers
I’ll say the same thing here: there’s nothing to be embarrassed about in using something like Grammerly or a more comprehensive writing program like Scrivener in checking your grammar, organization and more. I haven’t experimented much, but people have told me that they often don’t understand the edits and suggestions. If you don’t know how critical the “corrections” are, you can’t judge whether to accept them. Maybe you feel that the edit harms the flow, but at the same time you don’t want an actual grammar error in your book.
At this point, I’ll always recommend a human editor who can make those judgments and explain things to you. For example, in my own text, Word will always underline where I’ve eliminated the “and” at the end of a series. Here’s what I mean:
“I was hot, angry, exhausted, embarrassed. I couldn’t focus on the problem at hand.”
A grammar checker will want to change it to: “I was hot, angry, exhausted, and embarrassed.” You can omit that serial comma, but the “and” is essential in grammar. I know this. But there’s an acceptable style that in some cases omits the “and.” I like the cadence and frequently choose that grammar-fracturing style for effect.
Is a grammar checker better than nothing? You bet. There are lots of grammar rules people aren’t certain about, from “that/which” to the more difficult homophones like “complimentary/complementary.” If you feel that grammar is a weak spot for you, this technology can be very helpful.
Voice-to-Text
Even though it still can make many errors in understanding a dialect or fast speech, voice-to-text software is a godsend to people with arthritis in their hands or other disabilities that hamper keyboarding. If you’re driving and need to text someone, speak your message out loud rather than trying to text while driving. It may save your life.
However, as a fast typist who’s been at some keyboard or other since I was 11 years old, I could not begin to dictate a coherent story. It’s not natural to speak in full, perfect sentences. If I had to, I’d learn, and I’m sure some people are really good at it. But if you’re not, I think voice-to-text will give you more of an outline than a first draft.
Even if you’re an articulate speaker, that’s a skill distinct from writing. With speaking, you will consider inflection and timing. With writing, you’ll think about how the reader will see it. So you may choose different words depending on whether you want them to grab the attention of ears or jump off the page.
The greatest value of voice-to-text may be in freeing you up to think out loud and just tell your story without being focused on the screen and maybe seeing errors or having other distractions. So if voice-to-text has worked for you in dictating, say, emails, and you can commit to serious editing of the text later on, I’m certainly not going to discourage you from using this technology.
Human Skill + Tech
You’re out to dinner and suddenly a scene comes to mind from winter of fourth grade. You’d completely forgotten that bullying incident on the playground, but there it is, clearly in your head and available to fill a big hole in your memoir’s second chapter. Grab your phone! Text yourself, leave yourself a voicemail, write it out in your notes app—just make sure you have it somewhere. Don’t trust yourself to remember that scene as clearly the next time you sit down at your computer. This is what technology is for—to help you.
But taking over for you? No, at least not yet. It’s pretty easy to understand why you as a human are no longer necessary for writing straightforward, informational copy with perfect spelling and grammar. But in a memoir, not only do you need your original stories, which AI cannot find online, but you need your writer’s voice that AI or a grammar program cannot create for you. It can be subtle, the distinctiveness in the way your writer’s voice rolls out your narrative, but it’s the key to compelling copy. You’re the only you. And you’re a human, just like the readers you hope to attract.