Voice to Text for Authors
Your stories live in your head, not your fingertips. Blurt lets you speak your drafts, capture fleeting ideas, and power through revision notes without staring at a blank page. Hold a button, say what you're thinking, release. Text appears wherever your cursor is — in Scrivener, Google Docs, Ulysses, anywhere. No more losing brilliant ideas while your fingers catch up. No more typing fatigue during marathon writing sessions. Just talk and write.
The Typing Problem
Staring at a blank page when the story is clear in your head
You know exactly what happens next. You can see the scene, hear the dialogue, feel the tension. But the moment your fingers touch the keyboard, the words evaporate. The cursor blinks mockingly. You type a sentence, delete it, type another. An hour passes and you have two paragraphs. The story was right there — you just couldn't get it out fast enough.
Losing brilliant ideas before you can write them down
You're walking the dog when the perfect plot twist hits you. You fumble for your phone, open Notes, start typing with cold thumbs. By the time you've pecked out the first sentence, half the idea has dissolved. You write 'something about the sister being the real villain' and hope future-you can reconstruct the magic. Future-you cannot.
Revision notes that never get captured properly
You're reading through chapter twelve and realize the pacing is off. You need to add tension before the reveal. You know exactly what's wrong and how to fix it. But you're reading, not writing. You don't want to break your flow to type detailed notes. So you highlight the paragraph and write 'FIX THIS' in a comment. Two months later, you have no idea what needed fixing.
Query letters that take longer than entire chapters
You wrote 90,000 words. Now you need 300 words to sell it. You've been staring at the query letter for three days. Every sentence feels wrong. You know your book is good — you can pitch it perfectly out loud to friends — but typing it makes you sound like a robot. The query letter you could speak in two minutes takes two weeks to type.
Worldbuilding notes scattered across your brain
You know your magic system. You can explain it in conversation. But when you sit down to document the rules, your mind goes blank. Writing out the lore feels tedious. So your worldbuilding lives in your head, inconsistent and unwritten. Six months into drafting, you forget whether teleportation requires blood or bone. The notes never got written because typing them felt like homework.
How It Works
Blurt works in every app authors use — Scrivener, Google Docs, Ulysses, Notion, Word. Anywhere you can put a cursor.
Hold your hotkey
Press your chosen shortcut. A small indicator shows Blurt is listening.
Talk naturally
Speak your scene, your notes, your query letter. Blurt handles punctuation.
Release and done
Text appears at your cursor. No copying, no pasting, no extra steps.
Real Scenarios
Drafting scenes by speaking them aloud
You're writing a tense confrontation between two characters. Instead of typing, you hold the hotkey and perform the scene out loud. The dialogue flows naturally because you're speaking it, not typing it. 'She slammed the door behind her. What the hell were you thinking? He didn't turn around. I was thinking about surviving.' 500 words in 3 minutes. Your first draft sounds like real people talking because it came from your voice.
Capturing ideas the moment they strike
You're making coffee when you realize the protagonist's mother should have been lying all along. You grab your laptop, cursor in your notes doc, hold the button: 'Chapter three twist — the mother knew about the inheritance from the beginning. She manipulated the protagonist into investigating because she needed deniability. Foreshadow in chapter one with the locked drawer she refuses to explain.' Idea captured in 15 seconds, fully intact. Coffee still hot.
Recording detailed revision notes while reading
You're rereading your draft and the pacing problems are obvious. Hold the button while you read: 'This scene drags. Cut the first three paragraphs, start with the phone call. Move the backstory about her father to chapter seven where it's actually relevant. The dialogue here is too on-the-nose — make it subtext.' You keep reading without breaking flow. When you return to revise, your notes are specific and actionable.
Speaking your query letter naturally
Forget typing. Pretend you're at a dinner party and someone asks what your book is about. Hold the button and pitch: 'It's about a marine biologist who discovers her dead sister's research notes predict the exact time and location of her own death. She has 47 days to figure out if her sister was murdered or if she's next.' That's your hook. Spoken in 10 seconds, more compelling than anything you've typed in three days.
Building your world by talking it through
You need to document your magic system. Instead of typing, explain it like you're telling a friend: 'Magic in this world comes from emotional debt. When you suppress a strong emotion, you can bank that energy and release it later as raw power. The catch is the emotion doesn't go away — it compounds with interest. Suppress enough grief and you'll eventually feel it all at once, magnified.' Your worldbuilding bible gets written because speaking feels like play, not work.
Writing character backstories through monologue
Your antagonist needs more depth. Close your eyes, hold the button, and become them: 'I was twelve when I realized my father would never love me no matter what I achieved. So I stopped trying to earn it and started taking what I wanted instead. People call me ruthless. I call it efficient. Love is a transaction and I refuse to pay more than I receive.' Character voice discovered through speaking, not typing.
Dictating synopses and book descriptions
You need a 500-word synopsis for your agent. You know your plot — you wrote it. Hold the button and summarize: 'Elena discovers her grandmother's diary hidden in the attic. The entries describe a murder that matches an unsolved case from 1952. As Elena investigates, she realizes her grandmother wasn't documenting the crime — she was confessing to it.' Synopsis drafted in 4 minutes. Clean it up later. The hard part — getting words on page — is done.
Why authors choose Blurt over built-in dictation
| Blurt | macOS Dictation | |
|---|---|---|
| Activation | Single hotkey, instant start | Double-tap key or click microphone icon |
| Speed | Text appears in under 500ms | 2-3 second delay before transcription |
| Accuracy | Handles dialogue punctuation naturally | Often misses em-dashes and quote formatting |
| Reliability | Works consistently every time | Frequently stops listening mid-sentence |
| Flow | Hold to talk, release when done | Uncertain when dictation starts and stops |
Frequently Asked Questions
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