I have recently developed really quite limited vision (over the past six months mostly) and I just wanted to ask if you use a programme to type and review your work? I touch type quite well and use the apple provided assistance but I was just curious if you’d found a better way to review your chapters. I’ve been struggling with editing my fiction recently, especially my punctuation. I find it hard to do sometimes and it gets me down. Hope you’re having a lovely day xx
hi hun ! first of all i’m really sorry you’re going through this and i wish you all the best and i hope you’re well ! secondly, my apologies for taking so long to reply, i hope this finds you well.
i gotta admit that punctuation is my weakest area too and the source of a lot of frustration. my most reliable way of dealing with that is have my sighted friends (read: my poor girlfriend who somehow always ends up doing this) look through my writing and point out mistakes !
beside that there’s a couple things i do. this list isn’t at all complete because honestly i am not very advanced voiceover user and could definitely use a course to learn and utilise my mac and iphone better.
if you’re editing in pages on macbook, you can review your document sentence by sentence, thus ensuring your periods are where they’re supposed to be. turn quick nav on by pressing on left and right arrow keys simultaneously, then, using left and up arrows or right and up arrows, browse through the items until you find “sentences”. after this up and down arrows will take you through your doc sentence by sentence. don’t forget to exit quick nav by pressing right and left arrows.
your voiceover’s intonation will go up toward the end of the sentence. not always clear so sometimes good to check manually.
those i have no idea how to check except manually.
these are quite easy to check by listening through your text. if there’s a pause where a comma should be, there’s most likely a comma
again you need to check manually. i usually just pay extra attention when i’m writing so i know i needn’t check it after.
in words such as let’s and lets, i have no fucking idea other than checking manually and, when you’ve used voiceover long enough, there’s a slight subtle little difference your ear will learn to recognise
dashes, em dashes, (semi)colons, and brackets:
all by listening through, there’s a little pause in text like you would hold if you were reading out loud, generally easy to hear.
this is where i need a sightie. also if following a period, it’ll sound like there’s no period at all i,e; it’ll read the words without a pause.
also i want to say, please don’t give up and keep trying despite your frustration ! i write all my fic using voiceover only and i know i make a lot of mistakes but i’ve also learned where i usually make them so i know to be extra careful. generally speaking the use of voiceover has made me a better writer because constant audio feedback (i.e. not being able to see my text but rather hearing it read by a robotic voice) has improved my syntax and the flow of my text. your limited vision shouldn’t and won’t stop you doing what you love !!! i hated voiceover at first but now i swear by it and would recommend sighted people use it to better their writing.
thank you so much for reaching out ! i hope this helped and always feel free to ask more. i wish you all the best with your writing !
