Should you use a Digital Recorder?

What is a Digital Recorder?

A Digital Recorder is an electronic device that lets you

1. Record Voice Notes
2. Play Them Back
3. (in some cases) Edit Them
4. Transfer your Notes to a USB stick or a computer
5. (in some cases) Do additional functions such as email straight from the device using WiFi

It’s basically a small electronic device with some storage to keep your notes, a speaker to play voice notes to you, a microphone to capture voice notes, and usually some way such as WiFi or a USB interface to share files with a computer

Reasons to Use a Digital Recorder (if you’re an Author)

1. You can capture your thoughts almost anywhere
2. You can make productive use of your commute time, especially if you’re driving and taking voice notes is the only realistic option
3. There is something pretty amazing about hearing yourself speak out a storyline or character profile. Hearing yourself speak it out loud gives you a much better view of how it all sounds
4. There are parts of our brain that are only triggered by speaking and listening. Writing alone does not unlock our full creativity
5. It is very easy to carry around
6. You can capture Eureka ideas and breakthrough moments almost instantly. Ever have a great idea and by the time you got to your computer or notepad you couldn’t recall what it was?
7. With Digital Recorders you can easily save voice notes, email them, store them. Notes written down in a journal are hard to keep track of
8. Many Mobile Phones now come with very serviceable digital recorder software. While not as good or specialized as Digital Recorders, these apps are a reasonable substitute
9. It is a very good addition to your toolbox
10. A Voice Recorder is great for brainstorming – when you start speaking you can turn off all your ‘doubts and blocks’ and just come up with great ideas one after the other
11. A Voice Recorder is great for freenoting i.e. speaking out ideas non stop, and letting ideas that are in your subconscious come out, before your conscious can turn them off/hide them/censor them

Reasons to Not Use a Digital Recorder (if you’re an Author)

1. It is one more device to carry
2. It can be expensive, with a good digital recorder costing between $100 to $350
   1. To be fair, you can now use a digital recorder app on your Phone, and a free one is included, so this isn’t much of a negative
3. Hearing your speaking voice can be quite a shock if you’ve never trained your voice
   1. You might get side tracked into improving your voice
4. You might be more comfortable taking notes on your phone or laptop
   1. Do note that you would miss out on some ideas because a voice recorder is easier/faster to use
   2. Do note that speaking out ideas and hearing yourself speak taps into new areas of your brain and would be better for you, especially during the book writing phase
5. If you don’t do regular backups, if you lose your voice recorder you lose all your ideas
   1. The easy mitigation for this is to do a twice a week backup of your voice notes to your computer
6. Voice notes are very large in size and hard to search through

You will notice that most of the negatives are minor ones, perhaps even nitpicky ones

All in all, using a Digital Recorder to take voice notes, to capture ideas, and to think aloud story lines and character ideas, will add a lot to your writing, and make you a better writer