Tell your story
Speaking your story
Dictate, hold a spoken conversation, or upload recordings you already made.
What it is
CharmWriter offers three separate ways to write by speaking. Dictation is press-to-talk: you hold a button, speak, and your words appear in the chat box for you to send. Talk to Charm is a hands-free spoken conversation — Charm listens, replies out loud, asks questions, and drafts prose when you say so. Upload a Recording takes audio you already made elsewhere, such as phone voice memos, and turns it into session material. All three feed the same place: your conversation, from which prose is drafted and the Story Bible is built.
Where to find it: Dictation: microphone button in the chat composer. Talk to Charm: "Talk to Charm" button in the mode bar (enable it first in Settings → Voice). Upload: the upload button beside the microphone (enable it in Settings → Upload a Recording).
What this covers
- Press-to-talk dictation into any chat box
- Live transcript preview while you speak
- Whisper transcription for accuracy
- Auto-send after a configurable pause
- Talk to Charm: hands-free spoken conversation
- Charm speaks back in your book language
- Spoken workflow commands
- Push-to-talk mode for slow thinkers
- Barge-in — interrupt Charm mid-sentence
- Voice, speaking speed and pause sensitivity settings
- Upload existing recordings (up to 90 minutes)
- Review a transcript before it enters your book
How to use it
- 1
Dictate into the chat box
Press the microphone in the composer and talk. You see a live preview as you speak, and the accurate transcription lands when you stop. Edit it if you like, then send.
- 2
Turn on Talk to Charm
Open Settings → Voice and switch on Voice Storytelling. This is a per-device setting, so turning it on on your laptop does not turn it on on your phone.
- 3
Have a spoken conversation
Tap "Talk to Charm" in the mode bar and grant microphone access. Speak naturally; when you pause, Charm replies out loud with a short question or observation, then listens again.
- 4
Say "write it up" when a scene is done
That spoken command turns the conversation so far into prose and appends it to your chapter draft. You watch it arrive on the page while it is written.
- 5
Switch to push-to-talk if you think in pauses
In the voice controls, switch the turn mode from Auto to Push. Charm then waits for you to press Send rather than deciding your pause meant you had finished.
- 6
Upload recordings you already made
Enable Settings → Upload a Recording, then use the upload button beside the microphone. Pick one or many files, check the quoted cost, and review the transcript before accepting it into your session.
What it gives you
Speech beats the blank page
Most people speak far more fluently than they write. Talking bypasses the inner critic that stalls a first draft, and CharmWriter is built to catch what comes out.
Hands-free means genuinely hands-free
In Talk to Charm you never touch the keyboard. Starting a chapter, finishing a session, asking for a read-back and writing up a scene are all spoken commands.
You can interrupt
If Charm is talking and you want to keep going, just talk. It stops and listens, the way a person would.
Old recordings are not wasted
Voice memos from a car journey or an interview with a relative can go straight in. You review the transcript before a single word joins your book.
It handles being interrupted by life
If a long upload is cut off by a dropped connection or a backgrounded phone, the transcript is saved anyway and offered back to you next time. You never pay twice for the same recording.
Spoken commands in Talk to Charm
While in a spoken session you can say: write it up (draft the conversation into prose), start a new chapter, finish this chapter, finish the session, analyse (run the post-session pipeline), read that back, pause, end session, and help.
The state-changing ones ask for a spoken "yes" before acting, so a sentence of narration that happens to contain the words cannot silently restructure your book. You can also say "go to chapter seven", "make a note: …", and "just between us, …" for an off-the-record question that does not enter the manuscript.
Choosing a voice and a speed
Settings → Voice lets you pick which voice Charm speaks in, how fast it talks, and how long a pause should be before it decides your turn is over. If you tend to think mid-sentence, lengthen the pause sensitivity or switch to push-to-talk.
The speaking speed is applied to the audio itself rather than to playback, which is why it stays clear at higher speeds instead of clipping words.
Good to know
- Talk to Charm and Upload a Recording are both off by default and each has its own switch in Settings.
- Talk to Charm is a per-device setting, stored on the device rather than your account.
- Uploaded recordings are capped at 90 minutes and 100MB per file. Longer recordings should be split before uploading.
- Transcription is billed by the second of audio, and long uploads are quoted before they run.
- Speech recognition mishears invented names — a fantasy character no dictionary knows will sometimes come out wrong. That is why uploads get a review step and dictation is editable before sending.
- Spoken workflow commands are detected from your words only. Charm cannot trigger them, and it never acts on a command it merely mentions.
Questions
Do I have to speak? Can I just type?
You can type everywhere. Every surface that accepts speech also accepts typing, and most writers switch between the two depending on mood and surroundings.
Why does Charm cut me off while I am still thinking?
Auto turn mode ends your turn after a pause. Either lengthen the pause sensitivity in Settings → Voice, or switch the turn mode to Push so it waits for you to press Send.
Can I dictate in Ukrainian or Czech?
Yes. Transcription, Charm's spoken replies and the drafted prose all follow your book language, not the interface language.
What happens to my recordings?
Audio is transcribed and the text becomes part of your session. Your recordings and transcripts are yours, are visible only to you, and are not used to train models.
Does the transcript go straight into my book?
No. An uploaded transcript lands in the review panel first, where you can edit it, and it enters the conversation — not the manuscript. Prose is only written when you ask for it.
Start your first chapter
Every new account gets a free credit — enough to talk through a scene, have it drafted, and see how it reads.
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