Learn Fictate™

Rough Preview

Account & Settings → Rough preview while dictating. Turn it on and a rough draft of your words appears on screen a beat behind your voice, so you can glance back at what you just said and let it inform what comes next.

Live in your browser today; it arrives on phones in the first app update after launch.

It is a preview, not your transcript. The moment you stop, Fictate™ produces the real transcript the way it always has, and that is what gets kept. The preview is never the version you keep.

Pause a breath before your first word. The preview takes about a second to warm up, so words spoken in that first moment may not appear on screen — but your recording captures every one of them from the instant you start, and they will be in your transcript. Giving it that beat is a good dictation habit anyway.

If the preview stalls or cannot start, it simply pauses and says so. Your recording keeps going and is never affected.

Watching your words appear as you speak is the first of the three dictation methods in my Fictation® course. It suits some authors and distracts others, which is why you try all three.

Transcribing

Tap Transcribe and your spoken words come back as text. How long it takes depends on the length of your recording and the strength of your connection.

• Re-try transcribes your audio again from scratch, picking up every improvement shipped since your first pass. Reach for it if something came back garbled.
• Continue adds more speaking to a recording you already made, so a scene can be built across several sittings.

Into your manuscript

Three ways to land your words where your book lives:

1. Copy and paste straight into Scrivener, Word, Google Docs, or any writing software.
2. Email the transcript to yourself in one tap.
3. Fictate™ Anywhere skips this step entirely. See below.

Fixing a word inside a transcript

This is the fastest way, and the one you'll use most.

1. Tap to edit, then select the mangled word right where it sits.
2. Tap Add "…" to Dictionary above the keyboard.
3. Type the correct spelling and tap Add.

Your current transcript updates to match immediately, and the word is learned for every future one.

The Cleanup Tool ✦

Tap ✦ Cleanup on any transcript. It tidies punctuation, clears verbal stumbles, and puts quotation marks around your dialogue.

What it will never do: rewrite your sentences into what a machine thinks you meant. Your phrasing, your rhythm, and your voice stay exactly as you spoke them.

The ✦ marks every feature that uses generative AI, and all of them can be turned off.

Cleanup returns your words in the language you spoke them. It never translates.

Cleanup Style

Menu → Cleanup Style. Write your own formatting instructions in plain English and Cleanup follows them from then on.

Authors use this for paragraph indents, stopping unwanted line breaks, em dash preferences, and how they like dialogue set on the page.

One tester wrote "add quotation marks whenever I say quote" and it did exactly that on the next cleanup.

Verbal commands

Say the command aloud mid-sentence and Fictate™ converts it. No pause needed, no special tone.

Say "period" for a full stop, "new paragraph" to break, "open quote" and "close quote" around dialogue. Made a mistake? "Delete that" removes the sentence you just spoke, and "delete last word" removes just the word.

The full list is further down, and there's a printable version in the references above.

Speaking punctuation feels strange for about a week and then stops feeling like anything. Building that habit with short daily reps is the R step of the D.R.A.F.T. framework in my Fictation® course.

Outline, poem, and screenplay modes

Three spoken modes that change how your words come back:

• "Outline mode" turns every line into a bullet point.
• "Poem mode" keeps every line break exactly as you spoke it and adds no periods.
• "Screenplay mode" applies script formatting through the Cleanup Tool (all plans).

Story Outlines

Menu → Outlines. Build an outline for your book, then flip on Show outline on Home in Account & Settings to keep it on screen while you dictate.

Your beats stay visible scene after scene, so you always know what you're speaking toward. Outline history lets you look back at earlier versions.

Session timer

Set a timer on the home screen before you start and your dictation session has a defined finish instead of running open-ended.

Good for sprints, lunch breaks, and the fifteen minutes you have before you need to leave.

The timer starts at 30 minutes. Planning a longer session? Set it to 60 or turn it off in Account & Settings first. The timer only reminds you — it never stops your recording. A single take can run about 100 minutes in English (about 50 in other languages); for longer sessions, tap Continue and keep going in the same transcript.

Folders

Tap the folder icon in the Recordings header to make a new one, then use Move to Folder on any recording.

Most authors keep one folder per book or per series. Recordings you haven't filed sit under "Not in a folder."

Deleted Recordings

Deleted something you needed? Menu → Deleted Recordings, or the link at the bottom of your library. Restore it and it goes straight back where it was.

Recover it within 7 days — after that it is permanently removed.

Setting up the keyboard

Account & Settings → Fictate Anywhere Keyboard, and follow the setup steps. You'll install the Fictate™ keyboard and enable it in your phone's own keyboard settings.

Once it's on, it's available in every app on your phone, the same as any other keyboard.

Do this after you've been using Fictate™ for a while. Get your dictionary and settings sorted inside the app first.

Dictation language

Account & Settings → Dictation Language. Fictate™ transcribes 99 languages. Choose the one you actually write in and it listens for that.

The Cleanup Tool returns your words in the language you spoke them. It never translates your writing.

Choosing your microphone

Account & Settings → Microphone. Leave it on Automatic and Fictate™ picks sensibly, including AirPods and Bluetooth headsets.

Pick a specific mic and that choice always wins.

You do not need special equipment. Testers get clean transcripts holding the phone a foot away, and one dictated through 12 mph wind on cheap earbuds.

Your subscription

Every plan includes every feature — ✦ Cleanup, Story Outlines, your dictionary, Fictate™ Anywhere, and one account on every device. Plans differ only in how much you dictate, and every plan starts with 7 days free.

• Storyteller · at least 15,000 words a month — or your full 5 hours, whichever gives you the most
• Author · at least 50,000 words a month — or your full 20 hours, whichever gives you the most
• Fictator · unlimited dictation for one author

To subscribe: tap the big record button on a new account and choose See Plans, or open Account & Settings → Manage Subscription → View Plans. On your phone, billing runs through the App Store or Google Play. In your browser at app.fictateapp.com, secure checkout is handled by Paddle — card, PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay, shown in your local currency with tax included. New here? Create your account in the browser and subscribe right there.

To change plans: open the same Plans screen and pick the plan you want. Moving up to a bigger plan takes effect right away, and the store credits the unused part of your current plan. Moving down, or switching from annual to monthly, takes effect at your next renewal, so you keep what you've paid for until then. Switching from monthly to annual counts as moving up. If you subscribed in your browser, open Account & Settings at app.fictateapp.com and tap Change Plan.

Changing or cancelling: Account & Settings → Manage Subscription. Phone subscriptions cancel in your Apple or Google account settings; browser subscriptions cancel from that same screen. All prices are in US dollars, converted at checkout.