Short answer: open a Scrivener document, click into the editor, press ⌃+⌥+R (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+R (Windows), speak as long as you need, press again. AICHE inserts cleaned-up prose at your cursor in 2-3 seconds.
A novel is 60,000-100,000 words. At 40 WPM typing, that's 25-42 hours of pure keystrokes spread across months. Speaking averages 130-150 WPM. First-draft material comes out roughly three times faster by voice. For authors fighting daily word counts or wrist fatigue, that's the difference between writing 15K words this month and writing 45K.
Voice doesn't replace editing. It replaces the part where typing stops you from getting the next sentence on the page.
How It Works
- Open Scrivener. Click a scene or chapter in the Binder.
- Click into the editor.
- Press ⌃+⌥+R (Mac) or Ctrl+Alt+R (Windows).
- Speak: prose, dialogue, description. No length cap.
- Press the hotkey again. AICHE transcribes, applies AI cleanup, inserts.
- Move to the next scene in the Binder. Repeat.
Heads-up: Scrivener's formatting persists. Set your font and paragraph style once, and transcribed text adopts them automatically.
Where Voice Pays Off in Scrivener
The Vomit Draft
The first draft exists to be wrong. Volume is the goal, not quality. Voice is built for this: close your eyes, see the scene, speak it. What does the character see? What do they say? How does the room feel? Don't stop, don't reread, don't fix sentences. Just keep going.
A 2,000-word scene that takes 60-90 minutes to type takes 15-20 minutes to dictate. That's three to four scenes a session instead of one.
Out-of-Order Drafting via the Binder
Scrivener's Binder makes scene-by-scene dictation natural. Each scene is a separate document. Dictate Scene 5 if it's vivid right now; come back to Scene 2 tomorrow. Compile reassembles them in order. The modular structure means you never lose your place even if you're skipping around.
Dialogue You Can Hear
Typing dialogue is silent. Speaking it is performance. You immediately catch when a line sounds unnatural - a character who wouldn't say that, a rhythm that's off, a phrase too formal for this person. Dictate dialogue scenes by speaking the lines like you're reading a script. Add attribution and action beats afterward. The result feels more natural because it was actually said.
Research and World-Building
Scrivener's Research folder lives next to the manuscript in the Binder. Notes don't need polished prose, just thorough thinking. Finished a historical source? Press the hotkey, talk for 60 seconds: the facts, the dates, how this connects to the story, what details might land in a scene. Three minutes typed, sixty seconds spoken, and the note is richer because speaking captures nuance that typing abbreviates.
Character Profiles
Talk for two minutes about who this person is: motivations, speech patterns, background, contradictions, what they want and what they fear. The notes that come out of speaking inform better scenes than a typed bullet list ever does.
What You Get
- Unlimited voice notes with AI cleanup - filler words removed, punctuation and paragraph breaks added.
- Auto-categorization - if you keep voice notes outside Scrivener too, AICHE auto-buckets them by topic.
- Custom vocabulary - drop in character names, place names, made-up terminology, foreign words. Spelled correctly every time.
- Multilingual voice input - speak in your native language, transcribe in that language. Useful for authors writing in non-English markets.
- System-wide dictation - same hotkey works in Scrivener, your browser (research), email, every other app.
- Zero-retention audio - audio purged immediately after processing, within 1 second.
Plans start at $3.99/mo (annual) with a 7-day free trial, no credit card. See pricing.
Common Questions
Q: Will dictation respect my font, paragraph style, and indents?
A: Yes. AICHE inserts plain text; Scrivener applies your formatting style automatically.
Q: Can I dictate in Scrivener's Composition Mode (full screen)?
A: Yes. Hotkey works the same.
Q: What about made-up names, fantasy terms, or non-English words?
A: Add them to AICHE's Custom Vocabulary so they're spelled correctly across every dictation.
Q: Does AICHE work with Scrivener's snapshots and project search?
A: Yes. AICHE just inserts text. Snapshots and search index normally afterward.
Q: Will my draft text leave my computer?
A: Only the audio you dictate goes to the transcription server, and it is purged immediately after processing, within 1 second. Your manuscript text stays on your machine in Scrivener's project file.
Q: Can I dictate non-fiction (memoir, business book) the same way?
A: Yes. Same workflow. Voice is especially effective for non-fiction where the prose mirrors how you'd explain the topic to a reader.
Result: a 2,500-word chapter that took 2 hours of typing becomes 35 minutes of dictation. Daily word counts of 6,000-8,000 are reachable without fatigue-capped sessions. The story exists on the page faster, which is when editing actually starts.
Try it now: open a Scrivener project, click a scene you haven't written, press your hotkey, and dictate the opening paragraph. Then the next one. Notice how the words come differently when you speak them.