Where to begin...

Steno Wizard realizes that many of us reporters who didn't initially learn a realtime theory face realtime with trepidation and an overwhelming weight on their shoulders. Where does one begin on this realtime journey? What’s the right first step?

Steno Wizard’s first suggestion is to analyze your steno dictionary. How many conflicts do you have in your writing? Start by printing out the list and really look them over.

How many of those conflicts contain three or more choices to solve the riddle? That’s where a reporter needs to start first. As an example, Steno Wizard originally had a bang/bank/banning AND a sing/sink/sinning conflict.

Steno Wizard then had to look at all the two choice conflicts. For example, sting/stink, rang/rank, ring/rink,  sang/sank. Does anyone remember the RPR test with ring and rink in it back in the late ‘80s? What a disaster and waste of $50!

Steno Wizard’s first problem had to do with all those ng/nk endings. Good grief, the misery those caused! First attempt to resolve the ng/nk ending was the just-put-in-the-asterisk method in the least common word. What a dumb move that was. Then a wiser reporter said to apply a theory principle to the whole set, i.e., an asterisk in the nk words. Good till it got fast and fingers got twisted. Ugh! Not going to work when pushed.

Next attempt to resolve the ng/nk ending was to apply the theory principle of making the nk ending the final side –FRPBG keys. That works pretty well, but Steno Wizard also learned –FRPBG as the –nge ending in words like range and singe. Range could still be written the same old way. Singe, not so much. So to resolve this issue, singe is now a two-stroke word as much as the Steno Wizard hates to admit it. SEUPB/-PBLG. Guess the asterisk could go there if necessary.

Then the three-part conflicts like sinning/sink/sing and banning/bank/bang involved resolving the -ing word in the group.  Ing words that create conflict are now two strokers.  That's a new theory principle the Steno Wizard has incorporated also.

Good luck on your journey!