Unfiltered Thoughts

2022.11.26 – 0695 – Audiobook Character VoicesCharacter voices(This is in addition to the in-depth look at character voices in the ‘animation’ section previously.)
The main character – Create a voice that you can use in various emotions and one not so strong that it exhausts or hurts you. Individuality – having said that, each main character’s voice must be somewhat distinct from each other (and from you as ’narrator’), and consistent from page to page, matching any ‘character clues’ in the text (their attitude, age, background, looks and so on – we have looked at all this in some detail already). Consider how that character sounds in different situations and with different emotions:·        Arrogant·        Patronising·        Smarmy·        Sexy·        Embarrassed·        Secretive·        And so on…What are their gestures? How do they move when they speak, are they hunched, where is their breathing coming from (the stomach or the chest?), is it quick and snatched or low and slow and deep? How do they walk, how would they run? See the image of the character: where they have got their hands, you have them too. How they have their eyes, you try too: small, beady, shifty, wide-eyed? Your voice will find the appropriate sound almost naturally. Be careful of stereotyped accents of characters which may cause offence. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.11.25 – 0694 – Projection And Pace For The Audiobook Narrator Projection – we have looked at loudness before, but as a quick reminder that with audiobooks especially, people will be listening alone perhaps through headphones, so talk to them with a one-to-one volume. A ‘big’ narration will be exhausting for everyone. Pace – don’t read too fast. Allow the listener to ‘see’ the scene you are painting with the words. Obviously, the speed goes hand-in-hand with the content (you will read the description of a romantic landscape more slowly than that of a sports event that’s about to erupt into violence), but it’s a good rule of thumb to allow visual language to sink in. Also, make sure you vary your pace. We saw before how we vary our delivery speed, depending on the information we are giving (new or complex detail is slower, familiar or unimportant asides are more ‘thrown away’). So, if there’s a fight scene, your narration and dialogue need to be snappy and moving, maybe the tone is heavier too. And if it’s a sad or suspenseful scene take your time over the words and the pauses, to reflect the sense of the action. If the characters are creeping into a forest at night, then reflect that in your narration, speaking quietly too. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.11.24 – 0693 – Impartiality For The Audiobook Narrator Be interested, invested and informed …– only read the genres you enjoy to be more emotionally connected to the text and to draw the listener in. You are the knowledgeable guide on the journey through these characters’ lives; don’t mislead the listeners and even though you may surprise them, you should not be surprised yourself at what happens in the text. … and impartial – you are watching the scene from the sidelines, have a full view and are telling the listener what you can see from your vantage point. Because of your narrator’s role, you may know more than the characters, indeed, in your role as ‘narrator’ (rather than ‘voice actor’), you will know how the story ends. You should keep this information free of emotion and simply allow the listener to react when you tell them. Just tell them like it is, without favour or bias, as an objective storyteller. You are a trusted guide and know the terrain, and the ups and downs of the story, and do not lead the listener onto the wrong route with misleading intonation. You are never surprised by what a character does. That’s not to say a narrator never shares secrets: almost inevitably you will have access to the character’s thoughts and emotions and may, through the author, share those with the listener but without taking sides, in an unbiased-balancing act.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.11.23 – 0692 – Analysis and Agility For The Audiobook Narrator Analysis – be somewhat of a student of literature. Understand what makes a story, a story and how one moves through a sequence (the characters, the setting, the plot, the conflict and tension, and the resolution) and the six common themes in literature (good vs. evil, love, redemption, courage and perseverance, coming of age, revenge) and how a story arc can develop. Having basic knowledge will help you with your delivery in terms of pace and pitch and tone in different situations (surprise, irony and so on) and help explain to the listener what is going on via your voice. Agility – be careful not to merge the role of ‘me, the narrator’ with ‘me, the characters’. “He said”, “she replied” and so on are said in your voice to avoid listener confusion. After you, usually, as the narrator you know what’s going to happen next or are privy to the thoughts of the characters and you can’t let this knowledge ‘bleed through’ to the characters themselves. You also need agility to swap between different characters having a conversation, and you the narrator with interjections “she said”, “he explained”, “as they clambered aboard the carriage” … Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.11.22 – 0691 – The Audiobook Narrator’s *Own* CharacterThe narrator’s own characterDepending on which POV you are reading the story from, your ‘character voice’ will be different. If you are one of the characters (First Person POV), be careful not to have such a strong accent characterisation that it becomes annoying to the listener and awkward for you to perform for any length of time. If you are the ‘author’ (Second Person or Third Person Omniscient or Limited), then you need to have a voice that is ‘neutral’, and different from any character whose dialogue you will speak. Delivery – This needs to be consistent according to the text, story arc and author’s intention: possibly slower at times of tension, fast in action scenes. Be aware of any repetitive speech pattern or cadence that will mean that although listeners may not know what you are going to say, they can predict how you’ll say it. Keep the energy up, and by that, I don’t mean a ‘power’ but don’t allow your presentation professionalism to drop on day three, hour three of a five-day recording session: a tired voice, sloppy articulation, a rushed delivery, running out of breath, character voices merging into one another. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.11.21 – 0690 – The Narrator’s Various Points of ViewsNarration - First understand who you, the narrator, are in the story. That is, whose point of view (POV) is the story told from?[1]·        First Person POV – when you as narrator say “I” and “we” (it’s how we all speak in real life). It is a more personal viewpoint (and so used in memoirs, romance and young adult fiction), but can suffer from feeling a bit too introspective. “I was furious as I tore at the thick undergrowth with my cane. How dare she speak to me that way!”·        Second Person POV – when you use “you”, the ‘unspoken ‘me’ talking to ‘you’. It’s rarely used in novels but is in games (“you come across a panel with hieroglyphics scrawled on it and a lever on either side. Which one will you pull?”) and non-fiction.·        Third Person POV – using “she” “he” “they” and “it”.o  Third Person Omniscient is when the narrator knows everything, the thoughts and feelings of all the characters (think “War and Peace” and epic fantasy books) and is less common today: “Neither Marsha nor Mohammed knew what was going to happen next, that the gunman was already watching them, determined to stop their plan. And that he would be successful.”o  Third Person Limited is when the narrator only knows the thoughts of one person. Think of the ‘Harry Potter’ series, told from Harry’s perspective and with knowledge of his motivations, but not those of say, Ron and Hermione. “Natalie knew that she wanted to feel this way forever”. It’s also a common perspective in romance, thriller, epic fantasy and young adult fiction.o  Third Person Multiple is like the ‘Limited’ but when the author switches the perspective between scenes or chapters. So, the story may be told from the POV of the murderer in one chapter, the victim in another and the detective in the third. Note that the narrator is still ‘impartial’ (the chapter is not in the ‘First Person POV’), it’s just that information is being given from another vantage point, but it can be awkward for the listener to follow such regular changes through the story. George RR Martin uses this technique in the ‘Game of Thrones’ series.  Usually, the narrator tells a story from (in order of popularity), the view of one of the Third Person perspectives, then First and Second POV. It’s important to have a passing knowledge of this because it tells you how much insight you will have about what is going on in the story. For example, in ‘First Person’ you as the narrator, won’t know what someone else is thinking or their motivations. In ‘Third Person Limited’ you may only be able to offer the listener insight into one character’s thoughts and feelings.
 Although a movie and not an audiobook, Morgan Freeman’s off-screen delivery in “The Shawshank Redemption” is a standout in the narrative style. He’s telling the story through his on-screen character, Red, and yet also describing events outside of Red’s knowledge. This, together with Freeman’s gentle yet authoritative tone, gives an omnipresent feel to the film.
[1] Adapted from: https://kindlepreneur.com/point-of-view/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.11.20 – 0689 – Fiction Audiobook Narration SkillsFiction skills for an audiobook narratorFirst a few definitions:Solo narration – when a reader either differentiates between each character with their voice (different pitch, race, gender, accent and so on), or, when they do not, and presents a ‘straight’ narrated read with no variation between the different people in the text.Narrator – the person telling the story as written by the author, and also the word used for you, the person who is recording the story – perhaps giving a voice to the ‘written narrator’ the person whose viewpoint the story is written from (more on this below).Dialogue - a scene in which the different characters verbally interact with each other  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.11.19 – 0688 – Non-Fiction Audiobook Narration SkillsNon-fiction for an audiobook narratorRecording a non-fiction text is considered by some to be more straightforward than recording fiction. That’s because you’re delivering information, instruction, or facts, rather than navigating a narrative of characters and conflicts.
Others say that’s just why non-fiction is difficult: the text can be flat and featureless and was usually not written to be read aloud. Indeed, the ‘read’ may include foreign phrases, maths equations, sidebars, footnotes, charts, illustrations, abbreviations, explanations and appendixes, all of which (depending on the director’s instructions) may have to be read and recorded.
Non-fiction texts can be detail-rich, with long dense paragraphs littered with parenthesis and sub-clauses which can be difficult to vocalise with intonation. It may help to break the sentence up with some / marks so you can more easily see the different phrases which link together, which ones balance or oppose each other, or add extra information. Try and see such convoluted sentences, at first glance complex and unwieldy, more like a tree: the main trunk from which there are branches, and then twigs, to help you use a different tone for each section of the structure.
But that doesn’t mean there’s no ‘acting’. Help communicate the message of the book by imagining taking to several people in the audience, possibly with a sense of (almost ‘ad-libbed’) fluency to make you appear to be the expert author: conversationally authoritative. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.11.18 – 0687 – Vocal, Physical and Mental Health For NarrationGood vocal, physical and mental health – you will be spending a lot of time by yourself in a booth, concentrating, so you need to be mentally strong. A lot of reading will require a lot of vocal strength: warm-up exercises, hydration and built-in rest breaks. In the booth itself, you need to have everything set up ergonomically so you are not under too much stress physically as you read. You need to build in breaks at natural pauses in the text, so you can eat, stretch, connect with others and see sunlight.
Seeing the sense in the script – Although you will need to read the text exactly, word for word, bear in mind that writers write but we are the audio storytellers. So read for understanding by paying attention more to phrasing, rather than strict script punctuation. For example, in a chase scene, you may run sentences on from one another to give pace and urgency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

2022.11.17 – 0686 – Clarity, Consistency and Concentration in Voice Acting
A clear voice – people will be spending a lot of time with you, so you need to have a voice that will not jar or grate on their ears.
Consistency – consistency in the style and energy of your read, and for fiction books, each character’s voice and accent.
Concentration - In non-fiction especially, this could be content-rich and technical texts with long and unwieldy sentence structures, and with fiction books you may need to be able to switch effortlessly from one character to another, remember accents and ‘the story so far’ (more on each of these skills later). Audiobooks are often recorded at home so you need to be a self-starter and be able to manage all the different aspects of the job: the reading, recording and self-directing and critiquing. And keep your mind, and your eye, on the text so neither wanders to the shopping list, what the time is and whether you need a toilet break. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.