13126: Do You Avoid Non-Fiction (Or Fiction) Audiobook Narration?

Raw transcript:

so for those of you who have been
avoiding either fiction books or
non-fiction books as an audiobook
narrator I’m wondering whether or not
your thought process
is
uh helpful productive accurate let’s
talk about the fears of formats in
audiobook narration on this episode of
the vo Heroes podcast
[Music]
I’ve taught well over 3 000 narrators
how to do audiobooks through the ACX
masterclass and through video Heroes and
before that Vio to go go and I’ve heard
a number of
reasons
why people avoid either fiction books
or non-fiction books uh and it kind of
goes like this with fiction books it’s
like oh I don’t know how to carry the
story I don’t know how to keep my my
narration equal or or the same similar
from chapter to chapter uh it requires
accents and dialects and I don’t do
really well with those
um How Will I keep all the characters
straight I mean the list goes on and on
and on and many of these reasons
um aren’t really things to worry about
there are ways to keep track of
characters if there are so many
characters that you really need to keep
track of them you know most fiction
books have a cast of less than 10 people
less than five people in many cases some
of them sure they have lots and lots of
characters that you need to keep track
of and you can use a tool like positron
to do that or you can create your own
spreadsheet in Google Docs if you want
to you can even put links to uh MP3
samples of what the characters sound
like if you want to do that but the
truth of the matter is is that we’re a
lot more capable of keeping characters
straight in our heads than we think we
are
writers write characters to be
sometimes similar to each other if it’s
a case of mistaken identity but mostly
very very much in contrast with each
other men versus women older people
versus younger people Heroes versus
Villains it’s a lot easier to keep all
that stuff straight in your head than
you think uh accents and dialects just
kind of like nudging towards accents and
dialects can be just as effective as
being 100 accurate with your placement
of those things uh and so most of these
reasons are
for the avoidance of narrating fiction
books I just want to invite you to
instead of worrying about these things
before they become a problem
try it see what happens you might
surprise yourself on the other side of
the coin people have a whole different
set of lists as to why they avoid
um doing non-fiction and those range
from oh it’s just a bunch of facts
there’s no plot there’s no drama there’s
no dialogue there’s none of the stuff
that I love about Fiction it’s reading
dry tables and and and charts and stuff
okay those two are things that you may
be telling yourself that likely aren’t
true
non-fiction is attractive to readers as
well as listeners because the drama and
comedy of real life occurs in these
books just as surely as they occur
in
fiction books
uh I just got finished listening to two
non-fiction books one about the phone
freakers of the 50s 60s 70s 80s 90s you
know the way teenagers mostly guys
mostly would play with the phone system
you know uh Captain Crunch and Steve
Jobs and Steve Wozniak selling blue
boxes and all that you know it’s it’s
amazing how exciting some of these
stories can be and filled with the same
Human Condition and and stories and
frailties and and successes and triumphs
that fiction has in it uh in terms of
charts and and lists and tables yeah
sure you might be required to narrate
the number pi to the 100th digit but
those those moments are pretty rare and
there’s also the related PDF or the
companion PDF that comes into play when
there are charts that are very involved
or there are maps or there are tables of
things that you need to recite so part
of both of these things
fearful of doing fiction I’m not
interested in doing non-fiction
are a lot of stories that we can end up
telling ourselves because either we’ve
heard other people say it so it must be
true
or we just think to ourselves well I
read a book once and it was all filled
with facts and I don’t want to be
narrating okay I get it but you may be
preventing yourself from doing something
that can be very rewarding very
remunerative you can make some money
and a lot of fun and you learn so much I
I tell people when I do audio books no
matter whether they’re fiction or
non-fiction because a lot of non-fiction
research that goes into some fiction
books how certain processes are done
that that sort of tell the story even
though it’s a fiction a fiction work
and coming up in May I’m going to be
appearing at wovocon I think it’s
wovocon seven in Orlando and I wore an
orange shirt in honor of
actually I just wore an orange shirt
because I was tired of wearing black
t-shirts for these podcast episodes
anyway it’s May 5th through May 7th and
I’m going to be doing a session called
Fearless fiction and nuanced non-fiction
and those that attend my session are
going to be coming up on stage with me
or walking to the side of the room that
they have my chair in and reading with
me and getting feedback on their work
getting feedback on their their
narration
I’m going to be talking to them about uh
you know creating characters for
non-fiction books and uh understanding
processes in fiction books and not being
afraid of accents or dialects it’s going
to be really fun again it’s the 5th
through the 7th of May that’s a Friday
through a Sunday uh Orlando’s beautiful
that time of year so join us at wolvocon
there’s a link uh below me and also in
the show notes for this it’s voheros.com
wovocon w o v o c o n sovioheroes.com
you just go to that link click the link
in the show notes uh and you’ll go right
to the registration page for it I would
love to have you uh join us if you’re
available
um I I feel like
sometimes we get in our own way when it
comes to why we don’t try certain things
as performers and I’m wondering if
that’s been the case for you have you
avoided doing fiction books have you
avoided doing non-fiction books because
of any of those reasons what are the
reasons that you have
um maybe you think it’s just a slog I
don’t know that’s that’s something that
I hear about audiobooks in general and
it’s not
anyway let me know in the comments below
and by the comments below I mean on
veoheros.com and if you’d like to
subscribe to the channel or be notified
when we have new episodes or if you just
like to hit the the like button and tell
us that you enjoy what you’re doing we’d
love to have you do that
I’m David H Lawrence the 17th I thank
you so much for watching and for
listening I will see you at wolvocon uh
May 5th through the 7th in Orlando and I
will see also in the next episode of the
video Heroes podcast
[Music]

(from YouTube)