Don’t Let The Unknown Scare You To Death…Or Into Making A Bad Decision
Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash
Hey there, hero!
I just followed up with a client, who had announced she’d decided to refuse to narrate a book because of the number of characters she’d have to keep track of, voice-wise.
I asked how many, expecting a high two- or three-digit number.
(The record is held by the late Roy Dotrice, who voiced 224 different characters in his 2004 narration of A Game of Thrones.)
The number she gave me was unnerving to me. Here’s why.
Hope this helps!
David
Raw YouTube Captioning
hey there it’s David H Lawrence the 17th
and I want to talk to you about
something today that we’ve all been
through and we’re all probably gonna go
through again but I want to help you
recognize it and I want to help you
avoid the consequences of it if I can
you know I’ve talked in these videos a
number of times about how as human
beings we really hate to not know the
answer to something you know if we can’t
figure something out
we can’t find the answer we can’t find
somebody that knows the answer and that
we trust will fill in the blank was
something that we think is right or
maybe is the truth but probably we
should check on just to be sure and that
happened today and I wanted to share it
with you and also help you understand
that this is one of those things that
you really should take a look at and and
not jump to a conclusion about I had a
client who casually mentioned she had
decided that she was not going to
continue with an offer from a rights
holder on a CX to do a fiction audio
book and I said well how come this is a
story not well did you read the
manuscript and and not like how it was
written no no that was fine that was all
fine I just realized that I would have
so many different characters and voices
to keep track of when I was doing the
book and I said oh okay well how many
voices thinking you know fifty ninety a
hundred a hundred something crazy big
and she said seventeen and it caught me
because seventeen sounds like a big
number when you’re first starting off in
terms of the number of characters in a
cast of a book but it’s not really a lot
I bet you can come up with seventeen
people that you know you’re familiar
with but most people don’t know but that
you could imitate their voice just
because you’re familiar with them and
when you do audiobooks you get familiar
with the care
characters on a very very organic level
you realize what their motivations are
you realize whether they’re good guys
are bad guys you realize whether they’re
old or young or whether they have an
accent or not or whether they talk
excitedly or whether they’re very calm
or whether they’re very evil and when
you deal with that you tend to start to
compartmentalize them in your head
without having to keep some sort of a
spreadsheet you know who is this
character and what do they sound like
and I need a sample and all that 17
really isn’t that much it’s kind of
average you know I mean when you just
think about the fact that if you’re
doing a crime novel the perp the perps
lawyer you the other cop who’s in there
you know assisting you in the
interrogation maybe the lieutenant on
the other side of the glass and the
District Attorney
you know that’s six or seven characters
right there so 17 is not a lot it just
sounds like a lot when you don’t know
any better and hopefully you know after
the conversation I had with her she’ll
reconsider because that’s just not now
in case you’re wondering well what’s
what’s a lot Jim Dale did close to 200
different voices and kept them all
straight in the American version of
Harry Potter and I believe was the
Goblet of Fire and then Roy dotrice he
set the record in 2004 224 different
characters when he voiced a game of
Thrones so eight characters 10
characters 17 characters probably not as
much as you think it is and I think
you’re going to find that the actual
heft of the book and the number of times
that you meet these characters are gonna
help you easily remember what they sound
like how they talk what their approaches
and things like that but I get that 17
sounds like oh my god how am I ever
gonna keep that straight you know I
wonder what you think about this has it
stopped you from doing fiction books
before I mean and fiction books is in
the only area I mean nonfiction books
can have a lot of characters
as well you know everybody has life
stories and just because a fiction
character has a bunch of people coming
in out of their story doesn’t mean that
in a nonfiction book that wouldn’t
happen as well
but tell me what you think in the
comments below give me a give me a
little reaction to this if you would if
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let me know what you think about all
this I’m David H Lawrence the
seventeenth I thank you so much for
watching and I will talk to you tomorrow.
So true David. My first book was 24.5 hours long and was FULL of MALE characters. I lost count but there were at least 60. The main character was female and she was one of a small number of females on a naval ship with loads of male officers and enlisted men. The story also included her family and friends. You’re correct that you “know” the characters so well that you tune into and express them by their personalities more so than what you’ve recorded on a spread sheet. Also taking a snippet of their voice and filing it in the ASSETS file of your cool file keeping method helped me recall characters who only appeared intermittently throughout the story.
I was once in your client’s shoes – or place behind the mic as the case may be. It seemed overwhelming at first to do my first fantasy novel because there were so many voices that needed to be distinct and I was so new, I didn’t know where to find them in me. But find them I did, and I’ve loved it ever since.
I’ve had to create the voices of fairies, demons, dragons, dragon queens, talking dogs and cats, humans and their accents from all over the planet or some other planet. I become so familiar with the characters that eventually I don’t even have to think about what they sound like. The name comes up and the voice is just there. When I first began the Unexpected Enlightenment series by L. Jagi Lamplighter, I was a little overwhelmed by the sheer number of school students from all over her world (Magical Australia? with a Russian descended Princess – what would that voice sound like? Lucky the dragon?) I was going to have to give a voice to. I kept detailed notes at first, and the author kindly emailed me pictures she keeps in her profiles of her characters (there are so many even the author keeps a detailed profile on everyone).
Interestingly, to me at least, a few of the character voices that I love the most have come in handy in other areas of VO, when a client says, “We need a young female voice that sounds excitable and sounds happy.’ Oh, they want Joy O’Keef’s voice. It makes me happy that the hard work I have put into the fantasy and sci-fi audiobook characters has paid off in other ways, too.
It is always a good idea to stretch yourself a little beyond your comfort zone, because you can’t move any further from where you are unless you are willing to give something new and a little scary a try. Typically you look back and say, what was I so afraid of? this isn’t so bad!
I totally get this video and understand the concerns. For me your teaching about mindset is so helpful. Its helped me calm down the stress I feel, think clearly about the challenge ahead, and make a plan for success. The stress usually faded. But also, it helps protect you in case you see that, yes, this is an unrealistic challenge I know is wise for me to turn down. Earlier this month, I was offered an audiobook from a significant author in San Diego and I had to turn it down. Even though they had a launch a month out, they needed this very long book done in two weeks. Because I work full time, there was no way I would have been able to give my best to the project or deliver on time. So I gracefully declined, but expressed interest that I would love for an opportunity in the future. I even sent them a sample of the book to see if this was what they imagined.Turns out they had sat on the manuscript for 5 months prior, but had only just then reached out for narrators. For me, it was a wise choice because I would have failed to deliver on time and with quality. The client told me that they will reach out sooner to me in the future. All this to say, better to make a decision after carefully evaluating verses fear or stress. Thanks for the video!