13184: Keeping All Your Audiobook’s Voices Straight
Hey there, hero!
Had a great time on the VOBB (VO Booth Besties) with Jen, Jen and Aleesha:
…and I had the chance to answer some questions from the attending audience of VO talent.
One question that came up was “How do you keep all the voices you create for the characters in an audiobook straight? How do you avoid using the wrong voice for a character by mistake?”
Great questions, and one that has a number of different possible answers. Let’s explore exactly how to do that – especially as an actor (or writer).
How do you keep everyone straight? Is this a challenge for you? Let me know in the comments below.
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Want to be a better VO talent, actor or author? Here’s how I can help you…
- …become a VO talent (or a more successful one):
- …become an audiobook narrator on ACX (if you’re an actor or VO talent):
- …narrate your own book (if you’re an author):
- …have the most effective pop filter (especially for VO talent):
- …be off-book faster for on-camera auditions and work (memorize your lines):
Raw transcript:
Raw transcript:
okay so I just got finished doing an
episode of as I’m recording this the VO
Booth besties uh with Jen and Jen and
Aleesha and uh a question came up during
it that I want to kind of give a little
bit more detail on and that is somebody
asked in this we were talking about
audiobooks uh and somebody asked how do
you keep all the characters straight in
your audio books and my answer wasn’t
sort of a mechanical one it was more of
a philosophical one and it’s a lot
easier than you think if you approach it
like an actor so let’s talk about that
in this episode of the vo Heroes
[Music]
podcast one of the hosts of the podcast
that I was just on was lovely if you
haven’t gone over and joined vo Booth
besties please do so uh they’re great
Jen and Jen and Alicia and um one of the
questions came we were talking about
audio books and one of the questions
came up how do you keep all the
characters straight one of the hosts had
just read a book rather than listened to
it and thought to herself as she was
reading it oh my God if somebody was
narrating this book there are tons of
characters in this book how do they keep
them all straight and I actually asked
her how many as you looked at this was a
ton and she said 15 15 is not a lot of
characters for Fiction it’s you know I
mean you’ve got protagonists you’ve got
antagonists you’ve got members of the
team you’ve got henchmen you’ve got you
know uh thirdparty story movers there’s
all kinds of uh ways that characters
play but they all have slightly
different uh uh voices and how do you
keep all that
straight and aside from the
recommendation that if you really need
to keep things straight if it’s like you
know Harry Potter level like 200
characters and you need to keep them
straight in a database you know I
recommend using Patron in their
character uh
area but what I said was you know this
may not be something that you really
need to worry about it number one 15 is
not a lot of characters when you look at
the vast preponderance of books and how
many characters are in the stories of
the books that’s really not a lot of
characters and the good news is every
character has been honed and refined by
the author over a long period period of
time um to have different needs and
different wants different uh
environments upbringing uh influences
different goals uh different
limitations and of course when you’re
narrating a book if you’re narrating a
book for a rights holder you want to use
in your welcome kit hey can you give me
a character rundown of all the
characters in the book so that you have
an idea of that of those things but more
importantly and this is the big thing
let the story keep you on track let the
story give you what you need because it
will give you more than is necessary
certainly the lead characters are easy
the side characters become easy when you
realize that they were left in they
weren’t parts of the the marble statue
that the author removed like a sculptor
removes pieces of marble to leave you
with the finished statue they were left
in for a
reason and that reason becomes clear in
the story well-written books have no
Superfluous anything there’s no
unnecessary characters there’s no
unnecessary plot twists or turns a book
is as long a good book is as long as it
needs to be and no longer and as short
as it needs to be and no shorter and
everything that happens in a book
happens for a reason if it’s your own
book you know this if it’s a book you’re
doing for somebody else know this and
know that that story those words are
going to do so much of the heavy
lifting in terms of keeping the
character straight that you may end up
at the other end going oh wow I didn’t
have anything to worry about because you
didn’t you really didn’t now if it’s a
Sci-Fi book and you have no idea how to
pronounce their names and you’re making
stuff up out of whole cloth and the
right holder says to you oh it’s your
choice go for it or you decide for
yourself after having written your book
that your voice voicing on your own um
you know when I was writing it I thought
it was this but maybe now it’s this
that’s fine that’s your choice you’re an
artist right I guess my bottom line is
it’s not as big of a worry as you think
it is and that there are tools that you
can use to help you but likely getting
to know the story better is going to be
your best Aid in that space of keeping
characters straight does that help what
how do you keep characters straight let
me know in the comments below what do
you use do you use a database do you use
a Google sheet do you have some sort of
like thing where because with with
positron you can put little audio
samples if you need to tell me let me
know hit the like button if you like
what you’re hearing here uh you can hit
the Subscribe button the notification
Bell to find out when the next episode
comes out if you want to share this with
another artist that might need to hear
these words please feel free to do so
I’m David H Lawrence the 17th I thank
you so much for watching and for
listening and I will see you in the next
episode of the vo Heroes podcast
[Music]
(from YouTube)
About 10 years ago, I narrated a historic novel that was set during the Civil War. I was asked to provide voices for all the characters. The main character was a nurse. I am a female, so that was the easy part! I was to provide the voices for the men from the north, the soldiers of the south, and slaves of all ages! It was quite a wonderful challenge! I recorded samples of each character for references. At the time, I didn’t know of another way to do it. I sure enjoyed the project, even though it ate up several months off my life to record and edit.
Hey David, I recently had a book with a number of important characters and read “into the book” to find out about the characters, thus creating a “voice”. For example, one character was a surfer so he had a “what’s up duuuude” type of voice. I also ask for a Character list and place each different “voice/character” into a separate audio file to refer to when needed. (Didn’t use Positron but might hafta try it!) Thanks David!
If it’s to the point where I need to keep reference clips – I love AIRTABLE. It’s like a spreadsheet on steroids. (Actually NOT a spreadsheet but a super user friendly database – that looks like a spread sheet).
Theres a small learning curve – but you can have a field for character name. (You can also have fields for any info about the character you want.) But best part is you can have an “attachment” field. So you can attach a short audio clip of the voice you used for quick reference.
If you really wanna geek out… You can have one BASE (think spreadsheet file) for ALL of your voices in all of your books… then a field for each voice that says what book it is used in. And another field (or two) with character types, vocal qualities, etc… So that when you are creating a voice – say a disgruntled janitor – for a new book, you could look up what you did on past books for similar characters…
There’s a free version – and is probably more than plenty powerful for most VO actors: https://airtable.com/invite/r/UwUHub72
In an audition I had, there were 3 characters, and the dynamic of the story was such that I only had to make minor adjustments to differentiate them. The intensity of the audition scene did the rest.
In a 5-book series I had to do, there were many, MANY more characters, and I kept them straight simply by putting samples into their own track, and keeping the track open in my DAW so I could refer back and refresh my memory.
I think I’d probably need recordings of each voice. I’m learning from this video and the comments about ways to do that.
didn’t know about positron. thanks! will look it up. I usually use a google sheet with the basic acting stuff, relationships, goals, etc. and make sample voices for the characters.
So many good suggestions in these comments! I’ve also found that the need to come up with unique voices for *every* character is not as massive a priority as we might at first think. Often, we can communicate who’s speaking to the listener with a small change in inflection, rate-of-speech, pitch, tone, and—most importantly, I think—timing.
I’d also add that listening to a lot of audiobooks helps as much as voicing, when it comes to learning what works and what doesn’t. I’ll never forget the first audiobook (which shall remain nameless) I listened to where the narrator (who shall remain nameless) went WAY over the top with voices for the characters… and it ruined everything for me. It was a very popular book that everyone was reading and raving about. And now I’ll never not think of it and cringe.
So, often, less is more!
Also, David: great shirt!
For me, I like to keep track of characters by creating a spreadsheet during my initial read thru listing each character, age, ethnicity, accent, an actor reference if one is made/requested or comes to mind, and a detailed description especially of those attributes that influence vocal traits, things said about them by other characters or clues in the narrative. Sometimes, I group characters by family, tribe or marriage. Occasionally, I will have a clip list in my session to maintain consistency particularly for novels with a big cast. Especially helpful in large family sagas with coming of age elements for multiple characters over time. It’s the same text analysis work learned during CMU theater training over 30 years ago and it’s always stuck with me. The clues are in the text.