13226: Narrating Audiobooks? Don’t Forget The Acting Part

Raw transcript:

I have a permission slip for you today I
want to hand to you with two hands and
say here you go uh I want to remind you
that when you’re doing an Audi book you
have every right and really should lean
toward relying on your acting
skills and maybe you’re sitting there
going yeah what do you mean David of
course well let’s let’s talk about that
because sometimes we forget that we’re
allowed to do that all right we’ll do
that in this episode of the vo Heroes
podcast getting a booking or having a
book that you’ve written to narrate is a
big momentous Awesome event with
congratulations and celebration and joy
and it is a big big bolus of
work and it has aign to it a level of
importance that is outsized in our lives
and what I mean by that is you know as
an actor if I do a oneline day player or
if I do uh a week on a show and it’s a
guest star and I’ve got like maybe three
pages to do that’s really important
that’s a big job it’s you know something
that I work for all the time it’s not as
big as an Audi book it’s one 1,000th the
amount of
content you know I have to do you know
three four pages and and create a
character for that okay well for an Audi
book there could be hundreds of pages
many hundreds of
pages and it’s not something
to be trifled
with the problem is it’s such a big
event and for many people it happens so
rarely that the amount of importance
that they assign to it can be
outsized and it can change how you
deliver the words this is really
important I’m going to be very careful
about my diction about my sentence
construction I want to be I hear this
question all the time I want to be
consistent with my Pace from chapter to
chapter I want to give you a permission
slip to pull in all of those wonderful
things that you use for those shorter
smaller art pieces like you know acting
on a television show or in a commercial
or in an animation piece and to not
forget to add those when you’re doing
your audio book it’s safe to just simply
recite the words well to read the words
well on the page to do so with a pace
that’s easy for The Listener to
understand but remember your
characters each one of them have full
lives that you can bring to that
character with every moment they speak
you can even do it with the neutral
narrator but we sometimes are pushed
away from that with the notion that this
is such a big and Noble project we have
to give it you know reverence and and
and authority and yes you have to do all
that but when a character says something
that they’re sad
about or they’re really
really angry about it’s okay to clench
your teeth and say the words exactly as
they are on the page it’s okay to raise
your eyebrows and to have a little bit
of a hitch in your voice when they’re
sad about something it’s okay to really
ask a question when a character asks a
question or when the neutral narrator
says but were they going to find out
that that’s the way it was this time as
well asking those questions helps The
Listener being in that emotional state
helps The Listener it helps the story
and when you listen to those audiobook
narrators that are just
legendary and how they color what they
do you start to see most of the time 99
of the
time those people are acting they’re
acting well and I don’t want you to
forget that there are so many times that
I hear narrators treat their manuscript
with such reverence that it starts to
pull them back and change how they
deliver the words they want to deliver
the words clearly and effectively but
not necessarily within the construct of
what the character wants what the
character can’t gets what what what
other characters are trying to keep them
from getting or helping them to get all
the things that you consider when you’re
being an actor and for those of you that
are just audiobook narrators and you
don’t do on camera work or you don’t do
uh on radio or on the web or on the
internet work you don’t do anything
around acting that is outside of doing
audiobooks take a moment step
back consider what the characters would
sound like if you weren’t reading the
words aloud and trying to be clear about
your addtion but rather we’re trying to
get some objective get some Joy or some
horror or some uh some information you
know what whatever it is that the words
are telling you the character wants to
get allow yourself to act this is a
golden
opportunity to act and for those of you
that are
actors don’t throw that away you have
this opportunity in an audiobook whether
it’s non-fiction or fiction when
characters are talking or whether the
narrator’s talking you have the joy of
coloring what they say and how they say
it however you want as long as it serves
the
story if a character is saying what did
you do this morning are they saying it
accusatory are they saying it just would
you do this morning because they just
told you what they had done this morning
and they were you know trying to balance
the
conversation um maybe something got
ruined what did you do this
morning maybe it’s one of a hundred
other ways to color that
phrase but we are so sometimes bent on
honoring what’s on the page in terms of
being accurate as opposed to being uh
you know uh expository in terms of being
um appropriately emotional that we
forget about those options and those are
the options that coloring of the
content the coloring that serves the
story helps The Listener assimilate the
story those are the things that take you
from the level of a serviceable
audiobook
narrator to an amazing audiobook
narrator and that’s what I want for you
this was a long one but I wanted you to
remember that you have these options
okay tell me what you’re thinking right
now tell me if you feel like I’ve beaten
you up I hope not I’m just giving you
more options rather than taking options
away
um tell me if
this reminder was useful to you uh go to
vo heroes.com give me a comment below
the video If you’re not watching it
there if you’re watching it on YouTube
or if you’re listening to it in your
favorite podcast uh podcaster uh go to
vooh heroes.com and enjoy in the
conversation there about this hit the
like button if you like what you’re
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be told when the next episode comes out
you can share this with another actor
who uh or narrator who might benefit
from it that’d be great 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

(from YouTube)