Authentic Voices

It seems obvious now, but when I was writing, the primary sense I used was visual. This has come back to haunt me now that I'm recording audio. For the telling of events, I'm pretty experienced at painting a picture - and to a degree, I can use my normal run-of-the-mill voice. But of course, with a whole cast of characters in 12 stories, there are multiple voices I have to create. And each one has to be imbued with a distinct quality for the reader to latch onto and enjoy. You'll not be surprised to learn that my dog clicker has been going ten-to-the- dozen to keep up with my frustrations. This has peaked when dealing with accents. They really are tricky little animals. The good news is though, that I'm becoming more comfortable at doing them. I'll let you the reader/listener decide on how well I've done. I think the key thing is to give a flavour and not shove the listener out of their experience with something too outlandish or false. We've all seen and heard those actors and actresses determined to play a role a particular way, and who have either nailed it or hit their thumb in the process. The other big lesson I've learned is how time consuming audiobook production is. As well as setting up a suitable recording space, there's the prep to work for each session, actual recording, editing down, checking levels, and cleaning up the audio. Not to mention all the admin to keep track of the recordings of where and at what stage each audio file is. Phew!

If you ever get accused of liking the sound of your own voice, audiobook production may significantly make your revise your position.