When I began my audiobook narration career two years ago, I listened to a few audiobooks to get an idea of how other, more experienced, narrators handled it. What surprised me was what a mixed bag I came across.
The narrator of the first book I listened to made very little attempt to differentiate between the voices of the book’s various characters. I found that difficult, because to me, they needed to be different so that you had a chance to identify who was speaking before you got to the ‘said so-and-so’, clarification. And you needed to visualise the characters – or at least I did.
Then I thought more about it and I recognised that some books have scores of different characters in them. How in heaven’s name could I give each of so many characters a different voice? And having done so, then go on to make sure the voice is kept consistent when the character reappears, however many times that may be? I was beginning to understand why most narrators didn’t even make an attempt to vary the voices.
Once I got going on my first book, which happened to be Nick Albert’s ‘Fresh Eggs and Dog Beds, Living the Dream in Rural Ireland’ Book 1 (I’ve since completed books 2 and 3 with the 4th to come later this year), I quickly realised that there was more to a character than just a voice. There may be an accent, which may or may not be defined in the manuscript, or they may need to have a distinctive voice – strong, comical, booming, posh etc. But even more important than that, they WILL also have a personality and there may be an environment of some kind in which the character finds itself.
I quickly went on to realise that two characters might have very similar sounding voices in terms of their pitch and tone and even their accent, but that I could still enable the listener to clearly recognise them by their personality, their manner and what may or may not be happening to them at any given time. All of this increases the range and repertoire it is possible for the narrator to fashion for the voices of the many different characters.
And that is the key. You don’t have to be Rory Bremner or John Culshaw in order to mimic any voice and any accent (although it probably helps). You just need to inhabit the being of every character, even just for a few seconds. What is happening to them at that time, what is their mood, what have you gleaned about the personality of the character and where do you know the character is heading in the story? That’s why it is so important to read the book from cover to cover before you attempt its narration.
One of the books I have completed had over 70 different characters, albeit that more than half of those may have appeared only fleetingly in one or another chapter, and only uttered as little as one line of dialogue. I find inspiration for each voice by just listening to different people talking. Not necessarily in person – you’d be amazed at what you can unearth on YouTube! Sometimes, I’ll think of an actor who, in my mind, resembles the character in the book in some way, and I listen to a video of that actor to get inspiration. You really don’t have to mimic them – just find inspiration from them as a prompt for a new voice that you can deliver.
The trick then is to make sure that you maintain that same voice as you progress through the book. That’s not as easy as it sounds and I have frequently found myself going back to listen to the voice I gave to a character earlier, to make sure that I stay on track.
Of course, there is always a downside to anything. The more you try to provide a range of voices the more you can invite criticism – such as “call that a Manchester accent?” or “I didn’t like the way character X was portrayed”. But, overall, most listeners appreciate the effort to make each voice different and I like to think it makes the listening experience for them more enjoyable and helps them to follow the story more easily.
Someone once said to me that narrating a book must be like appearing in a radio drama. Yes, kind of – except the actors in a radio drama will tend to play just one character. We audiobook narrators have to play all of them, whatever their age, gender and personality.
Not that I’m complaining! It is enormous fun!
Cheers, Andy.