Audiobook narration has nothing to do with...reading?

Yep, you heard me right.

Audiobook Narration has nothing to do with reading. Now I realise this might seem like a stupid sentence...because obviously you are reading a book.

But let me explain what I mean...and why I know that when people say to me, 'oh I love to read, I often think I'd be a great narrator,' I have to immediatley explain that reading a book and narrating an audiobook, are totally different things.

So first of all, lets understand what we mean by reading. I love to read, I have always loved to read, but reading for pleasure, sitting down with a good book to get lost in a story, or even challenging yourself with a Russian classic, has nothing to do with the process of narration. When we read we get lost in the story, we allow it to guide us, we might miss certian parts, or even put a book down for a while and come back to it; and we're often absorbing the story in a passive way.

Now audiobook narration is divided into two parts, the prepatory part, and the actual narrating. Now how you prepare is different for every narrator (we'll touch on my specific process more later) but this process isn't about reading for pleasure, it's about mining the book for information. Who, what, why, where, when? Who are all the characters, what do they say about each other, what do they all want? Where is the book set, what are the accents likely to be? Who is the narrator, what's their point of view and how do they feel about what's going on. Something I think that really divides the good narrators from the great ones I've listened to, is making sure that the narrator is really full formed. You're not just a person reading a book, you're a character surrounding the narrative. And all of that, is just touching the surface, there is so much more to be explored.

So you can see, there is a lot of information to try and get out of a book. And relaxing on your sofa with a warm cup of cocoa, slowly drifting off while you read, really isn't helpful when it comes to getting the work done. Normally I am taking notes, making annotations, writing down any questions I might have for the author or producer, and taking voice notes to experiment with characters vocal qualities and characterisations.

So as you can imagine...very little reading for pleasure is occuring.

Now once you have mined the book for all it's wonderful tidbits and important information, now we have to actually record the thing! And the only thing I can liken recording an audiobook to, is being on stage for hours at a time, and playing all the parts. It's not for the faint of heart I can tell you that. Nor is it for the overly critical, because more often than not, you have to let yourself go to be able to play every manner of weird and wonderful character.

And of course, while you're performing, you're constantly trying to bring the words to life, to give them a life off the page, and to ensure that whoever is going to listen is engaged, pulled in and gripped by your telling of this tale.

Which for hours at a time, sitting down in your booth, can often be quite the challenge.

So now do you see how audiobook narration has so little to do with reading? Yes I know technically you are still reading throughout, but the truth is, reading a book, and reading an audiobook are very different things.

For more info about audiobook narration and the world of VO, don't forget to subscribe to my blog, where every month I'll be talking about all things voiceover and audiobook narration.

SBVO.