The Power of Pause

This week, I, Rayna Cole, your usual host, have something to share about what I've learned as a narrator and producer.  I'm also taking my own advice in a way and giving the guys a week off. For sake of argument, we'll ignore the fact that I know full well they will spend the time they're not writing by recording more books.

I came in to audiobook narration with a built-in instinctive fear of "dead air."  That's the first rule of broadcasting, right? Fill the silence, hold the audience's attention, your voice is the story. But the goal is not to rapid fire stack up lines like logs in a lumber-yard.  Each word on the page is more than a specific sequence of sounds, it is a moment in the story.  Each word is an integral part of the performance and must be given its due in weight and tone. This concept is hard enough to grasp and apply to the obvious vocal aspects of narration, but then, there's the pause...

The pause is uncomfortable, right? It's that endless moment of awkwardness at a family dinner party right after someone has said too much, and now there's nothing safe to say. It's those layers of tension
that build while we rush to fill the silence with trite conversational rubbish.
The pause can be pregnant or respectful, it can be for effect, it can mark the power of a preceding phrase, it can echo ominously with import that conveys more than any spoken word, and it can be a moment in the narrative for the character (and the narrator) to collect our collective literal and figurative breaths. It can be that for the listener as well, a cue, a clue, a nudge in the direction the author intended, a breathless moment when the pieces come together in the mind and the mystery is solved, and in the pause is a shared acknowledgement of that success. The pause is piece and part of the narrative, and it enhances the enjoyment of the story. Narrations where the pause is neglected seem disconcertingly false to the ear and tend toward droning in their regularity, and this is what must be avoided, not those spaces in between.

And now that I've had a moment to pause and reflect, this is one of those parable lessons about life that seem like so much common sense, but have to be forcibly reinforced every so often.  I know as a small business owner, I certainly need to remember to take time to let go of the stess-hectic mindset, and I know everyone has their own version of the trials of every day life and the front of mind focus that seems so ASAP urgent. With the constant, instant audio and visual distractions, social media, politics and deadlines, it is all too easy to get caught up in the fast forward and forget to pause. We need the pause to catch our breath and make sense of all the action.  We need to pause to appreciate the story.  We need to pause in our pursuit of happiness to occasionally just be happy. See you next week with more on audiobooks.  Have a happy day!


Find Rayna Cole and Falcon Sound Company on Facebook, or at www.falconsoundccompany.com
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