Making Audiobooks

I’m still in the process of working on the first audiobook I have narrated myself, and it’s been a lot of fun. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but once I got into it, I found myself in the story and acting out the characters as I read the dialogue.

I never thought of narrating fiction as a form of acting, but that’s what it is. I’ve heard radio shows in the past, and that’s what this reminds me of. You’re not on the screen, but you’re still acting out the role of the characters. And yes, I was moving my arms around, using all sorts of facial expressions, and really getting into it. I didn’t expect that to happen. I always wondered why people who speak roles in animated movies moves around and altered their facial expressions to match the mood of the characters. Now I know. When you put all of yourself into the character like that, you can’t help but “be” the character, and your body goes right along with it.

Anyway, this trial of narrating a book has been a lot of fun, and I feel like I added another dimension to the book that I didn’t have before. For that reason, I have decided to keep narrating more books.

As I wrote out this blog post, I realized there was a lot of information in it, so I’m adding subject headings to help make it easier to follow everything I’m throwing out there to those of you reading this.