Marzie asked Mary Robinette Kowal:

Which is more challenging, coming up with character voices for other authors' characters, or matching the voices in your head for your own characters? (Can you tell how very much I enjoy your audiobook narration? :) )

Mary Robinette Kowal Coming up with character voices for other author's characters is, just barely, more difficult than for my own. The reasons are two-fold.

1. There's a greater possibility of getting it wrong with another author. For instance, in Seanan McGuire's "October Daye" novels, we recorded the first two out of sequence. The Sea Witch had a small appearance and was talked about as being terrifying. I gave her a gravelly monster voice. I've since learned that Seanan imagines her as having a dreamy teenage girl voice.

2. Because I record so much audio, I now write knowing that my work will be read aloud. That means that I deliberately choose characters who are disparate in type so I can have a wide range of voices. I had to narrate a book in which all of the male characters were the same age, all wealthy New Yorkers, white, cis, straight, fit, active, and they were childhood friends. Rhythmically, they all sounded the same on the page and differentiating them was really, really hard.

(And thank you. I'm so glad you enjoy my work!)

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