What should narrators improve?

[Sandi]

Caroline, have you ever listened to Molly Harper's books? Amanda Ronconi does perfect comedic narration. I really can't describe how she does it, you just havevto listen.

[Jeanie]

Caroline wrote: "Thanks again for all the guidance! For a narrator, this is like having your own advisory panel of experts. Many of you said that you hated overacting and I absolutely agree. However, I was wonde..."

I don't think I expect a straight reading for an over-the-top sort of story... the feel of the narration should match the feel of the story. As long as it's not "too much"--and that's very much a matter of taste--it can work well.

[Audiothing]

Caroline wrote: "Thanks again for all the guidance! For a narrator, this is like having your own advisory panel of experts. Many of you said that you hated overacting and I absolutely agree. However, I was wonde..."

I would say that you have to represent the character, if she's zany you can't really change that character by playing her straight. Karen Commins, in the Dixie Diva series, has mastered the art of portraying zany without overacting

[Karen]

Bec/ Audiothing wrote: "I would say that you have to represent the character, if she's zany you can't really change that character by playing her straight. Karen Commins, in the Dixie Diva series, has mastered the art of portraying zany without overacting ."


Bec, I was scrolling through my Goodreads digest and was delighted to see your nice comment! The Dixie Divas series written by Virginia Brown is my favorite series, and I'm looking forward to narrating book #6 whenever it comes out.

Thanks again for your comment. You made my day! :)


Cordially,
Karen Commins
My audiobooks on Audible: http://j.mp/KarenComminsOnAudible

[Dave]

I just finished listening to I Am Pilgrim. I thought the book was okay, though ridiculous. Maybe a B-?

But what I didn't like was that the narrator gave ALL the female characters the same voice and it was a kind of simpering baby voice, even when the women were pretty bad-ass.

Sheesh, he should have just raised his voice a bit and spoken in his usual voice.

[Jo]

Interesting thread, interesting to me because I find my tastes in audiobooks are markedly different than my taste in print books, and a narrator can absolutely make or break the audiobook.

I like SOME acting, but not TOO MUCH acting (how is that for helpful!). It's a fine line. Honestly, though, even no acting can be acceptable, but a wooden delivery is not. I listened to one (can't remember which) where the narrator used EXACTLY THE SAME cadence through the whole book; it was utterly maddening. Every sentence got the same emphasis. Unlistenable.

Some clumsiness in the narration is fine if balanced with enthusiasm. Penny Marshall reading her autobiography was great, even if it was clear it was new for her and some parts were very clumsy.

Accents and voice changes for different characters don't have to be extreme; subtle changes are enough to recognise that a different character is speaking. Tony Britton is great at this, even though some of his accents are somewhat off. Dean Robertson reading The Poisonwood Bible did a great job distinguishing characters by voice.

If it is a conversation between people, it should FEEL like a conversation. Bill Bryson, reading his own books, is wonderful at this.

Distinctive voices are wonderful to listen to. Neil Gaiman narrating his own work, Frank Langella narrating his own autobiography, Mare Winningham narrating The Gingerbread Girl ... these are fantastic. For some reason, I find distinctive voices suck me into the story, where a bland, flat voice might not.

It's nice to feel that the narrator is invested in the story he or she is reading. Not in an overwrought sort of way, but I can definitely hear the diffence when the narrator is engaged vs not.

[Jenn]

Jo wrote: "Interesting thread, interesting to me because I find my tastes in audiobooks are markedly different than my taste in print books, and a narrator can absolutely make or break the audiobook.

I like ..."

I agree with you. Some narrators sound like they're being over-dramatic and trying too hard, while some sound like they're reading the book because it was assigned and they don't really like the book. But I think the majority are in the middle and pretty good.

[Kevin]

Kristin wrote: "As an audiobook narrator of over 70 titles, and the casting director for an audiobook production company, I am so appreciative of this forum, and I'm learning a lot from the listeners. There are so..."

Excellent post Kristin! As a new narrator/producer/sound-engineer I really like getting feedback and this forum is excellent! There is no "one size fits all" approach so I just try to hone my own skills and learn to do it better and better. I am 3 audiobooks in (complete) with 4 more in production and love the whole learning process, though it can be difficult, I love a challenge! If there are any listeners who'd love to give real, valuable feedback, I have free copies of audiobooks in three totally different genres available. 1) Murder Mystery/Thriller 2) Memoir 3) Espionage Mystery/Thriller

http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_s...

I would love to get honest feedback! I have a new series on Historical Fiction set in 1555 coming too!

Email me at: kevinarthurharper@gmail.com if you're interested.

[Mara]

Keep the same narrator for a SERIES. It drives me crazy when a narrator is changed in the middle of a beloved series, or have release a series with two different narrators.

Example: The Elizabeth Peters's AMELIA PEABODY series. There are two sets of digital audiobooks narrated by two different narrators. One set narrated by Barbara Rosenblat. And a set narrated by Susan O'Malley. I believe Blackstone produced the second set. Why not just leave it alone when Barbara Rosenblat is a far better narrator over Susan O'Malley regarding this particular series. Barbara is AMELIA PEABODY & COMPANY!

[Mara]

Please do not pick a reader that is slow as molasses or readers that read at almost 100mph

[Alice]

Mispronunciation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Jessica]

Saying the wrong word! For example saying "erotic" when the word written in the text is "exotic." This actually happened in a book I jest recently finished reading and listening to.

[Wendy]

As a narrator, I'm very interested in all your great feedback on what listeners like! It's very helpful. I have 4 projects on Amazon Audible right now with the next 2 going through quality control and another 3 I'm working on.

[Mara]

I.B. wrote: "Mara wrote: "Keep the same narrator for a SERIES. It drives me crazy when a narrator is changed in the middle of a beloved series, or have release a series with two
Example: ..."
J.B.,

If you get a chance to listen to the Amelia Peabody series, choose the one that is narrated by Barbara Rosenblat. It is superiorly better than the one that is narrated by Susan O'Malley. Ms. Rosenblat is AMELIA PEABODY & Company.

[Penelope]

The things I look for in narration are a pleasant speaking voice, characterizations that are not over the top unless it is a wacky comedy and over -the - top is called for, definitely an additional female reader instead of a gravely voiced macho reader speaking in a simpering falsetto, and the feeling that the reader knows what they are reading. It is very off-putting to have the reader use the same degree of intensity for a trip to the post office that he uses for a chase scene.

[Robin P]

Mara wrote: "Keep the same narrator for a SERIES. It drives me crazy when a narrator is changed in the middle of a beloved series, or have release a series with two different narrators.

Example: The Elizabeth..."

Yes, Barbara Rosenblatt was one of the narrators who made me fall in love with audiobooks. I assume the issue with a competing recording had to do with rights, like maybe US rights & British were owned by different companies. In the pre-digital days when this series started, listeners had limited options.

[Salem]

Hi, all, I returned an audiobook today because the narration was too fast for me. This was a nonfiction book, and I read nonfiction to learn and remember. I have to wonder if, during the heat of production, some narrators and producers are overly anxious to get to the end of the project. Anyone else here listen to non-fiction? I also listen to plenty of fiction and am getting sucked into Seveneves...Seveneves

For the narrators here, I'm almost done editing a novella, my first narration, and also quite curious about that fine line between subjective and objective. I expect that if our heart is in it and we're doing everything we can technically, the reader knows.

[Jessica]

I have listened to three non-fiction books since I started listening to audibooks in March. In two of them the narrators read fast like they were trying to cram as much as they could into the shortest time possible. I got used to both but felt they would have been better had the narrators slowed down an took their time.

[Scott S.]

If your real name is Oliver Wyman don't change anything, you're perfect.

If your real name is Casey Affleck, for the love of God, go wait tables.

Seriously, the only advice I could possible have for a female narrator is PLEASE, PLEASE, don't tack on a gruff voice for the male characters. I recently had a listening experience ruined because I couldn't NOT laugh every time she did the male's part. It sounded exactly as if you had asked a 6 year old girl to talk like men talk. Ridiculous. I don't mind if a male character narrated by a woman has a female voice, it only makes sense.

[Robin P]

Salem wrote: "Hi, all, I returned an audiobook today because the narration was too fast for me. This was a nonfiction book, and I read nonfiction to learn and remember. I have to wonder if, during the heat of pr..."

On a lot of players, you can slow down the narration. I dislike the opposite, too slow. I sped up All the Light We Cannot See and still thought it was slow.

[Samyann]

Some advice to narrators from a 15 year long audiobook listener.

1) Know your pronunciation of streets, names, cities. Don’t guess, do your research. Nothing is more irritating to a local than to hear a street or suburb they’ve heard all their life mispronounced.
2) Know your own voice as it pertains to the genre. A valley-girl voice well suited to children’s books cannot pull off the narration of SCIFI or espionage.
3) If you are a male narrator, please don’t do a female orgasm. Please.
4) Don’t swallow or shuffle papers or clothing in a manner that your listener can hear.
5) Music is fine, but please. Not too loud and FGS, not too long!! If I wanted to hear music I would not be listening to a book.
6) Do proper mixing of volume. If you need to ‘whisper’ because of author intent, don’t make the listener turn up the player and then turn the player down again when you return to normal or raise your voice … take care of it in mixing.
7) Cross gender reading can be done well, i.e., Davina Porter doing Jamie in Outlander or Susan Erikson doing the In Depth character, Roarke. But, practice please. Sometimes they are good, sometimes not so much. Sorry, but Dick Hill’s female voices are nothing short of ridiculous and I love him otherwise.
8) Please nix the pauses with good mixing. Eyes read faster than you are talking … much faster.

[Aaron]

Samyann wrote: "3) If you are a male narrator, please don’t do a female orgasm. Please."

O_o you mean this has been done before?

[Scott S.]

Yes! Yes! Oh God yes. It has.

I'm so sorry.

[Samyann]

Aaron wrote: "Samyann wrote: "3) If you are a male narrator, please don’t do a female orgasm. Please."

O_o you mean this has been done before?"

Read some of the reviews of A Knight in Shining Armor by Jude Devereaux read by Steve West. It’s not explicitly orgasm but a fairly descriptive love scene from the POV of a female. In a male voice. UGH!!!
I wanted to squirm and laugh at the same time. Awful.

[Deedra]

Whether it's narrators or Authors,SOMEONE should add the audible option to their book line up if they want a review left.

[Audiothing]

Deedra wrote: "Whether it's narrators or Authors,SOMEONE should add the audible option to their book line up if they want a review left."

Deedra do you mean here on Goodreads, having the Audible cover version? If so, that used to annoy me, got fed up requesting for and waiting for it to appear. I don't bother any more. I just leave a review on any of the book covers available and just head the review as Audible. As most of my books are gifted, I feel obliged to leave a review, otherwise I just wouldn't bother

[Mirkat]

I might be the only one who notices/cares about this, but I am currently listening to Emma Galvin's narration of California . I recognized her voice right away, from having listened to her reading of the Divergent trilogy, and for whatever reason, I don't recall having the same issue with her that I'm having now. I remember thinking (and still do) that she always sounds a bit startled and frantic, but what is bothering me currently is that she places her emphasis on words that I wouldn't expect emphasized. For example, here is a sentence from the book: "A girl, older than the boy, with long brown hair, hid behind her mother's legs." Galvin stresses the word "BROWN": "with long brown hair." As if she supposes everyone was expecting the girl to be a blonde or something. I keep finding myself repeating sentences in my head with the emphasis moved/removed. Has anyone else noticed this phenomenon, with Galvin or any other narrator? I wish a director would give her notes to not do this!

[Sandi]

I couldn't finish California because I am a native Californian and NOBODY who was born and raised here, as the first-person narrator of this story is supposed to be, sounds like Emma Galvin. Wevsound like the people on TV and in the movies. In her Compant novels, Kage Bakervcalled it Cinema Standard. Not only was Galvin's accent all wrong, but she also sounded too young. I had a hard time remembering that the character is in her late twenties, not her teens.

On the other hand, her narration of Winter's Bone blew me away. She was amazing.

[Mirkat]

I had not even thought of Galvin's accent, since I am an east-coast girl, but she does sound young.

[S. K.]

Looks like there is an even split in this thread between putting drama into the narration and reading it straight up. I am one who likes a narrator who commits to the story. So Robert Inglis unabashedly committing to all the poetry and songs in The Lord Of The Rings was the first time in my many rereadings of Tolkein that I paid any attention to the songs or poetry.

Things I haven't seen mentioned in this thread that distract me are enhanced audio and auto-tuning. I'm not exactly sure if it is auto-tuning, but not long ago I finished a couple of H.P. Lovecraft anthologies where the narrator had such a deep, slow voice that I was constantly distracted, thinking that they must have slowed down the recording to give him Hollywood demon echo voice.

I also just finished Pimp: The Story of My Life, and they kept putting sound effects at random places in the background. The result was often ridiculous, sometimes insulting.

I guess both of those things are beyond the narrators' control, but maybe something to look out for in the contract negotiations if you don't want to be associated with lameness.

[Audiothing]

I think there's a big difference between putting a bit of drama in and some of the overacting that my ears have suffered. It's all personal preference I guess.

[Sophia]

Janice wrote: "Something that drives me crazy is improper phrasing. A narrator should read as if they are speaking naturally, phrasing at natural times.

We... Don't speak with... Phrases every... Two or three ..."

Excellent comment and spot on. I was listening to Shreve's A Change in Altitude, and while I was having trouble getting interested in the story the choppiness and phrasing absolutely did me in. Stopped after the first disc and just couldn't listen to another minute...

[Jessica]

I had the same issue with Joe4 by Salem. The only reason I finished it was because I had received from the author in exchange for a honest review. The story was 4 stars but Salem's narration was only 2 stars and that was being generous. I believe I said that the narration reminded me of a bad William Shatner impression.

[Kimberly]

Jeanie wrote: "The majority of us seem to love best those narrators who find that sweet spot of narration--not too much, not too little. I think a perfect narration is one where the narrator virtually disappears and the reader finds him or herself immersed in the story, believing in the characters, and never being pulled out of the story by mispronunciations or bad accents. "

I whole-heartedly agree with this. My examples include John Lee narrating Ken Follett books; Lorelei King narrating Darynda Jones; Wendy Tremont King narrating Colleen Helme books! I do not know how these particular narrators were selected for these particular series, but even when I read for myself, it is their voices I hear in these particular series because they, indeed, immerse me in the book as they narrate.

The elements of a narrator that pull me out of the story are similar to those mentioned in some of the above posts:

1) dry mouth or other similar mouth noises
2) mispronunciation of words, not only place names, but long words, too, need to be pronounced correctly
3) if there are dialogue tags, I want the narrator to speak those words accordingly, even if the dialogue tag comes after the dialogue it relates to (i.e. "she whispered", "he chuckled", "she gasped"... these should be read with whisper, chuckling or gasping)
4) do attempt different voices for the different main characters, moreso when authors, as they seem more incline to do, omit the "he said" or "she said" tag. The listener cannot hear end quotes, therefore the narrator must use their voice to communicate when a different character is speaking. Listeners cannot see a mid chapter scene changes because we cannot see the double spacing in the text, the narrator needs to help us with a pause or a volume change, whichever is appropriate.
5) If the book is populated by predominantly younger characters, it is noticeably off if an older voice is reading the book. (Flo Gibson is a favored, accomplished narrator, but for me, she doesn't have the right voice for any of Jane Austen's books.)

Personally, I thoroughly enjoy emotion in voices. If the characters are joking among themselves, I want to hear it. If tension is building in the scene, I want to hear it. If the action in a chapter is increasing, I want to hear it. If two character just sated their desires and are having pillow talk, I want to hear the relaxation. I am not interested in straight reading. If a character is "thinking", that voice needs to be distinguished, too. A listener cannot see the italicized font authors use for inner voices.

All this being said, we listeners are also a forgiving bunch. If their foibles are few, listeners can overcome any narrator's reading. I greatly respect narrators, the accomplished and the new, that can pull me into the story and carry me with the authors' words.

[Kimberly]

Caroline wrote: "As listeners, is that what you'd prefer? Or do you like the narrator to play it straight no matter how zany the character?"

I do not want to listen to straight reading -- more so in nonfiction. Straight reading becomes monotonous and, thus, I become a disinterested listener.

Bill O'Reily narrated his own Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Foreverand read each sentence as a statement of fact. While each sentence may indeed have been a statement of fact, I couldn't follow the battles and the events leading to the ultimate shot fired in Ford's Theater because every word was given equal importance that his speech sounded monotonous with no building of tension or suspense .

Drama in narrating should be incorporated as dictated by the author's words. Bringing a book to life doesn't mean over acting, but means using the author's words to add the silly or the sarcastic or the sorrow or the worry in the narrators voice to support the action and emotions created by the author.

I used to think the best narrator for a book would be the author, because, well, they actually wrote the words and had the spoken emphasis in their heads when they wrote, right? There are some authors that narrate their own books exceptionally well and others that do not. It is those later cases when the professional voice artist should be called in!

[Margaret]

Kimberly and Jeannie: What excellent analyses of the great narrators' skills! I am in awe of the many narrators who can do all that for us. They are the reasons I love audiobooks (and those narrators.)

[Jim]

Kimberly wrote: "I whole-heartedly agree with this. My examples include John Lee narrating Ken Follett books..."

John Lee reading several of James Clavell's Asian saga was absolutely incredible. He might be my favorite narrator of all time. Every one of the characters was memorable & yet wasn't overdone. Great accents, too.

I agree there is a sweet spot for how much a narrator puts into a book & it can vary a bit. I've always been surprised that I liked one of the Harry Potter narrators so much. I can't recall which it was, Jim Dale or Stephen Fry, but one of them did a lot of sound effects & I still liked it. I liked the other one better.

When my daughter was reading a lot of PNR books, I tried the Queen Betsy series by MaryJanice Davidson. I barely made it through the short book in print, but then found them read by Nancy Wu. They were a LOT better. Wu managed to make the ditzy vampire queen fun.

[Doris]

I agree with everything that is being said about the
narrators. I read Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight first book in the series and then read the sequel "Words of Radiance". The man narrating is speaking in a monotone and the woman is trying to sound like a young girl. I listened to 3 disks and then said, enough, I can't stand the voices anymore, and stopped listening. The narrator makes all the difference in the world

[Animepet]

I would love to become a narrator. I think I would be good at it, but editing and mastering seems like it has a steep learning curve (not to mention being pricey) What if it turns out I don't have a very listenable speaking voice? Seems fine to me, but we hear our own voices so differently...

Is there a way to dip your toe in as a narrator, to see if it suits, before laying out the cash?

[Animepet]

I' personally, just can't seem to stand narrators doing the voices for the opposite sex - it's so hokey it pulls me right out of the story. I mean, I love a good drag club, but I wouldn't go there for a book reading. I don't really know what alternative is truly effective for narrators, though.

I do agree that authors are getting very sloppy about differentiating dialogue. Sometimes, I have to go back and read a passage three times to figure out who the hell is speaking.

I think what I find most bizarre, is that narrators with a long list of credits in narrating and/or acting can seem to have no clue about intonation and word emphasis. What the what?

[Powder River Rose]

Caroline wrote: "Thanks again for all the guidance! For a narrator, this is like having your own advisory panel of experts. Many of you said that you hated overacting and I absolutely agree. However, I was wonderin..."

Oh I like the acting by narrators in many books so just because a few here say they don't like it, don't stop across the board; I would hate to think that all books will end up sounding the same over time, what a sad state that would be. True some may not be able to pull off acting, just as some simply can't read aloud well, but those that can.....excellent. Besides, certain genre such as children's stories, cozy type mysteries, some sci-fi, etc., just need that additional touch and other types might benefit from some added flair.
Then there are times when the story is so bad it doesn't matter what the narrator does or how fantastic he/she is known to be...Absalom, Absalom comes to mind; Grover Gardner is great but the story nearly killed me.
I think overall narrators do a great job....some just do better. There are several irritations that are repeated over and over on this thread like breath and pronunciations which can be corrected with time and training, but in reality just as people do or don't like the same dish in a restaurant, not everyone is going to like the same book/narrator.
Keep up the good works narrators, correct what you can but above all enjoy what you do and please continue reading to me (and others) a good story. I'm sure I can't thank the narrators enough for all the hard work that goes into narrating a book, but I say Thank You.

[Margaret]

Like Powder River Rose, "I'm sure I can't thank the narrators enough for all the hard work that goes into narrating a book, but I say THANK YOU." You are making this difficult part of my life enjoyable.

[Edward]

Animepet wrote: "Is there a way to dip your toe in as a narrator, to see if it suits, before laying out the cash?"

Just to try it out, you can record yourself and see how you do in basic terms with little or no investment.

If you do as well as you expect you might, then you can test your aptitude for editing fairly easily with free software. Listen to your recording with the volume up high while wearing earphones and delete the stuff that shouldn't be there.

If you have any kind of mic, a built-in recorder program (such as the one that comes with Windows,) and any headphones, or even earbuds just for this toe-dipping exercise, then you can go through most of the steps.

Download Audicity

[Bruce]

As a producer / sound editor I've worked with about a dozen different narrators with all different levels of experience. So here's some thoughts...

1) Breathing - don't open your mouth on the in-breath because we'll hear the sound of your lips opening. I like to leave the in-breaths in in the recording but I don't want to hear that mouth noise. I want to have a little bit of breathing in the recording, but not so most people would notice. Robots don't breathe. I think it's better to have your mouth open on the in-breath than to hear the mouth open in mid-breath, because you are first pulling air in thru your nose and then thru your mouth so that's a very different sound, plus the sound of your lips opening.

2) Mouth noises in general - I frankly don't have a good answer for managing this other than to be careful about what you eat and drink and careful mic placement

3) dropping your volume at the end of a sentence - a lot of people naturally sort of run out of gas on the last couple words. Keep the intensity the same at the end of a sentence as the start.

4) Rushing - don't rush, because when people speak fast, the words always slur together and it makes the speech less intelligible and harder to edit. If the listeners want to speed it up they can in the player and it's easier for me to speed up the recording in software than slow it down if I need to.

5) Crowding the mic - there's a tendency to get too close to the microphone. That causes a number of problems - first, there's this thing called 'proximity effect' which makes the bass parts amplified if you are too close, secondly, we hear the mouth noises and plosives a lot more, and third, the volume tends to vary too much as your head naturally moves around. You should be about a foot away for a large diaphragm mic.

6) Noise gates - don't use one. I'll do any noise gating during mastering. There's too many recordings where the first part of every word gets gated off. In mastering, you can mix a gated track against a non-gated version of the same track and use that to help manage background noise. A little bit of background noise is OK (Audible calls this "room tone" and communications engineers call it "comfort noise"). I've actually mixed artificial noise back into overly gated tracks to make the clipping(gating) effect less annoying.

7) Modulation and performance - folks with stage experience have the edge here. If you're interested in a career in this area, I think this is an invaluable skill. My actor-narrators tend to be able to yell or whisper and have it come out at the same volume. I've been fortunate to work with a few character actors also who have dozens of voice characters that they can dip in and out of at will. Those guys (and gals) are really amazing.

8) If you do your own mastering, then compressing the recording is really important because most folks will be listening in a semi-noisy environment. You have to add compression even to hit the ACX target RMS volume and still have your peak level per their spec.

[Edward]

Thanks, Bruce and Kimberly for your excellent posts. I've only done a few titles so far and since they are indies with little exposure, it's hard to know how I'm doing from the listener's perspective. I've been wondering if it's not a good idea to provide different voices for the characters.

I've listened to award-winning narrators and was very confused when I heard them using a single voice to the point that it wasn't easily discernible when narration ended and dialogue began, or whether it was a female or male character's speech. I'm baffled at how such a narrator can be hailed as one of the greats.

Then I ended up listening to one of the guys who did Harry Potter and he fully brought the characters to life the way I'm inclined to do, so I felt a lot better then, but still confused. I guess it comes down to different listeners having different preferences.

To try to appeal to the largest possible audience, I'm aiming for somewhere in between now. Not too lively, but still distinctly different characters.

The feedback in this thread has been great and invaluable. Thank you to everyone for your contributions!

[Shoshana]

Characters can be very difficult, and, I have found that each narrator has his/her own style. Being too dramatic can also be a trap, unless you have strong theatrical experience. Really great narrators do characters in very subtle ways, slight changes in speech patterns, rate of speech, inflection and expression. A man can imply a female voice without using a falsetto, but by just lightening his tone a bit. Same thing with a female reading a man's voice, slightly different tone, perhaps a little more clipped or assertive. To be honest, the more subtle and evocative character voicing is, the more I admire it. Scott Brick does this brilliantly, BTW.

[Jim]

Bruce wrote: "As a producer / sound editor I've worked with about a dozen different narrators with all different levels of experience. So here's some thoughts..."

Thanks! That was incredibly interesting even though I have no desire to be a narrator.

[Janny]

Here's a look from two sides, because we listen to a lot of audio books of every genre.

The things that mattered most:

When a narrator suits the book, and they can do voices of both genders with genuine delivery. Cannot stand male narrators who make the female voices squeaky, childish, or they just sound patronizing. Absolutely kills the book for both me and my husband.

Some authors write heavy dialogue with little tagging, and for those sorts of books, acting that differentiates the character voices is essential.

Some authors write with a more stylistic approach, and in those cases, a more careful delivery without over-dramatization lets the more poetic style of the words do the job. So a look at the way the words are constructed, and the beat of the words spoken, may guide how the story is told.

If the words on the page colorfully detail the drama, correspondingly, a little less drama needs to be injected.

Enough has been said about mouth noises, intrusive breathing and mispronounced words - or even mis-read words - which are terribly infuriating as those change the meaning completely.

We don't mind a narrator that is a little harsh on the ear for a thriller, but sometimes the mismatch of tone to story is a ghastly leap in the wrong direction.

If there was beauty in the way the words were written, a narrator who had a feel for the poetic spirit of the work was a big plus.

Here's the other side of it: as the author contracted for audio rights, I've always done my best to contribute/auditioned narrators from existing books to provide a list of ones I thought fitted - be sure the one chosen matched up to the story - or at let the audio producer start with that guideline. As a listener/matching my own story, here is what I looked for (besides the style of the narrators themselves).

Clarity of delivery.

Ability to do either gender without sounding overbearing, condescending, or patronizing.

Flexibility - did the narrator who had a range of titles also have a wide range of delivery - could they manage different types of approaches and do them well. If they could vary their delivery, this suggested they could interpret the story and match that with a consistent style.

If they were British, (this was a biggie) did they leave out their 'R's - were the words pronounced fully in their native accents, or were they clipped over so that a reader from another nation could not easily understand them. (or in the case of a fantasy world, would the lightness of phrasing on one or another consonant make listener recognition of strange words or names go for the worse).

If they were American, did they flatten their A's to the point where the nasal tone might jar on a listener from another nation. Did reading a more formal sounding style of English come out sounding like slang, or hick country - making a serious passage sound undignified or ridiculous (this was a biggie).

For the studio: I always provided a typed, alphabetical list of names and places (I write fantasy) and I also recorded (using Garage Band) a clean Mp3 file, reading that list slowly and carefully, with the pronunciation. I never minded if a narrator changed the pronunciation from what I envisioned, but I did appreciate when they used the list, or at least, stayed consistent with their own preferred interpretation.

[Edward]

Janny wrote: " I always provided a typed, alphabetical list of names and places (I write fantasy) and I also recorded (using Garage Band) a clean Mp3 file, reading that list slowly and carefully, with the pronunciation."

That is so helpful when an author records correct pronunciation. The second book I narrated would've been impossible without the author's recording. A small sample of the words I had to read correctly:

Hlaðguðr
ás-kunnigr
Úlfhéðnar
læraðr
Kēsewīc

Sounding them out was not an option because unless you speak the language, you would never know what sounds to even make, like the "o" with the symbol over it is a "D" sound.

[Animepet]

Edward wrote: Just to try it out, you can record yourself and see how you do in basic terms with..."

Edward, that is fantastic and valuable advice about trying out some free and existing programs. Thank you so much!
Amy