There is a genre of non-fiction audiobooks that presents a unique challenge to the actor hired to narrate them. In these books, the author uses the story telling technique of the “first-person narrative”; think business management books, motivational self-help paperbacks, many religious/spiritual tomes, and the latest books on investing, for example. The listener has purchased it to gain the author’s insights, in his own words, on that particular topic. You could almost call it “autobiographical non-fiction”; “I did this…you should do that, because I tried it…I know you can succeed if you work in this way.”
And while it may seem that narrating in the first-person would be much easier than voicing multiple characters in a murder mystery or science-fiction novel, to really bring this material to life, sometimes a difficult proposition on the best of days, it requires a level of skill that can take years of practice to achieve. It’s an ability that goes hand in hand with an actor’s development as a narrator in general and this genre in particular.
Talking AT the Microphone
As many actors have discovered when voicing their first audio projects, being a good narrator is much harder than it appears. Just getting used to the sound booth, with its cramped space, having the microphone inches from your face and hearing every little noise your mouth makes, not to mention the difficulties of working in a home studio, can really throw your concentration off before you ever speak a word. As a consequence, the actor becomes focused on just making sure the words are said correctly, though it seems they’re making mistakes constantly and therefore can’t get any kind of pacing or rhythm going.
Their frustrations rise as they mentally kick themselves for not being able to string more than two sentences together. After all, they say to themselves, don’t they make their living by speaking?! It’s like the first time you sat at the piano to play a song after having long practiced your scales during music lessons. You may get the chords right, but you’re banging them out in a shaky melody and though you can play the notes you’re not making music. Only through continuing practice can an actor’s delivery begin to smooth out as they become more and more relaxed with the physical act of narrating, as well as the mental challenge of sensing the flow of the storyline. It’s as if you must slow down in order to speed up; by forcing yourself not to race ahead with the text you can actually narrate longer passages without stumbling or mispronouncing a word.
Talking TO the Microphone
Then, after many, many hours of work and struggle, the narrator will suddenly make that all important breakthrough to the next level of expertise…the moment when they are no longer aware of the microphone as an intrusive object, but rather as something to relate to and use. Suddenly, the confidence they’ve gained in dealing with the text, coupled with the ability to tune out their surroundings and truly focus on their delivery, allows them the ability to achieve a new level of flow with the words and insight into the author’s thinking. They connect with the material in a new way, which has the noticeable affect of bringing more nuances to their interpretation and subtly to the author’s voice.
Once again, to use the music analogy, it’s the same as when musicians get “in a groove” with a song they’re playing as if they and the instrument were one, each thinking and acting seamlessly together. For some narrators, it feels as if they are actually proof-reading their own recordings. They see the words on the page and hear them in their headphones at the same moment.
Talking THROUGH the Microphone
The last stage of development, that may take narrators years to achieve, comes when they build on their level of relaxation, focus, acumen and stamina to add the mental component of using their delivery of the text to reach through the microphone and connect with the listener at a deeper level of intimacy. One actor has described it as being the “Audiobook Whisperer,” after Caesar Millan’s television show. The narrator’s brain reads the words on the page, and then holds them for a split second while deciding on the appropriate phrasing and emphasis, before speaking them; all the while having the focus to maintain that constant loop of word and sound.
In the way many singers achieve notoriety, it is their phrasing, the final piece of their delivery, which makes them really great. Then, they not only do justice to the author’s voice and intentions, but transcend them to make the words truly their own. After narrating for 15 years and voicing over 600 books in just about every genre, the non-fiction, first person narrative is still my favorite.
Sean Pratt - A 25 year veteran, I teach actors about the business of the Biz; holding workshops, writing articles, posting videos & career coaching. ...
