I’m up. I have been up since 5:44 am, because I thought it was 6:44 am and this is the last day of camp.
Today we will have breakfast together, share a morning session of introducing someone else from camp and what we have learned about them, then we will pack up and at noon, say our good byes.
Camp Benedict 2014 will be officially over.
I will chat a bit more about camp tomorrow with Saturday Snapshot but for now… in my tired state and the bitter-sweet moments of “Yay! I can go back home to my house, my dogs, my husband, and my bed!” to…
“it is over… and now I have to say good-bye to some amazing people whose paths I may or may not cross again.”
In a side topic, it is audiobook month and this week I have really listened to close to nothing. I don’t have a lot of alone time at camp as you can imagine and audio almost always required alone time. 😀 I did have a 10 minute session one afternoon while I was alone in my cabin washing my hair listening to Mrs Hemingway by Naomi Wood. Narrated by Kate Reading. It is awesome.
As far as other listening to it… it has been crickets, and birds, frogs and laughter, music and silence… and that…
is ok.
Just a reminder:
Please watch this site (Book Journey) for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
I’m Allyson Johnson, and I took a rather circuitous path to becoming an audiobook narrator. First let me just say that I have always, always loved books! One of my fondest childhood memories is going to the Chicago Public Library with my mother, choosing and checking out books, then taking them home, where I would proceed to read them aloud to my stuffed animals. (As an only child, this was as close as I could get to having someone listen.) So I guess, in a way, I was a narrator from the beginning.
It wasn’t until 7 ½ years ago, however, that I actually incorporated audiobook narration into my career. After moving to New York City with a Psychology degree, I did social work for a number of years, before making a career shift into tv production. It was there that I began doing voice-over work and found a calling, of sorts. After I left television, I started working with a coach, to learn the craft of voice acting, mic technique, etc. This led to work in commercial, promo, and industrial voice-over, which I’ve continued to do for almost two decades. But I longed for opportunities that would expand my skill set…that would allow me to depict characters who didn’t necessarily sound like me.
My first books were Children / YA titles, from early readers like “Corduroy”, to a lovely series about race relations in Depression-era Mississippi, by Mildred D. Taylor. Her “Let the Circle Be Unbroken” remains one of my favorites. I also voice the ongoing Honor Harrington space opera series (a genre that is such fun to record), by David Weber. I recently had the privilege of narrating “Harmony”, a wonderful sci-fi classic by esteemed scenic designer, Marjorie B. Kellogg. And I was honored to be chosen by author Ntozake Shange to read her poetic memoir, “Lost in Language & Sound”.
Allyson… the early years, the die was cast…
When I’m assigned a book, the first thing I do is get out notecards, a pen,and a pencil (some initial choices might need to be erased later). Even in this digital age, I prefer having hard copies of my notes to refer back to. Those cards have come in handy on more than one occasion. You should see the stack I’ve compiled for the Honor series! Next I open a couple of bookmarked dictionaries on my computer. Sometimes I need foreign language dictionaries, in addition to the English ones, depending on where a book is set. You’d be surprised how many words you think you know until you actually look them up! Rule of thumb – if there’s even a chance that you might get it wrong, check the dictionary.
Once I’m all set up, I settle in to read the book. The whole book, from start to finish. It’s important (especially with fiction) to know in advance where the story is going and how the characters develop / interact with one another. I also find it essential to know which characters, besides my protagonist, are going to talk a lot. Because I don’t want to give them voices that I can’t maintain for several hours. And there are many times when an author does not indicate where a character is from, therefore what accent s/he should have, until quite a ways into the story.
A shot from this year’s Audie Awards (L – R: narrator Eva Kaminsky, me, Audible Producer Kat Lambrix, narrator Lauren Fortgang)
My performing background is more musical than anything else. So I’ve always approached narration from that viewpoint. As I prep, I’m hearing the characters speak in my head and taking notes on any vocal traits the author gives me. There is an inherent rhythm to sentence structure, so I’m also marking places where I know I’ll need to breathe, and underlining words that need emphasis. Unlike rehearsing a play or a song, I won’t have the opportunity to go over and over a line (unless I mess it up in the booth…which happens all the time) so I find these little cues save me time. If I stay “in my head” while prepping, I can stay “out of my head” while recording.
If I stay “in my head” while prepping, I can stay “out of my head” while recording.
As I read, I’m marking my script so that I can tell who’s talking before I say the sentence. For me, this generally means writing the first letter or two of their name in the left margin. Some narrators highlight different characters in different colors, but my mind is a little more linear and a little less visual. Occasionally, I mentally yell at authors who have a predilection for creating multiple names that start with the same letter, but overall this system works for me. I like to keep two sets of notes for each book — one with character names, brief descriptions, and vocal choices, another with words and phrases that I need to look up, or ask the author about, later.
Nowadays, you can find many resources online, some with audio pronunciations (a godsend). For instance, there are sites like http://www.dialectsarchive.com/ where you can hear people speak English in a variety of native accents. http://www.forvo.com/ is useful for hearing foreign words spoken by natives. In addition, you can find all sorts of things on YouTube, like the way a “real” person says his or her own name, or how someone from a specific place says the name of a town. And I’m a huge fan of calling a local Chamber of Commerce or Embassy. The folks who work in these places are always friendly and eager to help you get their regionalism right.
Once all of the preliminary prep is done, I go back over my notes and make choices about how I’m going to do each voice. Frequently, I can simply write these down in shorthand. I don’t rehearse them, per se. But for books with lots of characters, I get out my digital recorder and read a few sentences in that person’s voice, so that I can refer to them in the session. With a series, this consistency is particularly important because sometimes you go months or even years between books. However, a listener might be listening to them back-to-back. I prefer to record with an engineer, whenever possible, to have another person’s ears helping me maintain my energy, my accents, and catching those mispronounced words that I was oh-so-sure I knew!
The hardest part of narration? Hmmm…. I guess that would be when there are lots of characters who are the same-sex, same basic age, from the same place, all speaking to one another in a scene. You have to come up with creative ways of distinguishing them, without taking the listener out of the story.
Allyson’s home studio
My favorite part of narrating happens in the booth itself. You know…the part most people assume narration is but that, like most worthwhile endeavors, can only happen after much work has been done. At this point, I get to sit down and do what I love to do best…tell a story. I can stop thinking about the book intellectually and just flow with the prose, living in the characters’ worlds for those blessed hours when I get to leave my own world behind. It is this experience of breathing life into the writer’s words that is the most fulfilling.
I asked Allyson a bonus question, “if she were to write a memoir, who would she want to narrate her story?” To be honest, I’m not sure who I would want to narrate my own memoir, besides…er…the obvious 🙂 I can’t really give you a specific name. But I’d want it to be one of my fellow journeymen…an audiobook narrator who’s had lots of experience recording books, who shares my reverence for the craft and art of making words sing.
To see more information on Allyson, please check out these links:
My name is Therese Plummer and I started narrating Audiobooks about 9 years ago. I have narrated over two hundred books. Some of my favorites have been The Virgin River and Thunder Point series by Robyn Carr, Tender is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Want Not by Jonathan Miles, Faith by Jennifer Haigh, The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson to name a few. I feel so lucky to have narrated so many amazing stories!
So a typical narration day for me starts with a really good nights sleep and plenty of it, 8-9 hours ideally. I will wake up and in the shower I will use a netti pot which clears out the sinus passages and do my vocal warm ups which include a variety of facial exercises, tongue-twisters and diaphragmatic breathing. I drink a liter of water. I will eat a light breakfast of a banana or oatmeal and have an almond milk cappuccino. Once I am at my studio, if it is going to be a six-hour day, I will ask my engineer if he/she will arrange the microphone so I can stand. I find my breath support is better on longer days if I stand. I will usually work an hour or hour and a half before taking a break. After two or three hours we will break for lunch and go back and work another few hours. A normal recording day is from 10am until 4pm. When I am done I usually don’t talk much for the rest of the night. If I have other prepping to do I will do that at home or just relax and get another good night’s sleep for the next days session.
What I enjoy most about the narration process is bringing this entire story and cast of characters alive. It’s like a one woman show every day. It’s amazing when I have been able to narrate with other actors on a story. It really is such a creative process. All of the theatrical experience I have has to come through my voice in the sound booth and it is imperative that I am able to convey that emotion vocally since that is all my audience has to go on. I am in someone’s earbud for hours at a time and as such the volume and intensity of stage acting must be minimized but just as effective to transport them through the story. It is such a creative challenge learning how to do this from book to book. I learn from every book I have recorded.
The other thing I love about my job is the community of actors I get to work with every day. The Audiobook community from the actors, engineers, producers, bloggers and publishers are the nicest group of people I have ever met and worked with. It is a big family and I hope I get to tell stories with all of them for a long time.
Morning everyone. 🙂 I am at Camp Benedict this week, doing my thing as a board member. It has been beautiful this week so far, talk of rain possible for today and tomorrow but right now looking at a clear blue sky I am not seeing it.
YAY!
I have been helping with craft projects, lining up horse back riding, massages, a few pranks (* ok, really only one where I took another board members shower curtain). 😉
I have been reading a little :
My roommate, Camryn (from my YA review tab) also brought a few reading materials with her:
Camryn is 15.
As I have been mentioning, it is audiobook month and I am hopeful that you have had a chance to check out the audio related posts that I have been putting up this month. Remember, we are having a giveaway this month:
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
Here are the posts that qualify that have gone up so far this month:
Johnny Heller is a narrator of audio books and as all narrators, considers himself an actor. With over 500 narrations, Johnny has narrated in almost all genres.
Johnny started his narrating career in the 90’s and holds to his name these (as well as many other narrations):
MASH
Marley and Me
The Mickey Rawlins Baseball Murder Mysteries by Troy Soos
THE GRIMM CONCLUSION.
the Platypus Police Squad series
The Horrible Harry books
The Vampire Files series by PN Elrod,
Dan Gutman baseball card time travel books
DAVE BARRY’S COMPLETE GUIDE TO GUYS
The NERDS series
BACK IN THE FIGHT
SHOT ALL TO HELL
HOUSE OF LIES
CLOSING TIME
THE LAST STRIPTEASE
THE FAT MAN – A Tale of North Pole Noir
The Perks Of Being A Wallflower
When asked about the similarities between Narration and narrating, Johnny responds,
Audio book narration IS acting. People will often ask me -“are you still acting?” Of course I am! I don’t know that there is a more organic acting form than the audiobook narration. You have a script – the book; an audience; and you.
The major difference between stage and screen and the audio art is that the narrator plays all the roles. I am not – when narrating reacting to cues or the immediate response from an audience or playing camera angles or scenes as plotted by a director. The narrator is a story-teller. The narrator must be immersed in the truth of the author and faithful moment to moment to the text. It is essential that I share the author’s truth.
In a theater piece, the actor plays a single character and he immerses himself in the life of that one character. In narration, the actor (still acting!) plays the narrator and all of the characters – giving each one life as dictated by the authors’ truth which we get from the text. Each character has his/her own traits and the narrator must be adept making choices that propel the story forward. A flawed or faulty choice will halt the narrative flow because it disconnects the actor and therefore the audience from the authors truth.
It’s a very risky thing to narrate a book and one must make choices and one must be an actor with a gift for storytelling.
Johnny personally will read through a book once prior to narrating to get a feel for the voice of the book.
As I read, I make a list of characters and next to the character I note whatever I need to write to tell me who that character is. Is she mean, sweet…if I was casting it for a film, who would I pick. Is this guy a Clint Eastwood type or a Jon Cryer type? I make notes that may not make sense to somebody else but tell me what I need to know to help me make appropriate choices.
The hardest books to narrate according to Johnny are the ones that are emotionally wrenching. Out of his personal narrations he mentions Marley and Me,and A Day No Pigs Will Die. He especially is proud of an amazing book called The Education Of Little Tree. Written so beautifully he says, that he was brought to tears several times while narrating.
When asked if there are any “tricks of the trade, Johnny responded:
I have a few “tricks” although I’m not sure I’d call them that. I always have some tissues with me. Not just for tears! but you never really know what’s gonna come out of your body at any given moment until you are in a booth hoping for quiet!
I recommend remaining hydrated.
A slice of apple can keep your mouth moist (without being slushy) and settle those stomach noises.
When you find your mind wandering during your recording to things like: “hmmmm, I wonder what we’re gonna have for dinner” or “I really gotta do the laundry today…” YOU NEED A BREAK! I frequently step out of the booth and just take a few moments and not think about the project. Just to clear my head. If you find yourself wandering, you are not in touch with the text and you are not telling the story anymore.
And any mistake is fixable! Nothing is etched in stone — if you yawned, belched, yodeled – whatever, you can fix it, don’t worry. But note it because you really must fix it!
June is Audiobook Month. A time when we celebrate Audiobooks, Narrators, Great Audio, and more. If you read reviews here at Book Journey you know I listen to A LOT OF AUDIO. That was not always the case. In fact, there was a time I thought audiobooks were so geeky….
My Aunt and Uncle live in California. Every spring they bring a large RV back to Minnesota and stay with my other Aunt and Uncle here in Brainerd on their property until October. For their trek from California to Minnesota…. they listen to audio. One time I had to get something out of their RV I went in and seen this huge box of audio cassette tapes (bear with me… this was a while ago 😉 ). UGH I thought, how could you just listen to audio for hours on end? They must REALLY BE OLD. (yeah… I am not proud).
About 4 years ago I was offered audiobooks for review. I thought I would give one a try, and put it in my cars CD player. My world has never been the same. I fell in love with a story, and finished a book over the next couple of weeks while driving. Then I started listening to it while cooking, and cleaning, and mowing, and gardening, and playing scrabble on line…
Note: All audio is not AWESOME audio
You might be thinking “But Sheila, I tried audio once and I could not get into it. I can not handle someone reading to me!”
Good audio, as I recently discussed with Narrator Karen White, does not give you the feel that someone is reading to you. Good audio… makes you forget that… good audio, you never hear the narrator reading, instead you fall into the story, much like when you watch a tv show you do not focus that the actor is acting.
Audio Narrators Luncheon in New York
Please watch this site for June audio book related posts. For every post you comment on in June that has this audio book symbol:
I will put you into a drawing for a $25 book certificate for each comment (Barnes and Noble or Amazon – your choice). Winner will be drawn in July.
To give you a clue to what has already been posted this month that is audio related (including this one) – here are the links:
I simply ADORE books about food… memoirs, non fiction, fiction…. and I have read everything that Ruth Reichl has written.. Delicious being her first fiction story I was THRILLED to dive in! Whatever this woman writes… turns into magic. ~Sheila
Billie Breslin is excited when she lands a job at Delicious, the cream of the crop magazine of New York. She is young and feels unqualified to be playing in the big league, but Billie has something that is rare, she has a refined palate that can identify even the toughest of ingredients within a dish. While Billie loves to be a part of the behind the scenes of the magazine, even with much prompting she has no desire to actually cook for reasons she chooses not to say. Then suddenly, while it looks as though all of Billie’s dreams are coming true, the magazine is shut down, leaving long term employees stunned and Billie in shock as her dreams seem to tumble broken to the ground.
When Billie is asked to stay on as the sole employee of Delicious to continue to respond to letters to uphold the Delicious guarantee (if any recipe is not to your satisfaction you will be refunded the cost of your ingredients), she reluctantly agrees as she has no other immediate plans. While exploring the abandoned Delicious library before it goes on the market, she discovers a series of letters hidden in a secret room off the buildings library. These letters dating back to WWII, written by Lucy Swan, an intelligent 12 year old open up a part of Billie that she did not know existed, and may finally help her to release the secret she has held on to tightly for way too long.
As Ruth Reichl’s first fiction book I do admit I was a little cautious. When I first seen the book title I figured she had written another wonderful non fiction read centered around her amazing life of food tastings, restaurants, and more… a fiction story gave me pause, but also… curiosity.
Let me just tell you, no need to pause. PLEASE readers of food memoirs, foodish themed books, and also those who enjoy a good fiction read centered around characters you want to go have dinner with – DO NOT PASS UP ON THIS BOOK.
I listened to this on audio and absolutely fell in love with Julie Whelan’s narration. She brought the characters to life and I so want Sammy to be a real person because I think he and I could talk for hours and hours. I enjoyed this book so much I do not want to give up these amazing people I met within the pages and would absolutely follow them down another path if another book ever just happened to continue on with them. Just saying… 😉
Audiobook listeners – treat yourself to this DELICIOUS book… and those of you who do not do audio, I am confident that this book will read just as engagingly.
Fun note: While in New York for the Book Expo I attended an Audio Book Tea and Ruth Reichl was speaking there (the draw for me). She mentioned that several things in this book actually happened to her – the loss of a magazine job due to the closing of its doors, and some of the amazing descriptions within the book. I wish I could have chatted with her about this as I am SO CURIOUS as to how much is fiction….
Just today while looking for Ruth Reichl’s website I discovered a recent article by The New York Times regarding this book. I have not read it yet as I try to avoid all reviews and articles on books I have plans to review, but as soon as I finish typing this out, I am off to read it. I am sure it is a GLOWING review.
I interrupt the BEA posts for a quick update on a lot of great things coming up here, in life, and a bit of sadness too.
Let’s just get the sadness out of the way. Today is the 18th anniversary of the loss of my mom and my step dad to a car accident. Every year,I never know how it is going to hit me. There have been times, this day has been while I was at the EXPO, and busy is good. It’s the days like today where I am home, and planning what I will do today where it is a little harder.
Moving on.
What’s happening here?
The Book Expo books arrived yesterday. That’s a SSSQQQUUUEEEE. I have not opened the boxes yet. I have a tradition where a friend of mine comes over with her daughter Camryn (the YA reviewer) I have tabbed above, and we go through the boxes together. They help me sort and we chat books and the expo and I enjoy the experience with other book lovers. I will be posting highlighted books soon.
Camp Benedict. Camp starts on Monday. I am off next week from Monday afternoon on. This weekend I will be working on our “One Word” project which is our theme this year… positive thinking. I love the theme and I look forward to a pretty amazing week.
My 5 year Blogiversary. Now that is exciting! I am going to put the post up tomorrow – June 7th, and we (please come!) are going to have some fun as we have in the past years. I will be having BIG giveaways and an all day celebration here of book goodness. 5 years wow…. how did that happen?
Audiobook Month. YAY! Did you know that June is audiobook month? I am excited to kick off a lot of fun posts and giveaways next Tuesday thanks to a wonderful group of narrators who will be sharing some fun things here. There will be giveaways, gift certificates, and more. Audiobook lovers and those who are not there yet, this is going to be FUN. 😀
I actually have so many posts to write I have a list! Next up in book expo posts will be the Author Breakfasts, then a random picture post of the expo floor etc with wrap up thoughts.
Today while working on Camp Projects I will be listening to audio. I hope to get in a bike ride today and possibly tonight see the Fault In Our Stars Movie with Friends.
Book Journey 