Somewhere in the numbing midst of recording each
of my fair share of how to audio
programs, I can palpably sense time poking along like a slug, and then onset of
the fidgets: torso twisting, fingers
tapping, knees knocking; simmering impatience bubbles into roiling incredulity,
followed by full blown perturbation: Okay,
okay, I get it already! Seriously?
Eighty thousand words to say in what should have been a two-page essay that the
publisher could have still slashed by half, and easily left room for footnotes
and the author’s favorite recipes!
Faced now with the harrowing prospect of inducing
the fidgets by succumbing to
redundancy’s trapping allure, this how to
post challenges me to say it coherently, say it briefly, and believe me, I
know, say it once!
So, here goes:
Note: This post devotes
itself to fiction. Next post, non-fiction.
For narrators who record fiction without the
benefit of a storyteller’s director (i.e.
one whose actable suggestions emerge when performance appears to be incompatible
with subtext-demand): After
activating your inner director with these simple, Self-Director Directions, you’ll instantly connect to the text’s
emotionality, and—before your very ears!—transform into a more compelling, more
hireable narrator.
Oh, and these Self-Director Directions come with this incredible guarantee: Upon
activation, if your performance doesn’t dramatically (or comically) improve,
email all five Self-Director Directions
back, un-friend me on Facebook, de-tweet and linked-out me: No questions asked.
And if retribution doesn’t suffice? On me: Dinner for two with Aunt Mary, that syntax
scintillator, pyrotechnic pronouncer, modulation master, and recent autobiographical
author of, Sell It, Don’t Smell It: I never
met a word that doesn’t need help!
Without further adieu:
Self-Director
Direction #1: Act Now!
And I do mean act! Storytelling is
100% acting, 0% vocalizing. When you prep a novel, when you sit before that
text in your booth, forget the words—they’re non-actable symbols. Remember
the subtext, where storytellers
locate the words’ actable feeling. Bottom line: If you don’t act, you’ll read.
If you read, you’ll emotionally disconnect the listener—Aunt Mary’s spécialité.
Self-Director
Direction #2: From
Whose, or What, Point Of View Am I Telling the Story? Before uttering word
one, engage the narrative’s point of view. Does the story begin from a
particular person’s pov, or is there a feeling embedded in the opening event or
description? Hint: Events and description have pov. All words have subtext. Speaking
without engaging pov is reading, and therefore, not acting.
Self-Director
Direction #3: What’s
The Feeling? Now that you’re prepped to act, now that you’re connected to point
of view, what’s the feeling? Happy, sad, angry, frustrated, etc. Remember, only
feeling is actable. Not story. If you can’t specifically identify the feeling
attached to pov, you can’t act.
Self-Director
Direction #4: Ah, ah, ah! Don’t speak. Not yet. Not until
you’re certain about The Stakes. Now
that you’re focused on acting, point of view, and the feeling, exactly how
intense is that feeling? On a 1-10 urgency-scale, how scared, how nervous, how
wary, how giddy, how frightened? Hint: Whatever number you assign, double it. Far
too many narrators err on the side of cautious commitment. Trust me. The
chances you’ll over-act are virtually nil.
Self-Director
Direction #5: Stay
Committed! Keep your foot on the emotional consequence-gas pedal. Remember,
the stakes are embedded in every single word. Relax—worse, forget—your
commitment to the narrative’s emotionality, you’re finished acting. Hint: Vocalizing
à la Aunt
Mary (including, modulation (singing), non-emotionally-predicated emphasis, employing the voice to help
the words) merely indicates emotion.
And by definition, if emotion is indicated, it’s not organically felt: there is
no feeling to connect. Despite the best of intentions, lifting your foot off
the emotional consequence-gas pedal is phoning
it in. Remove that foot completely, and you’re phoning in Aunt Mary.
Finally, these self-directions are most
effective when given in order of appearance.
So there you have it! Five Self-Director Directions that promote immediate storytelling. I
must admit, this advice-giving was fun, and sort of intoxicating! So much so, that,
well, would it really hurt to, ya know, repeat it, albeit, with a new slant, a
different spin? At the risk of reiterating, revisiting, reviewing,
regurgitating, and otherwise reordering, re-shuffling, re-working what’s been
stated as clearly, and as succinctly as possible, it’s worth taking just a few
sentences, or maybe a teensy paragraph, or two...Though, really, now that I
think of it, each Self-Director Direction
could be its own chapter, or book.
How about a series!
///
I’m looking forward to this weekend’s NY Narrator’s
Workshop (Jan. 10-11), which is filled. And also Chicago’s Narrator’s Workshop (Feb.
7-8) where openings remain. (For information and to register, contact Michele
Cobb: michele@audiofilemagazine.com.
