The Dialogue, Part II: Talking Points

           

         Assume that the following dialogue appeared in two books, identically titled: The Narrator’s Nightmare. The only difference between the books: one is fiction, the other non-fiction. Imagine narrating first as if from the novel, and then non-fiction.

       “Oh my God,” said Jane, “I just landed my first audio book – Not My Fortune, Cookie - about a semi-retired, Chinese detective living in Boston who’s been there so long she has an accent, except when she’s speaking on the cell phone to her brother, Ling, in flawless Mandarin. Anyway, she comes out of retirement when her best friend, Elka - you guessed it, from Sweden - calls from her new home in Yankton, South Dakota. There’s like, five major male suspects, and, I dunno, maybe four female. And, like, they’re all the same age, and work at the same hog farm. I mean, how am I supposed to distinguish these people? And then, this one suspect bolts, drives cross country, and - I can’t do this – there are these other characters: from west Texas, the south side of Chicago, north Baltimore, East Jesus, Arkansas, a Pakistani midget, a Russian tour group speaking real Russian, an Israeli rabbi barking dovining instructions to Long Island Jews, and a French geriatric nurse who mimics the home’s residents back in Boston. And, at the end, when the detective discovers the real crook – an unemployed Albanian clown – the other characters have a big reunion back in Yankton! And they all talk to each other fast and slurry, because Ling – who’s in for the reunion - spiked the fruit punch! Oh, and it’s virtually all dialogue.”

Embedded in Jane’s monologue (I’m sure many narrators can relate) are multiple dialogue related questions and challenges. First among them: Should Jane’s ‘fiction’ dialogue be performed differently when it appears in the ‘non-fiction’ narrative?

My short answer to this question is, yes! Fiction dialogue should be approached differently than non-fiction. Why? Because there is a fundamental difference between the performance-demand fiction and non-fiction place on the narrator. Therefore, the performance-approach to each form must differ, fundamentally.

After briefly explaining this notion, I’ll suggest some of the specific dialogue challenges I’ve encountered with narrators and my ‘how-to’ remedies for them.

         For the narrator, what singularly distinguishes narrative fiction from non-fiction is: point of view. Characters who speak in narrative fiction speak literally for themselves. They are, the moment they speak, the three dimensional star of their own show; they have an inner life; they are sentient.

Non-fiction characters are spoken for by the author. That is, non-fiction characters aren’t really real. They have no inner life, no soul. They exist to further the author’s intellectual purpose. Non-fiction characters speak on behalf of the author. 

When a non-fiction author, writing about the Civil War, quotes General Lee, he is saying to his audience, albeit enthusiastically, ‘Hey, check out what Lee said; understand this quote's salience.’ His intent, by way of his own enthusiasm for this story, is to emotionally connect the listener to his intellectual purpose, not to the actor’s rendition of Lee.

NON-FICTION DIALOGUE

For me, authentically recreating non-fiction dialogue means the narrator speaks ‘as if’ she were the author because from the listener’s perspective, she is.

Remembering that the text reveals all, the non-fiction narrator’s primary performance obligation is to determine the author’s feeling about her subject, her overall emotional state. That is, does the book’s syntax reflect happy, sad, glib, prosaic, intellectual, wistful, sublime, etc.?

Having determined how the author feels (yes, the author’s words must embody her passion, her conviction, or why would this book have been written) the narrator affects a persona, intimately, that embodies the author’s feeling, then grasps the listener’s imagination as if she were the author.

When talent have difficulty replicating the author’s feeling, I often suggest they imagine this author (again, depending on the syntax) as a teacher, a company CEO, or some other authority figure – ‘authority’ is a common denominator for all non-fiction authors – and pretend they are speaking enthusiastically to a small class or group.

Adopting the appropriate performance persona is the key to unlocking non-fiction’s fundamental performance challenge: recreating the author’s emotional state. Once that’s known, all dialogue is spoken as if by the author, as opposed to the particular character or figure. So, when the narrator - imaging the author as, say, enthusiastic university professor – quotes General Lee, as if to her graduate students, as if she’s about to impart the meaning of the war, it is not Lee speaking but rather the author speaking for him.

Is it ever acceptable to imbue non-fiction’s characters with an identifiable voice? No. Never. Does that mean the dialogue should be flat, read unemotionally? Of course not. When the author’s enthusiasm for this amazing story – as opposed to showing off her southern accent – is exercised, the characters honor the text, vibrantly.

Finally, for talent who just can’t control the impulse to tweak Chairman Mao as he quotes the Little Red Book, it’s instructive to remember that your impulse opposes the author’s purpose: to assert an intellectually compelling proposition. Your Chinese accent, authentic as it may be, merely redirects the listener to your performance. At that point the storyteller has upstaged, rather than enhanced, the narrative. The stage belongs to the intellectual purpose, not characterization. And it’s worth remembering that the consumer hasn’t purchased Mao’s China to assess the narrator’s accent.

FICTION DIALOGUE

How to play the opposite sex? How to distinguish same-sex characters when they are assigned no distinguishing features? How to yell when you can’t yell? Cry when you can’t cry? (Or can you?). How to create a Japanese accent without it sounding like Saturday Night Live? Or a German accent when you haven’t a clue? And that dreaded Boston accent? Do they all sound like JFK?

For me, dialogue challenges (along with all performance related issues) are best addressed by combining useful performance rubrics with acquisition of concrete, result oriented vocal techniques that quickly assist in creating organic dialogue choices:

First: Stay connected! The listener’s willing suspension of disbelief is the narrator’s priority. A vocal choice - for a particular line or even word - that emotionally disconnects listeners from the narrative means the storyteller has failed to engage his audience.

Second: All dialogue – naturalistic, sci-fi, fantasy, whether or not the syntax appears comprehensible – is real. Dialogue is grounded in the character’s reality. Language emerges from inside the character. Speech (including non-verbal sounds) expresses a character’s given feeling at a given moment in time. Therefore, all dialogue is real.

Third: Act the subtext. To be sure some dialogue appears so over-the-top, melodramatic or nonsensical, one can only gasp, who wrote this? But the performance-truth must be that all characters are carbon based. All humans have an inner life. No matter how silly that life may appear to the narrator, it’s important to the character. That inner life is where the ‘eggs’ are, where the subtext resides. The more vocal tools a narrator possesses to discover the subtext, the closer she comes to speaking authentically.

Fourth: There is no bad dialogue, only speaking it badly. A final admonishment before discussing dialogue technique: So-called technique – that is, vocal choices imposed by the narrator to affect a given line – only achieves its purpose when the listener is aesthetically tricked into believing that the line’s emotional revelation has occurred ‘organically.’ That is exactly why modulation – or any vocal technique – that’s imposed merely to create vocal variety sounds phony or not quite right to the listener, bores him or simply has no emotional resonance. Humans are connected to emotion, not variety.

The Rest:

         General Drama Axiom: Less volume = more emotional connection. Less is more, almost always. Axiomatically, the more at emotionally, the less volume is needed to voice it. Why? I don’t know the psychology, but I would argue that when I stage whisper, “I will kill you,” I intimately connect the listener to my psyche, invite her in, to feel what I feel. Too much voice and I risk ‘indicating’ my feeling and disconnecting emotionally from the listener.

When in doubt, less voice is more, particularly in drama.

General Comedy Axiom: Bigger is better: More volume, more presentation, more ‘indicating.’

“Why?” said Sadie.

“Oy! Why not, bubela!” said Moishe.

Comedy is an intellectual experience, not an emotional one. We laugh at what we know (or reference), not what we feel. Understanding a reference can make us laugh. Empathy can make us cry. Never the reverse.

         Speaking-Real Tools

How does one believably say, “Next time Sarah, you won’t have your soldier boy to save you, so remember, I’m watching, Sarah, I’m watching." It ain’t easy because this dialogue screams phony-melo-drama-no-one-talks-this-way-except-authors-who-can’t-write-dialogue!

The narrator’s response to this – and all dialogue, really – must be to ferret out the subtext, to discover the character’s inner life, to assert the right tone. The ferreting tools: pace; pause; volume. Each tool is activated by what I’ve put in quotes and believe is an ‘actable’ direction:

Pace: “Don’t let the words come out quickly; hold back, hold back.” This simple, physical response – literally disallowing the words to simply stream out of the mouth - permits the actor time to intuit feeling, to connect to the character, rather than merely rattle off words or affect a pace disconnected from an inner reality.

Pause: “Remember, you have no idea what you’re going to say next.” Metaphorically, the subtext lives between the words, among or beneath them. When the actor literally pauses, as if to ‘work at discovering’ what she wants to say next, she intuitively stops – if for only a fraction of a second – to connect to the character’s inner world, to what propels the character to speak those words.

Volume: Drama: “Less voice, more stage whisper, less, no, even less.” As I mentioned earlier, less voice, particularly stage whisper, creates intimacy, is an emotional connector and heightens the stakes. Comedy: “More voice, more.” Trust that the danger is under-acting.

Voicing the Opposite Sex?

If you’re a woman, play the man, not the baritone. If you’re a man, remember, women have feelings all their own.

Yes, a woman can literally lower her voice a bit, a man can affect a slightly breathier quality, but at the risk of stereotyping, the actor’s preferred choice could be to play the traits that distinguish the opposite sex. My choice – especially when there are multiple opposite-sex characters that seem to sound alike – is to focus the talent on finding a distinguishing male or female cadence, tone, or overall attitude as well as changing the voice.

Accents

Play the intent, not the accent. And if you even think you can’t imitate a believable German accent, you’re right. Don’t go there. (Unless you’re Aunt Mary, who, after viewing one of the Republican debates, suggested to me that, like global warming, accents are a figment of our imagination).

For the accent challenged there’s more than one way to sound ‘foreign.’ For example, slightly formalizing your English might be enough to suffice as an Asian accent. Finding a particular vowel sound that replicates a geographical region may be enough to keep the listener in willing suspension of disbelief.

It’s worth considering that nothing disrupts a compelling story when a listener thinks, ‘She’s supposed to be from Ireland, not New Jersey.’

         Dialogue’s revelation is feeling, not information. What the words signify, what they mean, is the author’s responsibility. Besides, it’s impossible to ‘act’ meaning. What’s actable is the character’s feeling about whatever he’s speaking of, or shouting, crying or laughing about. Feeling is where the dialogue’s emotional form emerges from.

I sometimes encounter actors who fret about getting the line’s point across: Am I communicating the character’s thoughts? Fair concerns, yes. But really, any given line’s salient concern must be: Am I communicating the character’s feelings?

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Recent recordings: Caitlin Davies – a former NY narrator’s workshop participant. I’ll be in LA Sept.17&18 to conduct a workshop with west coast narrators.

The Dialogue, Part I: “Inside” the Quotation Marks, and Outside

           

    The performance background of most narrators includes theatre, perhaps film and television as well. Experience has trained them to reflexively adjust to these mediums’ particular performance demands (on stage they project; television and film require vocal choices be mediated by a myriad of external factors, such as location, etc.). It should follow that audio book narrators approach narrative fiction and non-fiction dialogue according to this medium’s unique demands - that is, differently than they would in a play or a film. In my experience what should follow sometimes doesn’t. Why? Perhaps because this medium’s demands aren’t fully recognized or appreciated.
    Two essential elements  - unique to audio book narration – not only impact dialogue choices but cause us to redefine ‘dialogue’ as well: the booth; and the narrative outside the quotation marks. Honoring these utterly unique elements permits the narrator the possibility of realizing his full storytelling potential. Ignore or defy them and, from my perspective, storytelling is an impossibility.
    For the purposes of this entry, let me try and unpack these critical elements by focusing on a slice of narrative fiction (more on non-fiction in Part II):

    Holly leaned into Ed. She studied his wavering smile. As if Holly could see them, she assessed his inner fears, where she knew Ed lived and where Holly had to reside if Ed were to…cooperate. That is, if he were to die accordingly: his way, he’ll believe - but in truth, hers. Ed did not fail to disappoint Holly.
    “Out,” bellowed Ed. “Or I will kill you.”
    “Kill me, then.” Holly smirked.
    “I swear it!” he cursed.
    Ed’s fingers gripped Holly’s throat. He began to shiver.
    Holly grimaced; her eyes bulged; she gasped, quick hiccup-like pleas for air. What she wanted, needed, begged silently for from Ed, this second, was for his fingers to squeeze harder.

    Literary merit way aside, an audio book’s fundamental performance demands dictate how the narrator must approach the above narrative’s dialogue within and outside the quotes.

The BOOTH

     Audio books come to the listener via an intimate medium: the booth. Therefore, if the listener is to maintain her willing suspension-of-disbelief, the dialogue must be spoken intimately.
(For the moment, let me leave the practical ‘how-to’ challenge of speaking intimately - even when the character is like totally, raging pissed - for Part II.)
    Audio book narration is inherently intimate because the ‘booth’ - along with its microphone and other technical accoutrements – requires the storyteller to speak as if to one person and, therefore, express emotional choices intimately.
    In-the-booth (as opposed to on-stage or in-front-of-the-auditorium) is an intimate experience. The booth is solitary; silent: its sole purpose is to extinguish outside noise and assert a one-on-one relationship between narrator and listener.
    The ‘booth’ - where the narrator physically tells his story – compels him, regardless of a given line’s emotional import, to remember: hey, I better find a way to express myself that is respectful of its demand (intimacy). I must narrate intimately – less volume, less voice.
    When the narrator respects the booth’s intimacy she is, ironically, liberated to turbo charge her dialogue, to act her brains out. Additionally, she maintains her intimate contract with the listener – that vital connection that, once broken, compromises the listener’s willing suspension of disbelief.
    A book’s dialogue - as in a play or film – may require a whisper, violent screaming fit, and every vocalized decibel in between. Technically, lots can be done to permit the actor myriad decibel choices. Still, while the dialogue may instruct one way, the medium admonishes another. That is, the character’s line may end with, “he said loudly,” but the medium mediates ‘loudly’ by insisting that too much volume interrupts – even kills – intimacy. You can speak ‘loudly,’ but it must be done so, intimately, without volume.
    To achieve ‘loudly’ intimately (again, more on ‘how to’ in Part II), I’ll often admonish the narrator: Too presentational, too big. Less volume, more stage whisper. Okay, now – so long as you stay ‘down there,’ meaning intimately loud  – you can scream, yell, super-energize the line, give it all you got, blow your guts out.
    I often suggest to narrators: presentational acting defies the booth and disconnects the listener. For me, presentational means speaking as if to a crowd, as if the booth is a stage or a large set, as if in front of a throng, as if there’s a back row. Presentational doesn’t inherently diminish emotional import; it merely makes that emotional choice inaccessible when coming from a booth. In another venue – a stage, for example – the collective in attendance appreciate and respond to the presentational actor who kindly invites everyone to participate in that experience. But coming from the booth, presentation is overkill. What it kills, specifically, is the booth’s intimate nature.

‘DIALOGUE’ OUTSIDE THE QUOTATION MARKS

    It is fair to assert, from a performer’s perspective, that the narrative is, in effect, all dialogue. The storyteller who treats the narrative outside the quotation marks, as if it exists within them, honors what is fundamental to both fiction and non-fiction: point-of view.
    Said differently, if it’s not a particular character speaking it’s the story’s narrator (or literally, the author). To be sure, some portions of the narrative outside the quotes act more like dialogue than others (look carefully at our fiction example) and therefore should be regarded more like dialogue.
    It’s important to remember that for the author, words on a page don’t exist as if they had no purpose (just like we humans). Because the narrative, by definition, expresses ‘point-of-view,’ (whether it’s a laundry list, accounting of a grizzly murder, or description of a sunset), the narrator must embody the point of view of whom or what he is speaking about – almost as if that person, place or thing is speaking.
    Should the entire narrative sound like dialogue? No. Dialogue inside the quotes is the character actually speaking. Outside the quotes must feel ‘as though’ the character (or place or thing being described) were speaking. Inside the quotes is the character feeling; outside embodies the character’s feeling.
    The easiest, if not the most rigorous, way for me to discriminate between dialogue within and outside the quotation marks is by example.
    Can you tolerate this slice again?

    Holly leaned into Ed. She studied his wavering smile. As if Holly could see them, she assessed his inner fears, where she knew Ed lived and where Holly had to reside if Ed were to…cooperate. That is, if he were to die accordingly: his way, he’ll believe - but in truth, hers. Ed did not fail to disappoint Holly.
    “Out,” bellowed Ed. “Or I will kill you.”
    “Kill me, then.” Holly smirked.
    “I swear it!” he cursed.
    Ed’s fingers gripped Holly’s throat. He began to shiver.
    Holly grimaced; her eyes bulged; she gasped, quick hiccup-like pleas for air. What she wanted, needed, begged silently for from Ed, this second, was for his fingers to squeeze harder.

    Read the following line merely as outside-the-quotes narrative (Yes, you try, too, Aunt Mary. I can’t wait to hear the mp3): What she wanted, needed, begged silently for from Ed, this second, was for his fingers to squeeze harder.
    Now, read a second time, as if there were quotation marks, as though cadence, tone, and volume shift matter to embody Holly’s pov, as though you are Holly: “What she wanted, needed, begged silently for from Ed, this second, was for his fingers to squeeze harder.”
    When the storyteller recalls that all the narrative’s dialogue must respect the medium’s ‘intimacy’ demand and that point-of-view, the narrative’s heart and soul, appears not only inside the quotes but outside as well, only then can the author’s intent erupt, be fully realized by the narrator and inhabited by the listener.

Next: Performing the Dialogue, Part II: How To Talk Real in Fiction and Non-Fiction, Even If the Author Can’t


   

Fear and Scolding: Why Narrators Buck the Text

         If it's fair to argue that the text is, in effect, the narrator’s most instructive guide, his co-director, what is it that nevertheless propels some storytellers to go it alone, as if they, not the narrative, should mediate their performance? That is, if narrators should be relying on the text for performance clues, what must they be thinking when they substitute the text’s performance instruction with their own?

          My short answer, which I’ll attempt to unpack, is that when the narrator replaces the text’s performance demand with her own, she isn’t thinking. She isn’t engaging the narrative; she isn’t immersed in its subtext. She is not hearing the narrative’s emotional calling. Instead she is bucking the text, misguiding herself, predicating her performance on fear or scolding, most likely, on both. She is not serving the narrative.   

         My experience suggests that too often these twin hellions - who, like inseparable, fire-breathing Lucifers - materialize from within the syntax, plant their devilishness on the narrator’s shoulder and spin their whispered heresy: Pssst!The narrative isn’t your friend. Beware the sub-text!  Besides, why interpret the text when you can declaim it your way, magnificently. All those acting classes, your voice – oohhh, so stylish, commanding. C’mon,  becoming you is soooo much more rewarding than becoming the story. Ha, ha, ha ha, ha ha, ha. 

         When fear and scolding appear, they deprive the narrative of the storyteller's consummate effort.
         So, what exactly are some narrators - even experienced ones - afraid of? What scolding-reflex propels them to prioritize themselves, rather than the text, as the primary performance-source for their approach to the story? 

         The narrator opens his new book. He begins reading. Lucifers materialize:
         Fear: So, you’re going to immerse yourself in the narrative’s emotional convulsions? The subtext? The white-space dyspepsia between each sentence? Righhht!  You know what’s imbedded in that narrative? Emotional choices you might have to chance in order to faithfully honor the author’s words. I don’t think you can do it, pilgrim!

         Scolding: You’re an actor, certified by a BA, MFA,  awards, accolades, blessed by instinct (meaning you got it), hundreds of hours studying with the best. You’ve learned how to interpret, you know how to modulate the voice - how loud, how soft – how to conjure vocal magic. Damn tootin’ you’re gonna take charge of the narrative, constrain the author’s voice by implanting these tried-and-true vocal skills into the text like my white-hot poker.  For God’s sake – sorry about the blasphemy – put those vocal skills to work, tout suite, and let’s see if the text can keep pace.

         In the final analysis, I hope it's fair to conclude that if a narrator believes he may impose his ‘timbre’ on the narrative, or that he may overlook the sub-text imbedded in the beats that vibrate between sentences, simply skimming by them, as though they were non-existent, or that, when in doubt, he can always rely on modulation because, obviously, modulation means variety, then the narrator has said: I prefer me to the narrative. Whether it's fear, scolding, or both, the narrative suffers.

         Though some actors may fairly be accused of egocentricity, it’s also important to remember that actors may also be far more passionate, more devoted than the rest of us to foregoing their story for the sake of someone else’s - in the case of audio book narrators, the author’s story. What a magnificently selfless attribute, a gift that – when it’s selflessly directed towards the text – becomes a celebration of the author’s voice, rather than the narrator’s.

        I recently directed a talented, albeit inexperienced, narrator. I asked her, employing all the performance vocabulary I possessed, to dismiss those inhibiting demons. Their admonishments to narrate ‘safely’ dampened her energy, forced her to blow through beats, to ‘report it’ instead of ‘live it,’ etc. I asked her to stop worrying about the mike, her articulation, plosives or me, and to permit the story – in this case, an intense drama – to direct her responses.

        Finally, she allowed the text to speed the plough. Finally, she was reacting, not reciting.

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This past month I’ve directed first-time narrator Heather Corrigan, and a former workshop participant (When She Woke), Pete Larkin (Abuse of Power), and the sublime Barbara Caruso (I Married You For Happiness). I’m looking forward to the two-day LA narrator’s workshop (Sept. 17/18), coordinated by Denise Chamberlain and conducted at one of the west coast’s preeminent audio book facilities, The Media Staff. 

Simplicity Complicated: The Non-Fiction Irony

Perhaps prophetically, definitely pathetically, I recently received an updated demo from Aunt Mary – her thirty-fifth she informed me, tersely. AM’s accompanying email indicated that while she wasn’t giving up on fiction (“No way, Mr. P”) she was lowering the bar. AM was prepared to accept a non-fiction gig. “Take a listen. I dare you not to hire me!”

After thirteen seconds of Aunt Mary’s first selection - from a self-published e-book titled: Jellybean Recipes By Aficionados Who Stick To Their Gums - I clicked off her sputter-speed, troglodyte-like rendition. Preparing to delete her email I noticed the rhetorical P.S. below her name: “Am I making this author sparkle, or what!”

Aunt Mary’s self-congratulatory whimsy caused me to consider non-fiction’s ironic performance challenges.

From my producer/director portal, narrating non-fiction should be, if not a snap, less problematic than fiction. Though it possesses fewer moving parts than fiction, many narrators nevertheless have difficulty accessing non-fiction’s relatively uncomplicated performance demands. Ironically, the challenges that bedevil these narrators are largely self-induced.

I don’t know why narrating non-fiction vexes talent. My suspicion is that this genre may not be considered by narrators from a perspective that prioritizes their responsibility to the author and the needs of the listener.

Said differently, when an actor employs vocal technique as if it were the key to narrating non-fiction he finds himself speaking for the author rather than serving the narrative as if he were the author. His cure (vocal technique) kills the patient (the author).

While actors regard unpacking fiction’s narrative (including all the characters) as the key to an outstanding performance, when prepping non-fiction, they often bypass this genre’s heart and soul: the author’s point-of view. It’s as if there is none. Instead, they may incorrectly presume their vocal technique will 'tell' the author’s story.

There are, I think, at least two fundamental issues that may suggest how easy it is for narrators to complicate non-fiction with unproductive choices that serve neither the author nor the listener:

Fundamental Issue One: Non-fiction’s singular performance demand.

Fundamental Issue Two: Self-inflicted technique that at best wounds the narrative by diminishing its singularity, traumatizing its vitality, and reducing its syntax to a kind of mealy blandness. At worst, self-inflicted technique renders the author’s words emotionally pointless, as though the only reason the author slaved over this story was to have it disseminated by a disinterested reporter.

Additionally, once these issues are identified and addressed, a pathway towards more authentic storytelling evinces itself (And this is the case for all non-fiction - from how-to-be-happy to physics-for-physicists. It’s important to stress that from a performance perspective all non-fiction possesses identical DNA).

Finally, there are a couple of non-fiction-only points that are worth mentioning.

When I direct a narrator who may not be hearing non-fiction's so-called singular performance demand, I ask rhetorically: Do you think this narrative is the author’s baby? Of course you do. So, beneath every word, oscillating inside the white space separating sentences, if you listen, you can hear the author prompting enthusiastically: Everyone, wait till you hear this. Isn’t my story exciting! Can you believe I’m going to tell you about x, y and then, check this about z!

The non-fiction narrator’s job-one is: speak as if you are the author, as if you worked years so the world can go gaga over all that you proffer. Let the syntax speak for it itself; let the author’s enthusiasm for that syntax speak from within you.

Does anyone think, rhetorically speaking, there is a non-fiction author on the planet who is less excited about his baby than his fiction counterpart? No. So, why would a narrator not want to immerse herself into that author’s soul and tell it like the author would, only better, because the narrator is a professional storyteller!

Is there a preferred vocal technique that particularly suits non-fiction? My short answer is no. Longer answer: vocal technique is the wrong priority.

If a narrator considers non-fiction by first looking at what the text is giving her, she will surmise how the author feels about his subject. The author may ooze attitude or point-of-view; or he may beg for a more thoughtful approach. He will always be thrilled to tell his story.

Once the narrator determines the author’s emotional state her job is to replicate that state throughout then narrative.

Believing always that the narrator’s responsibility is connecting emotionally with the listener, imposition of vocal technique (from modulation to emphasizing words and phrases rather than the author’s feeling about those words and phrases) remakes the writer’s pride and joy into a sort of dispassionate lecture, symposium, or endless commercial devoid of heart, vitality and, most importantly, the author’s voice.

I would argue that the benefits of highlighting various words and phrases in a given non-fiction book are not meaningful unless the narrator speaks as if he were the author underlining those words and phrases.

Employing vocal technique to speak for the author is, to steal from golf’s detractors, a long talk spoiled.

There are a couple of related non-fiction issues worth mentioning: how to play various characters; and just how emotionally involved should the narrator become with the author’s point-of-view?

My short answer to these questions is: non-fiction is not the venue to demonstrate character voice acuity. Non-fiction means: No accent necessary - even when the author writes, “he said in Brooklynese.” And if “I said angrily” appears? Less is more. The narrator may effectively suggest the author’s feeling but not act it as if she was portraying a character.

I’d argue that listeners will not willingly suspend their disbelief when a non-fiction performance imitates fiction. The listener’s disconnect may have to do with her expectation: She is prepped for a story, not a performance. Additionally, non-fiction isn’t about character. Quoting French President Sarkozy in an accent (even if it is magnifique) suddenly turns our attention to Sarkozy-the-dramatized-character, and away from the story about Sarkozy that the author wants to tell us.

If narrating non-fiction is ultimately about sharing the author’s enthusiasm for his baby, then the performance fuss should properly be over encouraging the listener to say: Does this guy love his baby or what? 

So, how do you represent the author with something as mundane as: Fundamental Issue One? The answer: How would the author say it?

Hire The Text: Digging Your Director

If a passerby caught a snippet of audio book narrators confabbing over their directors, they could be forgiven for assuming the conversation was about some endangered species. It is by now axiomatic that while a qualified director’s assistance is valued by talent, this special relationship is in decline and not likely to rebound.

 Since working alone is the trend, how can a narrator – particularly when a book they’re prepping offers them vexing performance questions – compensate for either no-director-and-an-engineer or home (studio) alone?

The short answer might be: Hire the text! And given the diminishing herd of directors, the text may eventually be the only place to turn when there’s a performance-related concern.

This doable proposition may yield some very positive results, assuming the narrator knows what to look for.

Though the book’s author (and this includes non-fiction as well) never intended her story to include a director’s manual, ironically, it does. And this applies to every book, regardless of its perceived literary merit. In terms of performance, all books are the same: They are imbued with feeling and point-of-view.

Upon hiring the text to, in effect, direct you, one immediately notices some obvious emotional indicators, and perhaps some subtle, less visible ones, as well. There may be dozens of insights strewn about the text that, properly decoded, stimulate the creative process and assist the narrator in producing a compelling audio program.

Before looking at textual clues I’ve discovered since I began directing audio books, let me first assert that authors are working overtime to direct narrators. Believe me, they’ve got your back. A brief, supportive anecdote:

In a recent issue of Writer’s Digest (July/August 2011) author Adair Lara says in her instructional article, Make Your Tone Pitch-Perfect, “Often when we feel something is missing from a piece of writing, the key lies in examining the tone.” Before suggesting ways writers can make their work “resonate,” she provides her inclusive definition of tone: “…conflict, surprise, imagery, details, the words [the author] chooses and the way [the author] arranges them in sentences.”

Suffice to say, Ms. Lara is talking feeling, “wow!”, not informational blah, blah, blah.

For the narrator, the performance issue is, how do I unpack what is emotionally at stake in this narrative, because I know it’s there? 

When I observe the actor missing what the text is directing him to do, I mention it. I direct the actor to see what the text is telling you. (That’s also my truncated definition of directing).

When the narrator is working alone, how can she direct herself to see what she’s missed? If she digs the text, it will direct her.

Obviously when the author writes, “he said petulantly,” we understand what to do. But what about when there isn’t a clear emotional notation?

Whether fiction or non-fiction it’s important to remember that sub-text rules: it is beneath every single word’s skin. No exception. And sub-text is purely emotional: all feeling.

Whether a narrator is describing the character’s dress or rattling off the ingredients of a cake, these words count emotionally. From a performance point-of-view, a list is a feeling about that list; a character’s clothes represent a feeling about those clothes. Always. No exception. Sub-text – the word’s spirit - is never not present.

When the storyteller accepts that he is absolutely never emotionally uninvolved, that there’s no such thing as a spiritless word, he begins to see the syntax as an inextricably linked duel proposition: information and feeling. Can’t have one without the other.

How then does the storyteller feel a list, much less act it? How does he act the clothes a character is wearing?

The short answer (this may be worth fleshing out later) is that the narrator imbues these things with point-of-view. The list of clothes, for example, was purchased by someone, or someone chose to wear this apparel because it means something to that person, etc.

Said differently, when the narrator reels off the litany of people and things occupying a park, someone (the author or a particular character) feels something about those things. It’s the narrator’s job not only to inform the listener about the park, but also to visit its inhabitants from the author’s or character’s point-of-view. Emotionally, there’s always something at stake (see sub-text).

Syntax (word order) provides performance clues, along with the particular words. As does punctuation.

The very order of a sentence or paragraph is indicative of point-of-view. Word order, as Adair Lara alludes to, may provide numerous emotional clues, what she refers to as, tone.

For example, the text may say: “I opened my front door, stood a minute, really tired and next minute, splish splash, I’m taking a bath.”

Or it may read: “I opened my front door. Really tired! Stood a minute. And, next minute: I’m taking a bath. Splish. Splash.”

Read both sentences aloud (Aunt Mary: don’t try this at home, you won’t get it). It is fair to suggest that the alternate punctuation and word order create a different - though maybe subtle, maybe not - feeling or tone.

Finally, it is important, I think, to emphasize the text’s ‘beats,’ the white space I mentioned last post that reverberates with point-of-view, that is inhabited by the “Wow!” Between each comma, colon, semi-colon, dash and sentence, there exists not merely another thought but a point-of-view about that thought.

When a professional narrator (sorry, auntie) allows that he must, as he pre-reads the book, immerse himself in the syntax's point-of-view, react to the undulating white (beats) between punctuation, he is hiring the author to guide his performance. He’s digging his director.

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This week I’ll be working with Peter Berkrot on the novel, The Accident, by Linwood Barclay.

Discovery: Conjuring the ‘Wow!’

Discovery is a marker that, for me,  distinguishes storyteller from reader, professional from Aunt Mary. Perhaps most importantly, Discovery is a vital performance tool that, when metaphorically conjured, and subsequently applied by the storyteller, emotionally connects narrator to listener and thrusts the narrative experience into the here and now.

Discovery is not actable. That is, it’s not an emotion. You can’t feel Discovery; you can’t emote it. How then does the storyteller translate Discovery into something performable, palpable? How is it conjured?

Working with talent my goal must always be to provide an ‘actable’ (thus, "louder, faster, please make it better," doesn’t cut it) pathway between a direction and performance. So, to an actor who has reported an event as though what’s being described occurred yesterday, or a feeling as though she’s inured to it, I request: conjure the ‘Wow!’

Conjuring the ‘Wow!’ insists that if the actor doesn’t address the emotional consequence embedded in what they’ve just spoken they aren’t faithfully living the subtext; they aren’t acting, merely reading the words.

(Parenthetically, in my experience, once made aware of the ‘Wow!’ actors intuitively conjure it. Non-professionals don’t possess the emotional IQ to translate ‘Wow!’ into performance. That’s one reason Aunt Mary will remain a perpetual minor-leaguer, and why, no matter how many performance workshops she takes, she’ll fail.)

What is Discovery? And how does conjuring the ‘Wow!’ invoke it?

Unpacking Discovery - that is, attempting to wrestle this nomenclature open in an effort to surmise what it might symbolize and represent – assists me, as director/teacher/coach, in understanding what makes an actor’s work compelling and finding actable vocabulary (the ‘Wow!’) to inculcate this notion into the performance.

Before dismantling Discovery let me bounce precariously on the long end of a limb and assert: Discovery locates the listener in the moment (the here and now). Conversely, lack of Discovery disconnects listeners from the narrative’s emotional import; it removes them from the experience; they’re hearing about it but not involved in it.

Discovery is the narrator’s hand gripping the listener’s, leading him intimately through a journey. No Discovery? No hand-holding, no journey, just reportage, as if to suggest the writer may be interested in what the listener thinks, but not in what she feels. Not playing Discovery is a disservice to the text. I doubt there’s an author on the planet (fiction and non-fiction) that believes there’s nothing emotionally compelling about their story, no emotional stakes, regardless of its so-called literary merit.

As a performance metaphor, Discovery electrifies an event, as if what’s happening is important precisely because it’s happening this second. Discovery as a narrative metaphor is the  nexus (a silent, impossible-to-articulate space – a ‘beat’ in acting parlance) located between the end of one moment and the beginning of another, where the unanticipated interrupts train-of-thought: Huh? Huh! Oh! Oh? Hmmm. Hmmm? Well, well. Holy mother******. Etc, etc. Or, in a word, so the actor can make intuitive sense of it: the place where ‘Wow!’ resides.

It is fair to argue that Discovery is a part of the narrative’s DNA: it is a component of the syntax’s emotional information. And since Discovery, by definition, is emotion, and since emotion is all the actor can play (Can you act green? No. Only a feeling about green) playing Discovery should be to the storyteller what devouring raw meat is to the tiger.

Discovery is, as I’ve suggested, where the storyteller meets the road and where Aunt Mary skids off into a ditch.

I often advise talent, imagine that you’re looking through a telescope with your hand on the listener’s shoulder, rattling her half silly, offering her the blow-by-blow: Oh, my God! Oh, look. Look what’s about to happen. Oh, so this is how it feels! Wow!

Below is a section from Lisa Scottoline’s novel, Think Twice.

Bennie tried to remember.  Had she heard that?  Had Alice said that?  What the hell?  Where was she?  The only sound was her own breathing.  She raised her arms, cautiously, and hit the thing on top of her.  She felt along its surface with her fingertips.  It was solid.  Coarse.  She pressed but it didn’t move.  She knocked it and heard a rap, like wood.  It felt like a top.

A lid. 

She didn’t get it.  She couldn’t process it.  Her arms were at an angle.  The wood was less than a foot from her face.  She flattened her arms against her sides.  There was another surface under her fingertips, behind her.  She spread her arms, running them along the surface behind her.  More wood?  She shifted her weight down, shimmying on her back.  Her toes hit something.  Her feet were bare, her shoes gone.  She pointed her toes against whatever she had reached.  It seemed like a bottom. 

It’s a box.  Am I in a box?

 If I report the narrative, one sentence follows the other, as if the space between sentences is fallow. But, if I conjure what pulsates between each sentence  – whether it’s a millisecond or a so-called long moment –  “Wow!” Hands are held, as storyteller and listener journey through the here and now.

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This past week I directed Caitlin Davies (whom I met in one of my narrator’s workshops) in the latest House of Night installment and James Clamp, who narrated the Dragonology Chronicles.

Aunt Mary’s Marketing Miasma: The Schmooze Blues

    

An atypical email arrived from Aunt Mary yesterday. Oddly, Mary’s missive avoided her usual self-serving importuning (“C’mon, reading is reading, voice-over is voice-over,” she tersely insists at the close of every email, signing off with: so how many times does she have to mp3 her nobody-does-it-better “Buy one, Get One Free” before she’s awarded a job, for God’s sake?). Replete with, for her, a kind of self-effacing, albeit hyperbolic, desperation, her concerns resonated with me.

“You see,” she wrote, “I registered for this APAC [Audio Publishers Association Conference] thing, and, like, my just, really, super-traumatic angst, Paul, just flew out of me – heweeee – if you know what I mean, when I thought, Oh…My…God, am I really going to sell myself to all those publishers, producers, directors who I know don’t care about me, do they? Do they?”

Mary’s email spun from desperation to resolution: “Dammit, Paul, I’ve avoided those mixers, too, like the plague. Well, dammit again, I’m going to the next APA mixer. I’m going to glom on to anyone - male, female, whatever - who can jump-start my narration career. Or bust, Paul.”

After outlining her marketing game-plan (it didn’t seem transferable to the majority of talent I know), Mary concluded with several questions that persuaded me she might, perhaps might, find commonality with a number of narrators (many experienced) I do know and whose talents I admire: “Paul,” she said, “I’m just so unbelievably not-even-passably good at selling myself! Here’s my quicksand pit, IN A NUTSHELL [CAPS Mary’s]: You won’t hire me. Unfair! But fair enough! So please, can I humbaly (sic) ask, how do I develop the chutzpah to market myself? And, do I really even have to? Is schmoozing me a waste? Oh the thought of approaching those publishers and  producers – though some are yummy, like totally  **** - just makes me, ya know, a basket case. Help.”

Responding at length to Aunt Mary would unfairly encourage a relationship, so I passed. But many narrators I’ve spoken to share her marketing-me quandary.

Though I have no marketing/sales advice – these aren’t my specialties - like talent, I’ve always been self-employed, so selling me is a permanent option. Like Mary, I’ve experienced the clenched-fist that erupts inside my stomach each time I’m on the verge of soliciting a potential employer. I’ve questioned, as well, not only the need to sell me, but the nature of that need. This said, I am a producer/director and I am routinely approached by beginners as well as experienced narrators. I have hired talent who’ve solicited me (as well as talent I’ve met through auditions, sought out, came by through referral, etc.).  So I can speak as one who has, on numerous occasions, been approached (sometimes tracked down).

While I know as much or little about sales as the next freelancer, I do feel comfortable, as a layperson, trying to unpack two ‘marketing-me’ issues that seem to bedevil many narrators I’ve spoken with: defining what a potential employer values in a narrator; and wrestling with the question, why market publishers, directors, producers anyway?

What do I value in a narrator? What do I hope to hear from someone soliciting me for employment? I’ll bet the same things (though the order of importance may differ, even significantly) as most publishers, producers and directors.

 My concerns (in order of my priorities) would be addressed by the following: I’m a storyteller (Yeah, I do great characters, but I “get” the narrative); I’m a facile narrator; I’m a prepared narrator (having read the book I’ve got my pronunciation questions and come in with performance choices); I’m not a lazy narrator (when I hear a mistake I’ll go back, fix it, without waiting to get caught); I’m a cooperative narrator (my focus is on collaborating, creating the best possible performance, not kvetching, or devoting time to my interests that might not be yours, period); I can direct myself (even with a director, I’m able to intuit what might not work and redo it, without having to be told); Yes, I can do anything but here’s what genre I should be hired for, right now (said differently, I know that what may personally appeal to me has zero to do with what I’m most suited to narrate); Yes, I’ll listen to a demo (mp3, please); Yes, keep in touch from time-to-time (email is my preference).

When narrators I speak with express reticence about marketing themselves I wonder: what’s causing the conflict? Of course I don’t know. A multiplicity of psychological issues? Probably. The nagging feeling that, well, I should market myself, but then, why should I? Again, I don’t know.  I would argue that a way of addressing this quandary could be: Market yourself if you even think you should; don’t if you’re sure you shouldn’t.

I have never recoiled at a narrator who approached me to be considered for employment. If marketing’s salience could be construed to mean “meeting a need,” then at least to me, marketing makes sense conceptually. I don’t whisper to a colleague, oy, look at that dork marketing himself!

Of course, it’s all in the execution. Nevertheless, reducing an activity to a simple rubric may transform an abstraction fraught with layers of anxious projections (marketing) into a less threatening call-to-action (meeting a need, as in: I need a job). Once reduced, I can then relocate the import of this experience from, I’m either rejected or accepted, to measuring it against my perceived self-interest (that is, what’s in it for me?)

I like to think that, when approached by talent, when it’s all said and done, I’m hearing: Hey, Paul, I’m meeting a need for me. I don’t have to worry about what you’re thinking. As long as I believe I’m doing what’s in my self-interest, I’ll market me.

Marketing, as I see it, doesn’t have many moving parts, in terms of need or value. In my single-sentence reply to Aunt Mary I suggested she read this blog. And, if I see her at APAC -remembering I am, after all, a potential employer – I will be okay with Aunt Mary’s solicitations (up to a point) as I’ll assume, rightly, she’s merely operating according to what’s in Aunt Mary’s self-interest.

UPDATE:

This past month I had the privilege to work with a number of talented narrators, including Jenna Lamia, Dan Lauria and Emily Bauer. I’ll be conducting a workshop in Chicago on June 28^th. My next narrator’s workshop begins May 17^th.  I’ll be participating in the narrator track at this year’s APAC.