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.

//

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.

*

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.

Directing You in The Here and Now

 Audio book narrators are finding themselves facing a peculiar challenge, perhaps unique when measured against other performers.

It is axiomatic that most actors – including narrators – would prefer to work with a director they believe can assist them. While many talent professionals may argue the merits of their director most actors who perform in plays, film and television do, in fact, have a director. For whatever reason, I’ve not yet heard of a professional theatre company whose management has notified its actors: hey guys, we just can’t afford a director this season so, ya know, do your best, and we’re gonna have the sound designer run lines with you.

While it may be true that audio book narrators value a director, many publishers appear to have determined that directors aren’t an essential component to audio book production. Over the past five years or so there’s been an accelerated director-exodus from the control room. Increasingly, publishers are asking narrators to either work from a home studio or with an engineer at a recording studio.

The particular contribution a director makes to a narrator’s performance might be an instructive conversation. Do narrators really require a director? I don’t know. Do they prefer a director? Most narrators I know say, yes.

 So, realistically, from my point of view, the more meaningful issue for talent is, since you’re less and less likely to have a director, and are thus compelled to work alone, the more important question might be: If I believe I could use a second opinion, how do I direct myself?

 I would argue that working alone not only eliminates the possibility of discovering more dramatically interesting choices, it promotes BAHBU (Bad Acting-Habit Build-up). It allows BAHBU to grow and become embedded in every performance. To be sure, working with a director doesn’t guarantee a great performance. But recording solo does guarantee one less party to suggest, guide, react to, cheerlead, arbitrate, and otherwise collaborate with the actor for the purpose of improving the performance.

 If it’s fair to argue that directors are an endangered species, how should talent regard going it alone? My short-answer rejoinder is: create tools that will quickly double-check that you’re staying emotionally connected to the text.

 It is easy to become complacent and to rely on voice and on other vocal techniques to create a facile read, if you will - one that sounds pretty good but isn’t particularly connected to the text.

What are those tools?

I’m certain there are many. I’m sure there are lots I’ve never considered. But having worked with talent since 1990, I’ve discovered some tools that work for me and I think can work for the director-less.

 Since the narrative – whether first or third person – tends to challenge actors more than dialogue, the tool that I’d argue should be first among equals is what I’d euphemistically call the “Here And Now.”

Here and Now acts to remind the narrator that they are never – absolutely never – reporting what’s happening, they are living it. I often remind talent, let’s try that line again. And remember, you are living that line through the point of view of whom or what you are talking about.

 So, if you’re saying, ”The sky was bright blue,” you’re not reporting this information to the listener. Anyone can report. You don’t need an actor for that, just a reader. That simple description (given its narrative context, of course) comes from somewhere, emotionally. A storyteller – in opposition to a reader – emotionally connects the listener to that syntax by extrapolating its subtext (however subtle) and living it as though they just now discovered, yes, the sky was, indeed, bright blue. Or maybe, indeed, the sky was bright blue. Or maybe, the sky, indeed, was bright blue. Whatever the permutation, the feeling about this line is ‘felt’ by the narrator from the point of view of whom or what the narrator is talking about. And most importantly, right now!

The ‘feeling’ is actively represented to the listener, as if the storyteller just discovered it.
I’d suggest that home-studio narrators or those working only with an engineer periodically remind themselves that storytelling isn’t reportage. Each line, each word, each series of events is effectively happening in the Here and Now. Making a conscious note that everything is occurring this second reminds the narrator of his or her job-one: staying emotionally connected to the listener.

More tools to come.

Energy: Acting Like You're Committed

I spent an hour coaching a talented actress the other day. She came for a make-up session after missing the previous week’s workshop. She hasn’t recorded an audio book, yet. I think she possesses all the tools to be a working narrator. Upon finishing our work, I advised her to focus on what I perceived as her greatest performance challenge: energy.  I suggested that, to be a successful storyteller, you must commit yourself, by way of performance energy, 100%.  Axiomatically, the less commitment, the less interesting your performance.

So, what is ‘energy?’ Why is it so necessary? And why do narrators have difficulty engaging this commitment?

I think I can take a stab at defining ‘energy.’ I can offer an opinion about why it’s so critical to excellent storytelling.  Why narrators have trouble with this concept is inexplicable. I don’t know, and wouldn’t hazard a guess.

‘Energy’ is a term I’ve been familiar with since I was an apprentice at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia, many decades ago.  Though I’ve never attempted to arrive at a particular definition, ‘energy,’ from my perspecttive, is a characterization that can be used to measure professionalism, even to suggest the difference between amateur and professional.  I think it’s fair to argue that professionals have it; amateurs don’t.

‘Energy,’ as I understand it, is an effect, not a cause.  It’s a result. ‘Energy’ is a reflection of an actor’s emotional investment, not in the author’s words but rather, in the feelings they reveal.  Great energy is achieved when an actor determines that they will be as emotionally involved in the story as the author. And I’ve never met a detached or semi-interested author.

‘Energy’ is critical because it cues the listener – even if they can’t articulate what it is that’s affecting them – that the narrator is just dying to take them along on this exhilarating journey, and can’t wait to get them to feel what the characters feel. Listeners may not know why they can’t get excited about a performer’s rendition of a story, but often, I think, it’s because the actor isn’t giving them anything to get excited about.

It sounds like common sense, yet I find that many narrators – particularly beginners and less experienced talent – seem to possess a self-imposed limiter, as if there’s an inner voice whispering to them while they narrate: “Not too much now; you don’t want to embarrass yourself; say the words like you mean them, but only like you 78% mean them?" So many times I’ve said to actors, c’mon, you can go further; overact. Trust me, you won’t be too big. I won’t let you embarrasses yourself. Okay, okay, says the narrator. But the result is virtually the same as before I began cajoling them.

One reason talent have difficulty with ‘energy’ may be technique. If it is, then there are quick fixes that can be suggested. For example, I find that many actors use too much voice in the booth. They are literally too big, too loud, too presentational. Ironically, too much volume makes it impossible for an actor to commit emotionally. It deprives them of their ability to maintain the performance energy they need for a compelling narration.

Audio book narration is an intimate medium. You can’t fight the booth. Excessive volume fights the booth. It’s anti-intimacy. Given that you can’t scream, or even talk loudly, how do you address, let’s say, an emotionally heightened scene? Narrating in a stage whisper - literally using less voice - not only creates intimacy between storyteller and listener, it allows for maximum emotional impact. Because this is an intimate experience and because the listener intuitively understands the narrator can’t shout, they will buy into you screaming, so long as it’s done intimately, that is, at the top of your stage-whispery range. The result: great energy. Unlimited emotional commitment.

For me less voice, less volume, more stage-whispery delivery, especially if the story is dramatic, as opposed to humorous, the more opportunity to commit emotionally.  Yes, the exception proves the rule, but from my vantage in the control-room, not very often.

Aunt Mary Modulates

      Aunt Mary resides inside every narrator I’ve ever worked with (though the good ones keep her at bay). She is the anti-storyteller. She is the sum total of every vocal affectation, whose outcome (unintended, to be sure) emotionally disconnects the narrator from the listener. Aunt Mary seeks to ‘sell’ the author’s story, rather than ‘inhabit’ it. She ‘reports’ a character’s feeling rather than lives it in the moment.

Aunt Mary ‘phones it in.’ 

Aunt Mary is a listener’s worst nightmare. Consumers can’t always identify or articulate Aunt Mary’s various flaws. But they result in the same consequence: disconnecting them emotionally from the author’s voice.

Aunt Mary, at least for this blog, is merely a euphemism for the sum-total of every vocal technique that reduces storytelling to reading. And from my perspective, if all that’s required of talent is reading, why not simply have non-professionals narrate audio books? Or better yet, get Aunt Mary! Believe me, she’s available. In droves. I know.

Assuming that consumers would prefer storytelling to reading, I’d like to spend some time ‘un-constructing’ Aunt Mary with the hope of seeing if what we discover makes sense to talent and consumers alike.

Modulating Mary is the worst of my worst narrator-nightmares.

During the audio book narration workshops that I conduct for professional talent, I spend more time coaching actors out of modulation (what I call ‘singing’) than any other issue. Let me try to explain modulation (it’s a nasty, multi-headed hydra) then suggest why I think it’s so difficult for some actors to divest themselves of this anti-storytelling habit.

Simply stated, vocal modulation is an actor’s attempt to literally alter their pace, volume, rhythm and emphasis in order to make the story more interesting. You can’t read in a monotone, right. So, you find words or phrases that beg for emphasis. Can’t read at the same pace or volume, right. So, you alter those things to create a more dynamic performance.

The problem with modulation is that it insists that emotional connection doesn’t matter. It’s an emotion-killer. Axiomatically, the more an actor modulates her voice, the less connected, the less interesting her performance.

Why?

Because modulation is a vocal technique whose only purpose is to represent emotion that we may understand but never feel. Meaning, instead of the actor ‘organically’ reacting to the author’s text, he feigns emotion by ‘reporting’ it rather than ‘living’ it.

For example, when a newscaster tells us that numerous civilians in Libya have been killed, why exactly don’t we fall on the floor in front of our TV and start wailing? How can we listen nightly to what’s occurring in Japan without crying? The newscaster's job is to 'report' feeling, not to assist us in 'living' it.

When an actor is hired to ‘voice’ a radio or TV commercial, who (from the client’s point of view) is the main character? Their product. Not the talent. Voice-over actors properly employ vocal modulation to ‘sell’ products, not reveal themselves. Modulation works because it helps the actor create interest in the product and tells the listener that whatever ‘feeling’ may be embedded in the copy, it’s not something they’re going to emotionally attach to the voice-over talent.

Though it may seem very counter-intuitive, modulation’s purpose is to disconnect the listener emotionally, so they can focus on the information and NOT the actor!

Audio book narration (or storytelling) is opposite in almost every way from voice-over announcing. But because storytelling is a counter-intuitive experience, it’s hard sometimes to get voice-over talent to believe that.

The audio book narrator IS the star of the show (the author’s book). Yes, the narrator must be faithful to the author’s intent, but the storyteller’s job-one is to emotionally connect the story they are telling to the person who is listening. To be connected to the story you must be connected to the storyteller. In order to connect, organic (or ‘lived’) technique must be summoned.

What are some of those techniques? More on that next time.

Ironically, from my perspective, as the actor ‘intimately lives the story,’ with less voice, and no modulation, they emotionally connect to the listener. They discover, particularly with drama, their capacity to be utterly compelling and affecting.

For me, the above represents the tip of the modulation iceberg. It is, as I suggested, the most disconnecting weapon in Aunt Mary’s nightmarish arsenal.

Modulation is part of every narrator’s vocal DNA. The question for narrators is, I think, can I recognize that when modulation becomes a purposefully used tool or technique to somehow create authenticity, it produces inauthenticity. It’s really just being Aunt Mary.