Julie Wilson is a senior executive producer at Penguin Random House Audio who also offers coaching and courses for narrators. In this newsletter, she discussed a narrator’s delivery speed.
She commented, “Often, when I tell narrators they are reading “too fast,” it’s actually because they have lost the thread of the story.”
I discovered long ago that I would speed up if I worried that no one was listening to me or that they would stop listening. Concentrating on the TEXT shifts my thoughts from my ego to the author’s intent.
Your speed probably will change from book to book as it will be influenced by the book’s genre and tone.
In his book The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller, John Truby describes genre as:
Genres aren’t just systems for expressing certain themes. They are also strategies for storytelling. One of the ways genres set themselves apart from one another is that they each ask a different central question and force the main character to make a crucial decision.
Thanks to narrator Heather Costa Kafer for sharing this definition.
Narrator and author Tanya Eby observes in this article about developing your narration technique that the genre’s tone is linked to the listening audience. She supplies 2 important questions a narrator should answer as they begin to prep their book for recording.
In her subsequent article Importance of Genre/Tone in Audiobook Narration, Tanya states, “How you change your tone can change the whole feel of the line.” She expands on the nuances of the tones associated with the most popular genres and includes a sound clip of one sentence read with different tones.
Note: You may need a subscription to read Tanya’s Substack. You’ll find a discount offer in the Welcome Center.
Finally, your pauses will not only affect your delivery speed and tone, but they fill your words with meaning and feeling. As narrator Tavia Gilbert wrote on LinkedIn:
In narration, what you don’t say is JUST as powerful as what you do. So pauses aren’t just breaks—they’re huge opportunities.
They allow the listener space to breathe, to process, and to feel.
Mastering the art of the pause is about understanding timing and emotion. And it’s where the magic happens. Always remember that silence is often louder than words.