Diversity, equality, and inclusivity considerations

Diversity, equality, and inclusivity considerations

Best Practices

Black, Indigenous, and Person of Color (BIPOC) people have struggled against systemic racism and discrimination throughout history. As a result, these groups of people have been underrepresented as both characters in published books and narrators of audiobooks.

The publishing industry as a whole is predominantly full of white people, although steps are being taken to improve representation in all areas.

All narrators, but especially caucasian narrators, must be sensitive to these social issues and the affect our work has on the world when deciding whether to accept an audiobook contract. We must evaluate whether our skills and background make us an ideal match for the author’s point-of-view and text.

Just because you COULD do it doesn’t mean you SHOULD do it.

Each narrator always has the option of turning down a project and suggesting a colleague who would be a genuine fit for the material.

For instance, let’s say a caucasian actor accepts a book where the main character is a Black person. The white actor is denying an authentic role to a Black person who is uniquely qualified to tell the story and should have been cast.

Thanks to narrator Leon Nixon who gave me permission to reprint these comments that he originally wrote on Facebook.

Casting is more than just choosing someone who can do a good representation of the character — the tone, inflection, accent. Casting is really about the person. Everything that we’ve done in our lives lives in us and never goes away. So when we, as professional storytellers, tell the story, we’re telling it from our unique perspective. From our experience.

When one of us is selected from our audition, or just flat out chosen for a project, we’re usually not chosen because we had a kick ass read. Heck, we’re pros. We can all give one of those. We’re generally chosen because we have a unique connection to the material.

Sure, the author has written the intention and so on, but as individuals it is important to remember, some things live very deep inside of us which make us who we truly are, and that thing — that je ne sais quoi, can’t help but come out when we tell the story. That cannot be replaced. It can’t be substituted by someone who can do “the voice” of…

In this 1-hour webinar from PRH Audio with a diverse panel of 2 narrators and 1 producer, narrator January LaVoy noted that the narrator is the “custodian of the story”. It’s up to the narrator to take responsibility for the parts we accept.

I highly encourage you to watch this webinar. The conversation about how white narrators should approach text with ethnicities so that we can honor the text and the author’s intent is particularly beneficial.

Since a single narrator voices all of the roles in a book, it’s appropriate and customary for a narrator to voice supporting and minor characters with different ethnicities. We treat all characters respectfully so that we don’t portray a stereotype. Play the characters as if they are real people and remain true to the author’s intent.

People who identify their sexual orientation or gender identity as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, or Questioning (LGBTQ) have been marginalized in society. Casting decisions about books with LGBTQ characters and themes also deserve added consideration. Where the main character’s sexuality or gay life/culture is a large part of the story, a gay actor might best serve the text and probably would appreciate the opportunity for representation. One’s sexuality may not be evident to others, which could increase the difficulty of the actor’s decision whether to narrate the book or recommend a colleague for it.

 

Case Study

In this example, a miscast narrator went beyond disrespectful and created a terribly racist and misogynistic reading that understandably angered the author. Be sure to note the title of the piece, listen to the narrator’s performance, and read some of the tweets about it.

In this instance, the producer criticized the narrator’s acting choices and then accepted full blame for the recording, saying in his apology/promise-to-do-better essay, “This basically amounted to auditory blackface, in the worst tradition of racist minstrelsy.”

The white, male narrator deserves every criticism for recording this piece. As soon as he read the opening sentence during his prep, he should have told the producer that he could not perform this piece. He’s not Black, and he’s not a woman. He should not have narrated this 1st-person story.

https://twitter.com/MarySueSays/status/1331284828587581440

Listen to the difference when a Black woman records this author’s words.

Finally, read more of the author’s deeply offended reaction to get a better sense of this cultural abomination:

 

Other resources on this topic:

  • Narrator Tara Sands, with input from other narrators, created this one-sheet document that you can give to your rights holders to gather information about the book and help ensure appropriate casting choices.
  • This article in Slate provides an excellent discussion about representation and authentic casting concerns faced by audiobook producers and narrators.
  • Indian American actress Melini Kantayya describes in this Washington Post op ed how “as an Indian American actress, for me the shadow of [cartoon character] Apu loomed larger in my life than I realized.”
  • This article shows results from the 2019 Diversity Baseline Survey. “The book industry has the power to shape culture in big and small ways. The people behind the books serve as gatekeepers, who can make a huge difference in determining which stories are amplified and which are shut out. If the people who work in publishing are not a diverse group, how can diverse voices truly be represented in its books?”
  • The lack of diversity in the romance genre caused a major shake-up in its professional organization as detailed in this article.
  • For parallels in theatre, read the statement from We See You, White American Theatre.
  • Be aware that you may speak or hear others say offensive or hurtful things and label them as a “joke”, but they are really forms of microaggressions. This TEDx talk from Tiffany Alvoid and this article from Kelly Luc will help you recognize, respond to, and eliminate microaggressions.

 

Advice About Expanding Beyond Narration

Auditions/Career

I invite audiobook narrators who have vocations beyond narration to be interviewed on Pit Stop. Before the episode ends, I ask most guests a variation of this question:

What advice could you share with others
who want to expand their horizon beyond narration?

This article contains comments from the narrators who spoke during Season 1. For more inspiration, be sure to check out the shows!


Daniela Acitelli

My advice is work from the inside out, not the outside in. You’re making the choices for what you want deep down, not what you think you have to do to be a successful person in the industry. The outside world wants you to do more of something or do things their way or change this. I rejected it and ignored the outside world and including social media. I just ignored and I kept doing what I wanted to do with it. We have the power to just let the noise stay outside of us. You’re still doing it for the love of it and just being smart about business. You can marry the two, but I think that the love comes first.


Jennifer Jill Araya

I think there are two things that you can think about. The first is what is the purpose behind what you’re doing? I find that my why really helps drive me into figuring out what is right for me. When you see opportunities come to you, how do you know whether that’s the right opportunity for you or whether it’s something that’s going to take you off course? Running a small business is really hard work. If you don’t have your reason for doing that, like really settled in your soul, it’s going to be very difficult to keep doing it when the going gets tough, when you hit a problem or a roadblock. Then, make sure you’ve got a support network that’s going to help you as you’re pursuing that other thing.


Andi Arndt

[I didn’t ask Andi the question at the top of this page. However, she shared a golden tip that narrators can implement immediately.]

I use an app called Calendly, and it’s great because it looks for the next available spot. It books you in that spot. It asks you a couple of questions about what are the things that you want to talk about, either performance things or business things, and it collects payment right there. It puts [the appointment] automatically on my calendar, so it eliminates the back and forth.

One way that narrators can put that to really good use is to set up 15-minute free consultations. If an author asks to meet with you about a potential project and they want to know how to do that, you can send them your calendar link. That way, you can make sure that people only ask for your time when it’s available. You can protect your recording time by not making it show up on the calendar.


Travis Baldree

I’m like a serial hobbyist. I love trying things out and getting expertise and learning about things. So just doing that in general and cultivating that it as a habit is, I think, great if you’ve got something you enjoy doing and. Then then just do it. And any information you can treat it as a as a learned skill where you’re constantly learning more about how to do it and how to do it well. And the industry that it’s in, if there is one. And then maybe at some point it develops into a thing that you want to pursue. It’s like watching a fruit grow, you know, like tend it. And if it gets big enough, like, oh, maybe I want to pick this…or not.


Erin Bennett

I would say learning to trust your gut. I’m working at it every day. I find that it’s times that I’ve had an instinct and trusted it that have led me to a good a good opportunity rather than just thinking of something from the top down and working it out logically. There’s a place for all this to go. I just wish everyone a smooth journey as possible. It’s never smooth, and it’s never easy. But it’s worthwhile.


Chris Ciulla

Whatever you choose to do, remember, we have to have a skill set behind it. Once you build the skill set, you’ve got to have a presentation that allows you to tell other people that, okay, I am doing this thing now. Knowing that for every new thing that we’re doing, there’s there’s no impossibilities. Everything is possible. It is remembering that each individual category that we are trying to become, to add to our repertoire, has a skill set that you need to educate yourself on. You can’t wing it and expect to have great results. You’ve got to educate yourself the right way.


Tanya Eby

I think one of the things that I realized pretty early on as a freelancer is that I didn’t need to ask permission. So if there are things that you want to do or try, you don’t have to ask anybody. You can just do it and try it. Sometimes things work out, and sometimes they don’t. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re learning. You’re stretching yourself. It’s awesome!


Joe Hempel

Find something that’s missing in the genre that you are passionate about or in the industry that you are passionate about and attack it like that portion will go away tomorrow if you don’t act. Not only do you get the sense that you’re doing something good for the industry, you will not be putting all your eggs in one basket.


Alison Larkin

[I didn’t ask Alison the question on this page. At the end of our conversation, she shared the following advice which can help you in all circumstances.]

I said to [a friend who was dying], if you could give three pieces of advice to the people who are left behind, what would they be?

Love is the only thing that matters.

Remember that most people are doing the best they can with who they are, and connect because it is only in connection that love can find expression.

Finally, Desmond Tutu’s quote, which has helped me tremendously and always will, I think, is remember, you can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it.


Jorjeana Marie

What in narration did you enjoy the most? And can that be turned into something? So just as an example, if in narrating audiobooks you found that you really like to play very mysterious characters and create a sense of mystery, then what could you also do with that? Does that lead you to wanting to write something around a character that you’d like to film or play on stage, or does that take you to actually taking a course to become an actual detective? That’s the thing — there’s no limits with it. We can talk about just in the parameters of entertainment, but also sometimes doing these things well outside of it.

We forget about these things. I feel like I picked up these habits from other actors along the way of like “If you’re not like eating, breathing, sleeping, getting your next gig, somebody else is going to get the gig.” That’s worthless information. It’s a worthless attitude because it only lasts for so long. It just becomes not worth it, especially if the gig isn’t fulfilling.

Reverse engineering what we want and already finding those things in life. They’re already within us and some of us either know them and can rattle them off, or we have yet to explore and find those things. That finding is so much fun! It’s such an adventure, and the “Artist’s Date” can be the entryway into it.

And for anybody who hasn’t read Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, she talks about going taking yourself on an Artist Date. You can check out her book to to see how she explains it exactly. It’s so great because your artist date could be depending on your interests. It could be going to the junkyard and picking out something for a weird art sculpture. Or it could be going to a museum. Start exploring [by] going on an artist date and [doing] something that supports that thing that you’re interested in exploring outside of narration.


Rich Miller

First, just do some personal brainstorming if you’re really not sure what you want to do. So if you don’t know that you want to do a podcast, but you want to do something else, just brainstorm and be crazy. Come up with crazy ideas [like] I want to talk to somebody about audiobooks but don’t like the podcast format. Come up with everything you can think of. Give a talk at a local library; give a talk on a street corner, Go into a bar once a week and just pick somebody at random and see if they’ll listen to you. Allow yourself the ability to just think of anything, then narrow it down.

Once you have a couple of good ideas, I’m a big fan of doing a substantial amount of research before you actually start something. Finding out who else is doing this kind of thing. How are they doing it? If I was going to start doing that thing, whatever it is, how would I do the first steps?


Melissa Moran

You don’t have to turn everything into a career that could be a hobby. Not everything has to be monetized. Just because you enjoy something doesn’t mean you should turn it into a business.

These are the things I have to constantly remind myself. The things that are truly meant for you, you will want you have a deep desire to continue doing it until you don’t. There’s just so much beauty in the world. Why would you keep yourself from doing those things?

Now you also have to keep your family and your loved ones in mind. You can do whatever you want, but I personally want to give my time and attention to them first and foremost. So I think anything that satisfies me creatively while also maintaining balance in my home, is what I really value in life. It’s knowing where to pull back and when to pull back. That’s the challenge.


Sarah Puckett

Do it! One of the biggest things for me when it comes to business is to diversify and find multiple streams of income. Because especially in narration, it’s hard. I mean, this is a hard business to make a career out of. So just do it. If you find a skill that you are really good at something, you know a lot about, something you can educate people on and just go for it, give it a shot, see how it goes, learn as you go. Don’t wait.


Ann Richardson

Do it, especially if it scares you. Do it. I would also say research it thoroughly before you look for customers. You know, it’s not fair to experiment with a business relationship. If you’re thinking about narration, it’s not fair to your author to experiment and learn on their baby. So whatever you’re planning on doing, whether it’s extracurricular or focused on your profession, make sure you research it before you do it. You only have one chance to make a first impression. It’s not a good look to make a bumbling first impression with things that you could have easily discovered on your own before you made contact.


Gina Rogers

Jennifer Jill Araya made a point of saying that most full time narrators have something else that they do. I feel like at one point in my career, I was just a full time narrator, and it took a little bit of the joy away. So I encourage everybody to find the other things that bring you the joy.

[Khristine Hvam’s and PJ Ochlan’s “Play” workshop taught] how important it is that we see narration as our time to play. It lit this little spark. Yes, it’s a freelance job, and it’s flexible, and I can make it work around my schedule so that I can do the other things that spark joy and make me. So if there’s anything you like, I say, go for it.


Amy Rubinate

The whole reason that I made this transition is because there were things that were missing or broken in the industry, and I saw this possibility. It came out of my passions and enthusiasm and the particular perspective that I brought to this world. So I’d say to people: really dig in and explore yourself and follow the tickle, the little glimmer of something that’s calling out to you. Think about the things that are dissatisfying to you. Do you have the ability to fix them? How could you fix them? How could you contribute?

You can give back. You can solve problems You can close gaps that you’re worried about, and those things could turn into a vocation or an avocation or just simply be something that you do to add value.


Teri Schnaubelt

What are you curious about, and what interests you? It doesn’t matter if it needs to be something that’s going to make you money necessarily, unless you really need something that you know can help you make ends meet. But if you’re lucky enough to have the ability to pursue something regardless of whether it pays you or not, what would that be? I think just taking a walk and getting lost in your own thoughts is helpful. I’m actually advocating don’t listen to an audiobook. Just come with your thoughts.


Andrew Tell

If you’re augmenting, I think it’s totally a common thing. It becomes magical when it aligns with your particular skills and abilities. If you have another set of skills that runs in parallel or augments the narration in particular and can work in harmony, definitely don’t hesitate. You’ve got something special to offer. You do have to take a little bit of a leap, because whatever you’re going to set up, it’s another investment of your time. But if you have some particular little special thing that’s a little different than everybody else, go for it.

 

Other resources on this topic:

How to label the files

Best Practices

I include my name in the file name of all electronic documents I send to a client or potential client, including invoices and articles. I use this naming convention for my auditions:

KarenCommins-BookTitleAudMMDDYY    where MMDDYY is the 6-digit date

I like having my name first so it shows up even in smaller windows.

Once you’ve been hired and have recorded the audiobook, use the naming convention for the book provided by the publisher.

If you aren’t given a format — such as with books produced on ACX — name the book files consistently so that they indicate both the book and the file’s location in the book.

The following naming convention accommodates multiple front-matter files, causes chapter 1 to start with the number 001, and will work for titles having over 100 chapters.

XXXX-BookName.mp3 or .wav, replacing XXXX sequentially with the numbering convention below.

Opening Credits 000
Introduction 000a
Prologue 000b
Epigraph 000c
Chapter 1 001

If the book has fewer than 100 chapters, you can eliminate the leading 0, such as XXX-BookName.mp3

Here’s an example of the file labeling I used for one of my audiobooks. The use of dashes, underlines, or spaces between the words has not been standardized in the industy. Old systems couldn’t read spaces between words, so many people still include a dash or underline. If you want a character as a spacer, I would vote for the dash since it’s easier to see than an underline.

 

Other resources on this topic:

  • If you have a Mac computer, you can use your operating system’s Text Replacement feature to create shortcut for entering the book name each time. The instructions for creating text replacements are here. Windows users apparently don’t have the same built-in functionality. This article offers a work-around using system tools, or you might use a third-party app. Thanks to narrator and coach Joel Froomkin for the tip and video shared in the Facebook group Audiobook Narrator Tips & Tricks (not free audiobooks).

Comments on Delivery Speed, Genre, Pauses, and Tone

Performance

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.

 

A Mini-Masterclass from an Experienced Narrator

Auditions/Career

Thanks to narrator Travis Baldree for his permission to republish this essay that he originally posted on Facebook.

 

Hey, so I’ve been doing this for a few years now, and I have some notes that, if you are new, you may find useful.

1) Be nice to everyone.

2) Learn and internalize the best practices before you break or ignore them. The time may COME to break or ignore them, but you’ll know when that is, and it won’t be in your first couple of books. If you think the time is right to do so in your first few months, you’re wrong. You have to know the rules well before you can subvert them.

3) Coaching is not a one-stop shop. You are accruing information. Coach widely. Early on, a lot of this will be best practices that you just need to internalize, but eventually it will start to trend more to individual coaches’ opinions. They will not always agree. That is fine. That doesn’t mean they are wrong. You are gathering this up for your mental mulch pile. As you pass the threshold of competency and start to become skilled, you will start synthesizing this information to accentuate what makes you a singular performer. The ideas will ferment, and they will be of a benefit entirely unique to you. Let it happen naturally.

4) Learn all the parts of the business. That doesn’t mean you have to be proficient. It doesn’t mean you need to be an engineer or a proofer. But know how those things work. Understand the fundamentals of how audio files work. Understand the terms, and the tools. Be cognizant of everything. This will make you not a pain in the ass to work with and will lead to good things. It’s not beneath you, and beyond a certain point, it isn’t a distraction, as it will directly impact the quality of the work you deliver. If you DO decide to become proficient, it will come in handy though. Trust me.

5) Let go of the expectation that there is a specific set of steps or people or publishers that you must interact with to be successful. It’ll happen in a way you don’t expect. Just do excellent work, and continuously improve. And be nice. Always be nice.

6) Be selective of your projects. Be sure you want your name on them. A bad project isn’t worth the stain on your portfolio if you can help it. Stay away from scammy garbage books. If it’s less than 3 hours, royalty share, and has a blank red cover with white text – don’t waste your time on it. If you need to practice to become basically competent, record yourself, and then throw it away. Besides, reading poorly Google-translated text for someone whose motives for publishing the book are inexplicable will not build skills you want to build.

7) Quality is everything. You can overwork anything, but don’t let simple mistakes go out the door with the expectation that someone else will catch them. Be your own best critic first. Other people don’t have time to fix lazy mistakes, which means they’re more likely to make it out into the world. (with your name on them)

8) Listen to other people’s work, especially people you like. You will internalize important lessons that will become a part of your own particular delivery. The more excellent narrators you listen to, the more invisible lessons you will teach yourself, especially if you are paying attention. And you should pay attention. Why does that delivery work? Why is that funny? What about this made me tear up? How are they using their voice to accomplish this? Can I try it? Does it work for me? Why or why not?

9) Vocal practice is important. You want to develop the ability to put your voice where you want it repeatedly. If you can do something repeatedly with similar intonation and quality, then you can do it on demand — which means it can become instinctual. You must build instinct to have an effortless and natural read. Make sure you’re building the right instincts.

10) Identify ‘your people’ as you work with them and cultivate those relationships. People that you like and like to work with. I don’t mean that you should do this in a mercenary fashion — it’s just good for you! But also, these relationships are the invisible underpinning of your career. Don’t stress about it, but find the people you get along with and specifically feed and water those relationships. You will be happier, they will be happier, and good things will come out of it.

11) Learn to cold-read effectively. Practice it. It’s a combination of reading ahead and understanding the rhythm of speech and ‘predicting’ what an author will write before you read it (again on an instinctual level) so that you can intuit where the phrase is going to go. It’s also understanding the musicality of speech, and understanding how to avoid repetitive intonation and musicality while still respecting what the author is trying to do, and keeping it feeling natural. If you enjoy writing and like language, this is a lot easier to do. The better you can cold read, the better your delivery will be (and the faster you will produce work). I cannot overstate how useful this is. Also, it will pay dividends in breathing as well, as you will improve your ability to learn where to place breaths to sound most natural.

If you find yourself reading and discovering that you misunderstood what an author was attempting with a sentence only AFTER you get to the end, try to figure out the signposts in that sentence that would clue you in. This is hard to articulate in a paragraph here, but it’s worth thinking on. Also, it should go without saying, but if you misjudged the intent of a sentence and your take on it doesn’t support the intent, go back and fix it!

12) Learn to compare your work in a useful way. Being a good self critic means being truthful in your assessment without being cruel to yourself. It’s just part of the process, don’t let it hurt you. It’s always good when you can find something to improve and you understand why — that’s wonderful information! If you don’t understand why, or can’t even tell if something is not good, that’s where you get stuck. (And why you need a coach!) If you know something is lacking, then you are forearmed with critical information that will allow you to improve. Work on it, improve it, and move on to the next thing. It’s like sanding down rough wood. Eventually you will be working away at smaller imperfections that other people won’t notice.

13) You are a partner with the author. Understand what they are trying to do, and serve it. Get out and push when you can to make sure that their intent gets across to the listener. All authors fail to achieve their goals sometimes, just as we do. You can be a helping hand when you can recognize the cracks that you can help paper over. Note, that does NOT mean rewriting their work or altering their intent — that means using your performance ability to give a little boost where needed.

14) Learn to effectively tell an author’s jokes. Recognize when they’re being funny, and make sure you get the humor across. This is a great thing to practice over and over to wring out just the right amount of humor and to illustrate to yourself how your performance can really work hand-in-hand with their words. If an author laughs when they hear their own joke, you win.

15) Don’t tell yourself you can’t do something. “I can’t do the other gender’s voices. I can’t do this accent.”

Yeah, you can. It’s just going to take some work.

Don’t settle. You may not ever be done, but you can absolutely improve. Coach. Practice.

16) Don’t let yourself tear down your authors. It’s your job to get on board with the book, to learn to love what you can about it. Find those things and get behind them. If you snark all over a book you are doing, you will begin to fail the author. They won’t all be beautifully written, but delight in the fact that you can elevate them with some hard work.

17) The hardest books will be the worst-written books. That’s OK. They are exercise. They’re whetstones. You are sharpening yourself so that when the amazing books fall into your lap you will be well prepared to absolutely rock them. Bonus: Fewer people listen to the poorly written ones, usually, so you can work slightly out of the spotlight while still getting paid. Challenge yourself to make these books sing to the best of your ability. It can be very satisfying.

18) Some of the books you like least are the ones everyone else seems to love. Again, don’t let yourself fall into the trap of flaking out on things that aren’t your favorite. They may become what you are known best for, so make sure you put forth your best.

19) I hesitate to say this for fear it’ll be taken wrong, but mimicry is a useful learning technique. Listening to performers you admire and mimicking their diction and delivery is (I think) very powerful. You don’t want to do that on a book. But it’s like learning to play an instrument. It’s exercise and, again, putting your voice where you want it. Internalizing lessons about diction, emphasis, emotion. If you do this, do this broadly so that you are adding a variety of ingredients. You’re not trying to channel Jim Dale for your own read, you want to absorb a variety of influences and then adopt little lessons here and there that work for you, while improving your ability to precisely do with your voice what you intend. Most artists copied favorite artists as a child — they don’t draw like those artists now, but they learned important lessons that were incorporated into their own personal style. The same goes for musicians. I think it holds true here as well.

20) When voicing dialogue, I think it is useful to have a mental movie image of what is going on. Where are the characters relative to one another when they are speaking? What are they doing? If one character is coming down the stairs while one awaits them, or they are leaning close across a table toward one another, they might speak the same lines, but they will sound very different. The clearer this image is, and the better it fits the action that the author has described, the richer and more ‘live’ your dialogue delivery will become.

21) If you can’t emote properly with a character voice, don’t do it. If the character can’t sing and tell a joke, you are straining too hard, and you can’t act. If you’re altering your voice, it needs to be comfortable and near effortless or the character will become wooden.

22) Be nice. (again)

 

Other resources on this topic: