Diana Goes to the Virginia Festival of the Book

Editor’s note – Andi Arndt, moderator of Listening with the Lights On, recorded the entire session and we’ll be running it tomorrow. 

Hello, everyone! *waves* Diana here.

The Gals were kind enough to let me write about my recent trip to Charlottesville, Virginia for the book festival. If you’ve never had the privilege of attending this event, the Virginia Festival of the Book is a week-long celebration of all things book related. Each day offers various panels, workshops, and author events – most free of cost – open to the public to help share the love of the written word. I attended several panels including one on writing quirky Southern romances, another on writing the breakout book, and one on magical realism.

However, my main reason for attending this year – and of course the reason for this post – was the panel hosted by the Audio Publishers Association entitled Listening with the Lights On. Featuring narrators Lloyd James, Marguerite Gavin, Barbara Rosenblat, Karen White, and moderated by Andi Arndt, this panel discussed the particular art of narrating mystery and thrillers.

Before I could get to the meat of the panel, I had to get past a few issues. First, I rushed into the room after circling the block for several minutes, looking for a parking space (and having the parking machine earn an extra dollar from me). Of course, I sweated (and I do mean sweated) for nothing because the panel wasn’t due to start for another fifteen minutes!

As I calmed down and let myself air out, I grabbed a seat near the front – the best place to record the discussion so I could reference parts in my piece – and went about gathering the questions I had so painstakingly thought up. (I was trying to be professional!) Of course, this was when I realized I had forgotten said questions. I scrambled, trying to not only remember but write them all down before the program started.

This was also when I discovered I had sat down next to a Barbara Rosenblat fangirl. And when I say fangirl, I mean FANGIRL. She just loved Ms. Rosenblat as Ms. Rosa on Orange is the New Black and was in heaven that she got to talk with her. How do I know this? Because she repeated it giddily to herself several times. At one point, I told her that if her voice was the only one I heard on my recording, I was going to hunt her down and make her repeat the program word for word! She calmed down after that and I thought things had improved.

Then Barbara came over to talk to her…

You can imagine what I had to deal with next.

Despite this inauspicious beginning, the discussion was an informative and highly entertaining one, which you will discover once you listen to the recording. However, there were a few key bits of insight I gained that I wanted to share.

Narration is HARD work. Narration is a not something for the faint of heart. Narrators have to spend a lot of time alone in a very small room with only the words in front of them for company. And they have to do this for several hours at a time, for days and days. They take a break and then go do it again! I don’t know about you but I’m not sure I could spend hours and hours in a room (in what amounts to a telephone box) talking and talking and talking. Then there’s the research! Sometimes they have to contact the author or publisher for help with certain pronunciations (names, places, dialects). Often, they just have to wing it as the time allowed for finishing a production doesn’t allow for much conversation.

Which brings me to my second realization: narrators are truly performers. Karen White talked about the narrative tone of a piece and how to capture it in a limited time. They don’t get to spend weeks on end reading a book and practicing it to get just the right sound. No, they may get one read through and then they have to start. The only way they are able to accomplish such a task is to throw themselves into the book, becoming the story and its characters. I’m not sure who said it but one of the panelists stated that the key to great narration is the “loss of self” and that, if they have done their job, all the reader will notice is the story itself and forget the narrator is there.

The third point I discovered is that narrators are saints who should be knighted for their service in doing something that seems to bring more angst than joy to their lives. As anyone knows, when you put yourself out in the world, sometimes you get hater-ade. And not only do narrators put themselves out there, they record it and make it available to thousands of harsh critics. They do it again and again, despite the people telling them they didn’t like this or they didn’t like that. They take it and often use it to improve their craft in some way.

This event, in combination with AudioGals recent Narrators Forum, has provided me with a better understanding of the narration process. In turn, I think there is going to be a change in the way I review an audiobook.

I still plan to be picky in areas such as pacing and the tone of a book. I think if a narrator doesn’t capture the underlying heart of a book, it should be a factor in the rating. The narrator’s job is to bring the author’s intent (aka the story) to life. If I listen to a book and think the story would have been more interesting if only I had heard that voice in my head rather than the narrator’s, I’m going to be harsh on the performance. I’ll admit, I listen to books because I want an experience. Sometimes it is a good experience – sometimes it’s a bad one; but I crave that feeling. So yes, my reviews will still reflect a grade based on this aspect of the narration.

What I do see is cutting some slack on issues such as voice, pauses, and background sounds. The narrators explained that their work is often edited in pieces. If a producer finds mistakes, they don’t re-record the whole book – they only edit those bits and often, that occurs later. This can mean an unusually long break in between scenes or a change in how a narrator sounds from one moment to the next. Illness can be a challenge for a narrator as well when edits are necessary. They try their best to minimize these types of mistakes. I will note the issues and try not to let it effect the overall rating.

I want to thank Karen and Andi for taking the time to answer a few of my questions after the event, some of which I know didn’t come out as polished and mature as I had intended them too. Andi, in particular, deserves an award for graciously putting up with my inept conversation. I really wanted to come across as professional but my mouth was working faster than my brain and everything was all jumbled!

Diana

P.S. If you’re wondering if the giggling woman’s voice was the only one I heard on my personal recording, the answer is yes, it was. :P