Directing Narrators
This can be a bit of a sticky wicket, especially if this is not in your wheelhouse (i.e. you’ve directed stage productions before). You may find yourself in a situation where you need to tell someone, ostensibly a professional in their field, that you would like them to do something different, or to change something, or that they did something incorrectly.
This can push you out of your comfort zone. Someone is taking your words that you toiled over and putting a real-world voice to them. So first, let’s look at what should be a point for direction, and what should not.
Direction Points
Mispronounced words/names. If you have difficult terms in your manuscript (medical terms, for instance) or uncommon words or names (such as a foreign language or in a fantasy setting), you should provide the narrator with a clear pronunciation guide. That said, if words, any words, are mispronounced, this is something that you should bring to the narrator’s attention and request that it be fixed.
Transposed/incorrect words. Sometimes our brains switch the order of the words on the page as we’re narrating and we say things the wrong way (“Ellie said” instead of “said Ellie”). Other times we may just say a word that sounds the same, but is not the one on the page, or add in a word, or leave one out. It happens. If you catch something like this, again, bring it to the narrator’s attention and request that it be fixed.
Incorrect mood/voices. If the intended mood of a character or scene is clear on the page, but the narrator just isn’t hitting it (i.e. it’s a tense sense between friends with unrequited feelings for each other, but the narrator is reading it as if they are both happy-go-lucky and carefree), it’s fine to have a discussion about the tone here. Similarly, if you want a character to be evil and threatening, and the narrator makes them sound like Jar-Jar Binks or a campy Count Dracula, it’s OK to offer this note as well. But the way to avoid this entirely is…
Discuss performance before the project begins. You should have some notes as to personality, voice references or overall tone, moods within specific chapters or scenes to give the narrator prior to the project starting. This way when they get to certain characters or scenes, they will have a good idea already of what to do with it.
Non-Direction Points
Individual word inflections. Don’t get into the minutiae of how individual words are being said (“can you make that word go up at the end?”).
Tempo. Again, this is a part of the performance. Unless it’s truly distracting or not matching the rest of the audio around it, this is not something that you should be offering back to the narrator.
Asking for over-pronunciation. Narration is a performance, it’s not reading. Sometimes words will sound a little different when in the middle of a sentence read aloud. It may just be difficult to wrap one’s mouth around the word or phrase. The words need to be intelligible and said properly, but with the understanding that over-enunciating them can be distracting and take away from the listener experience.
Asking for every breath to be removed. It's just not possible. Should they be excessive? No. Should they be distracting? No. But to remove them entirely would be an impossible task, and would actually be distracting for the listener. There is no music bed or other sound effects, so without the sound of any breath the performance can sound robotic and unnatural.
Performance notes: Generally, you should stay hands off with the performance unless it is really, really far off…but even then, you may need to allow for the fact that other people will have different interpretations from what was in your head when you wrote it. This is why it’s good to have character/performance discussions before anything is recorded.
“Grey-Area” Direction Points
Subjective performance notes. This can get into a weird space. While the narrator should be delivering the words and mood on the page, this is where you may need to take a step back from your work and allow the narrator room to play. If you have a question, it’s OK to ask, but make sure you are giving the narrator the space to do what you hired them to do.
Things that aren’t on the page. Again, this can get tricky. If the mood or intention or some other point is not on the page, and a brand new reader wouldn’t necessarily pick up on what you had intended, it may be a point that you have to concede if the narrator went in a direction you weren’t expecting. Now, if there is something that is going to be revealed later in the book that would inform the performance in an earlier chapter, that would be worth a discussion. But otherwise, it’s best to leave the performance piece to the narrator.
The Rule of “Does It Really Matter”?
If you have a question as to whether you should offer up a note to a narrator, ask yourself the question, “Does it really matter?” Does it drastically change the tone of the story or the character?
If the answer is honestly, “No,” then it’s best just to let it go.
The Art Of Letting Go
This can be the singly hardest thing for an author to do: you need to let go. The audiobook will not sound exactly as it did in your head. In parts, in many parts, it may sound drastically different.
You need to allow for this. A reader will likely have different interpretations of events, moods, voices, characters, etc than what’s on the page, and that’s OK. The same must be held true for the narrator’s performance.
How to give direction/notes
Ultimately, you will need offer feedback to your narrator at some point. Here are some tips.
Ask them how they would like their feedback. This can solve a lot of problems up front. Simply ask your narrator, “If I have feedback for you, what is the best way for me to give that to you?” For instance, it may be easiest to have a shared spreadsheet in a Google Drive folder where you can both leave notes for each other. But ultimately, this is something that you will need to work out with each individual narrator. The link above will take you to a form I use that I’ve shared in my Google Drive; feel free to copy and use it for your own projects.
Ask them what they would like feedback on. Again, this can solve many problems. Ask them what things they would like feedback on. Most will probably be open to getting notes about performance. (A non-negotiable is that they need to be able to accept notes about blatant mispronunciations and incorrect words. If they say they don’t want feedback on this, which would be extraordinarily rare for a professional to say, it may be a sign it’s time to find a different narrator.)
Ask questions. If you’re not sure about a part of the performance or a choice the narrator made for a voice or inflection, it’s better to start the conversation with a question. “When you were reading this section…can you let me know what mood you were picking up on? What was the choice that was made here?” By doing it this way, you are opening up a conversation that a) allows for an exchange of ideas, rather than dictating a directive, and b) you are opening yourself up to the possibility of being surprised and delighted in a way you weren’t expecting. It also can help make the narrator more open to a suggestion if you want to hear something a different way.