I was a slow convert to audio books – not as a listener,
because I have always loved listening to a story – but as an author of ‘to be
read’ stories.
I was always nervous about the process which includes putting
material up for audition, listening to the tapes the actors send – and then,
gulp, choosing the ‘just right’ narrator.
Why? Not because it was a difficult a process, it isn’t.
ACX, my retailer of choice, makes it ridiculously easy and economical for
authors to find just the right professional voice to step up to the microphone
and ‘tell’ the author’s story to an audience of readers who enjoy getting their
box fix via a hands-free delivery system.
What was most daunting to me was simply letting go of my
story. There is no doubt about it – giving a book to an actor to read is
letting go of your work and watching – in fascination, and sometimes in shock –
as another creative person interprets the mood, tone and characters in your
book.
Authors, by the end of the editing process (which in my
case involves reading my book about 10 times, some sections more than that),
can clearly ‘hear’ their characters voices. We know what motivates them, what
they wish for, what they’re hiding and scared of. We understand clearly why they
did what they did, and what part they play in the overall panorama of the plot.
Our biggest challengers as authors are to do two things – make the readers
clearly understand these characters by choosing the right words for the
dialogue and internal thought, and convincing the reader that these made-up
creatures are acting from believable and well-grounded motivation.
On my final edit, I am confident the readers will
understand my characters’ actions and personality, and hopefully they will like
or dislike them as I do, and enjoy the story they inhabit.
Readers, of course, bring their own experiences along
with them when they read a book, and I have learned from conversations and
reviews that authors aren’t always the final word. I have often been surprised
by readers reactions to a story of mine, where many times they do not like or
accept something about a character, that, as the writer of the story, I thought
I was the final word on. HA! Frankly, I’ve loved this reckoning, for I know
that books do belong to the readers. When I write it, it is my story, but when
I give it to someone else, it is theirs. Each of us decide which characters are
good or bad or fair, or deserving of a happy ending.
While I have embraced this fact of life about readers, what I didn’t realize was that
when I authorized an audio version of a book, I had authorized another
interpretation of what was going on. Listening to the actors voicing my words, I
was surprised at how, through intonation
and tone, their grasp of each character was a shade or two different from mine.
My first venture into audio was with my book SECRET SISTER, a women’s fiction novel
with a surprise paranormal twist that sets up the action. Thematically, this
novel is about love and friendship, trust and lies, secrets and the hope we all
have that we can ‘fix’ even the most complicated events so that we will be
happy.
The actor who produced and narrated SECRET SISTER, brought a younger, fresher voice to Cathy Chance
than I had heard in my head, and a more subdued and suffering voice to my hero,
Nick Chance. In several scenes, she infused the novel with an ache and dramatic
intensity I had not imagined, but which she felt by interpreting the words I
had written in a darker or sadder tone.
This same thing occurred – even more startlingly for me –
with Caroline Price’s performance of my new audio release of MOLLY HARPER. Both in the introductory
novella, Duets, and in the full women’s fiction novel, brought a
pensive, inured insight to Molly I may not have consciously intended.
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Molly Harper, a beautiful, academy award winning actress,
is an angsty, somewhat prickly character and I had some push back from readers
and reviewers about her. Some thought she was arrogant, or cold, or
unforgiving, and felt she should be softer, nicer, because of all the blessings
she has in her life…not bitchy because of unresolved personal wounds.
I saw her, wrote
her, as heroic and smart, navigating as best she cut through a cut-throat profession
as she dealt with significant wounds to her heart and soul because of some
deeply troubling family secrets and lies. But I understood how readers, coming
from their own experiences, didn’t understand her as I did.
However, I was again surprised (slow learner here) to
listen to Caroline’s reading of the novel, because through her, I actually
heard Molly’s character differently. She did seem a little bitchy. She could be
aloof. I finally understood what some readers had been angry with Molly about
when Miss Price voiced my character. She spoke the same words I had written,
but came away with a different take.
Note
to self…embrace this fact – anyone who touches your work
interprets it and understand it through their experience and point of view –
hears it with their heart in a way you might not. I have always prided myself
on being good at communication – that human process of stating something in
such a clear way the person being communicated with fully understands what you
meant. But this process has taught me once again that for all my thinking,
planning, editing and polishing…readers and listeners hear things you may not
realize you revealed.
The bottom line is, once an author writes ‘the end’, books
then belong to readers, and listeners. They will create, with their own
wonderful imaginations, the world inhabited by your characters.
Trust this, and enjoy it, for after all, there is nothing
else you can do.
