Bringing Words to Life
“But voice acting is different. With voice acting I feel I have a sacred trust. I am bringing someone else’s words to life — words someone else toiled over, edited repeatedly, and finally let rest on the pages of a book. I want to turn a phrase that resonates.”
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After you entered a new creative world, do you recall the painful but joyful learning curve you experienced during your very first official assignment?
I honestly don’t think anyone could have prepared me for what was to come when I auditioned for several audiobook titles on ACX (the narrator arm of Audible) and was chosen to make an author’s words come alive. As with writing, I am one of those people who jumps into things with their eyes (half) closed, “behaving as if” I can do the job, while knowing I’m already good at making things happen on the fly.
Questions crowded my mind as I began recording portions of a non-fiction how-to book. How can I make people sampling the book want to go ahead and buy it? If I were the author of the book, how would I want my narrator to sound? And what can my own personality add to this equation that the author may not even have expected but might appreciate?
For decades now, I have been both a full-time and part-time freelance writer. I started with newspaper articles, graduated to website content, wrote a blog for Forbes for a while, and went on to co-author a few books. Today I write for Psychology Today and ghostwrite blogs for a wide range of professionals — from orthodontists and med spa owners to fitness and health aficionados, to attorneys and physicians. After decades in the real estate industry, I people pay me to write daily artcles about design, real estate, architectural trends, and mortgage news. And I love all of it. My world is just interesting enough to make me feel engaged with avenues of life I might never have strutted down otherwise. Itt’s a mental exercise that keeps me learning as I go, and that can do nothing bu benefit me as I age.
Voice acting, however, is different. It requires a sacred trust to bring someone else’s words to life — words they toiled over, no doubt edited repeatedly, and finally let rest on the pages of a book. My ultimate goal is to turn a phrase that resonates — to add a light, humorous tone to an interesting statement or calm my voice for paragraphs the author wants their readers take seriously. You see, my voice is the instrument that literally takes the notes off the page and makes the music, As yu can see, I take this very seriously,. Yet — I love every moment as I agonize over every vocal edit. By the time a smile finally crosses my headphoned face every sound I make is a labor of love.
Aside from the fun side of this, there is the intense technical learning curve. Initial investments in my tiny recording studio left me not only wondering how soon I could recoup the expenditures, but also wondering if I could teach this old dog new tricks. The first time I stared at my recording program display it felt as if I were observing the surface of the moon — with instructions on how to find each crater and moon river (the geological depression, not the song).
As I recorded in one room and edited my recordings in another, however, something started to happen. I clicked around between sound waves and found how to string together words that had been separated by breaths. I placed pauses in long paragraphs so that the listener could digest the meaning of the author’s words. It was so much more than simply reading aloud. A rhythm began to take over, along with a feeling that I could actually DO this. I also took note of ways to make the process more efficient. I began participating in voice actor groups on social media, whose veterans could answer nearly all my rookie questions. I had entered an entirely new arena of words not my own, but became mine with every recording I made.
When Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World way back in 1931, he must have intended that title to be used by me. In my life I have found that nothing happens by accident. In retrospect can connect the dots between people, places, and gut feelings I’ve had to either start something new and attack it with gusto, or shake the dust off my shoes and move on.
And I know I will be dong this voice acting thing until someone shuts me up. Go ahead and try. I dare you.