Writing for Audiobook
By Juliet Marillier | November 14, 2018 |
Do you love audio books? Maybe you like to devour the latest epic fantasy novel while you’re on an equally epic road trip, or let a new thriller by your favourite writer entertain you during a boring but necessary house clean. Maybe you have a child who adores the Harry Potter books but is not quite up to reading the last two on his or her own – how excellent to have Stephen Fry do that job instead. I’m of a generation that used to enjoy radio serials – in New Zealand we had one called Portia Faces Life (Portia was a lawyer whose personal and professional lives were both complex.) Another was Doctor Paul: A Story of Adult Love, which I suspect couldn’t have been so very adult, or my parents would not have allowed me to listen to it on days when I was home from school sick. I also remember the evening book readings on radio, in particular Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories, and a night plagued by fearful dreams after listening to The Speckled Band.
Fast forward to the present day. Technological advances have transformed our world, both for good and bad. The publishing business is no exception. I’ve been a published writer for twenty years, and I’ve been fortunate enough to see almost all my novels published not only in print and ebook formats, but also as audio books. Up until this year, the books have come out first in print and ebook, and have later been produced as audio books, often with a different publisher. The audio books have proved popular with readers, sometimes outliving the print editions. Maybe that shouldn’t surprise me in this time-poor society! Audio books allow multi-tasking in a way print books and ebooks don’t. This year I’ve been writing a novel specifically intended for audio book production. This was something new for me, and I’ve learned a few things along the way.
As a reader, I value the effective and original use of voice – my favourite writers of fiction all use voice cleverly to help convey the mood and meaning of their story, to give it a unique shape and character. I try to do the same in my own writing, and increasingly I develop structures around voice. This particular story is an expansion of a novella already written and published. The story, Beautiful, is based on the fairy tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, and my version is written in first person from a single point of view. My narrator is not the heroic young woman who is the protagonist of the original tale. My character is not human. The story I created for her has its roots in the fairy tale, but moves far beyond it. Because I had worked hard to develop this character’s striking and unusual voice, I believed the story was particularly suited to audio book production. Here are some things I’ve learned along the way.
I generally read my work aloud to check that rhythm and flow are OK, and I knew that would be especially important this time around. Reading aloud helps you to hear what is clunky, what is repetitive, what is long-winded, and also what soars, what soothes, what makes a strong and powerful statement. It highlights bad pacing and stylistic errors such as oft-repeated words, sequential sentences with the same structure, lack of variety in sentence length and so on. I was happy with my manuscript as submitted, but as I hadn’t done a straight-to-audio book project before, I wasn’t sure what to expect. The editorial notes I got back were overall positive, but it was clear I still had a few things to learn about writing for audio book.
I had not considered how my word count would equate to the time taken to narrate. My editor pointed out that a certain section of the book, in which not much action occurred, added around 7,000 words, and that this would take 45 minutes of audio. I was shocked! His request that I tighten up that part of the story seemed entirely reasonable, and I did so. In retrospect, I think I was lucky that they accepted a ms that was (drops voice to a whisper) nearly 20,000 words longer than the contracted word count.
Some things simply don’t work in an audio book. My character can read and write, but in a very limited way. At one point in the book she’s writing place names on a map, in company with another character who can draw but not write. In the text, the place names are spelled correctly when our narrator is saying them aloud: Queen’s Castle, Troll Cliffs, and so on. But as she writes them on the map she spells them as a small child might do: Kweens Kasl, for instance. In an audio book the misspellings would sound exactly the same as the correct names, and would therefore be nothing but a stumbling block for the person narrating, and meaningless to the listener. I changed them back on request.
I’ve realised while working on this project how much I care about the way my stories sound, whether read aloud, or as imagined in the mind of the reader. I’m sure that comes first from my lifelong love of traditional storytelling which has a rhythm and flow all its own. And it comes also from being a musician since I was very young – if you love music as well as writing, the patterns of the first make their way into the second. Now I’m waiting with eager anticipation to find out who is chosen to narrate my book.
Some of you may have narrated your own audio books. Some of you may have published your own. I’d love to hear your experiences with audio book writing and publication. Please share your successes and challenges in the comments section. Or tell us about your favourite audio books and why you love them!
Juliet Marillier has written twenty-four novels for adults and young adults and two collections of short fiction. Her works of historical fantasy have been published around the world and have won numerous awards. Juliet’s most recent series was Warrior Bards, of which the third and final book, A Song of Flight, was published in 2021. Her collection of reimagined fairy tales, Mother Thorn and Other Tales of Courage and Kindness, had its trade release in 2022. Mother Thorn is illustrated by Kathleen Jennings and published by Serenity Press.
Juliet is currently working on a two-book fantasy series. The first book in this duology, The Amber Owl, will be published by New Dawn in February 2025.
When not writing, Juliet looks after a small crew of rescue dogs.
Hi Julia: I’ve long been curious about how original book copy affects audio books; I’ve assumed the print (or ebook) editions are just read aloud by a talented dramatic actor. From your post here it sounds like the audio edition requires rewriting. If authors want to create an audio from a print or ebook, should they rewrite the text specifically for audio?
Hi Paula. In the past, it’s worked for me exactly as you say – print edition first, then audio book done by an actor reading the text (sometimes multiple narrators, and sometimes with a bit of music here and there.) My current project is coming out in audio book first, with possible print publication at a later stage, so when writing the novel I knew it had to work well for audio. And I am working with an audio book editor, who sees things a bit differently from my usual (print book) editors. Having said that, the end result is a novel that will also be just fine for print publication. If an author is creating their own audio book, there’s no requirement to rewrite. Mind you, an author doing their own reading and recording should feel free to tweak the ms if that makes it work better for audio.
Fabulous post! Thanks Juliet. As a ham actor from way back I have jumped on the chance to narrate my own tales with both feet. Free recording utilities like Audacity and the new distribution partnership between Smashwords and Findaway Voices are both definitely worth checking out.
You are SPOT-ON about the value of reading aloud to proof the draft- I can’t think of a better way to pick up on my (many) (really quite embarrassing) flaws. And now I’m rehearsing as well!
There certainly are textual features that are difficult to narrate- of course, you can also exploit the advantages of audio by adding a few subtle FX and added tracks (as when one of my troubled heroes is having an internal struggle and argues with himself, one side can be put in echo, or chuckles in the background as he struggles to decide).
I’ve missed three days in a row of my personal “NaNoRecMo” and must get back to it tomorrow morning or else! 42k “words” so far this month (meaning put down raw, but all the editing to go).
If anyone is interested I have blogged about my experiences and give advice about how to record your own tales.
That’s really interesting, William, and so useful to anyone heading into the recorded book process. I’m learning all sorts of things from these comments! If you’d like to share a link to your blog in the comments here, please feel free (in between plugging away at NaNoRecMo.)
The new story sounds amazing! Is it going to be published as a print/e-book book, as well, or only as an audiobook?
Anna, the audiobook will definitely be released first, with the possibility of print/ebook to follow. I hope very much that there will be a print edition, as I know some of my regular readers will really love this story (based on East of the Sun and West of the Moon.)
Another thing to keep an eye on is homophones (or near homophones). In my WIP, I recently noticed I had a main character nicknamed Jules and there are also major magical arifiacts called Jewels and if I don’t change it, it’ll likely be very confusing. As a listener, it was weird to hear Michael Kramer say “Lews Therin” in the Wheel of Time books and “New Seran” in the Mistborn books, so it’s not even restricted to your own writing.
A very good point!
Hi Juliet. Thanks for a post that considers matters related to what’s especially hot these days, audiobooks (and it’s great to see you are a dog person).
If I read aloud to hear as well as see what I’ve written in terms of “rhythm and flow,” and to “clear what is clunky, what is repetitive” (I always do this), what I end up with should be good-to-go as an audiobook. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I don’t see why I should need to further edit for an audio edition.
That’s what I did with GODSEND, the third book in my suspense series. I spent years in undergraduate lit classes doing what amounted to dramatic readings of passages in classic works of fiction. I decided this had prepared me to narrate my own book. After doing some research, I contracted with a retired electrical engineer. He was an amateur musician, with a basic recording studio in his basement. He was interested in learning how to record a book using the ACX software, so that’s what we did over a four-month period, two or three afternoons a week. I like the end result, but then I would. It’s really for others to judge whether my DIY project was a success.
I’m also thinking of repeating the process with JUST BILL, my short work of magical realism about dogs. My only advice to others thinking of narrating their own work is this: be ready to draw on ALL your capacity for patience. It’s a demanding, lengthy process not suited to sprinters.
Thanks again, and good luck with your audiobook.
Magic realism with dogs, yay! (I describe myself as half author, half crazy dog lady.)
There’s a lot of wisdom in what you say and I agree that there should be no need for an extra edit for audio book provided you’ve checked and re-checked how your book ‘sounds.’ As per my comment above to Paula, I had cause to rethink how I was writing this time around because this project (initially at least) was for audio book only, and I was aware of that at the time of writing. Even so, those points I mentioned in my post were brought up in the editorial feedback from my editor at the audio book company. So I continue to learn.
By the time my first novel made it to print, it had been read aloud three times. My long-suffering husband read it to me, I read it to him, and then he read it to me again. So hopefully when the time comes, it will transfer well!
Since this same husband read Henry George’s Progress and Poverty (18 hours 39 min) for Librivox, recording audiobooks oneself is something I’ve been aware of as a possibility for some time, but the thought of the editing required is rather intimidating.
How useful to have a family member with experience as an audio book narrator! I too would find the do-it-yourself method intimidating, but judging from some of the useful comments above, there is expert help and support available provided one knows where to find it.
Excellent post, Juliet—thank you. Recently, I published my first audiobook, and I know exactly what you mean. In my case, when I didn’t use italics to emphasize a word in dialogue, the narrator had no clue about my intent. I almost think you need TWO versions of your novel—one of which is specifically designed for reading aloud and includes vocal cues!
Ah, yes, italics! It would be really interesting to interview an experienced audio book narrator and find out how the process feels to him/her.
Fantasy writers definitely need to provide a pronunciation guide for character and place names, too. I can remember doing that over the phone for one of my books, and trying hard not to speak with an Australian accent, which would have muddied the waters considerably!
Thanks for the post. I’m blogging about audio books next week and listing reasons my FB friends recommended listening to audio books. I just added this link to my blog for my other writer friends!
I’m glad it was useful, Carol!