Creating Characters For Narration And Voice Work

There are a million ways to voice a character. Here are tips to explore what your voice can do to bring them to life.

I had a question recently about coming up with vocalizations for characters in audiobooks, and how to keep them straight and consistent?

Like anything, you get better with practice. Each new accent you learn becomes a part of your toolbox,  and each new character you voice becomes part of your physical body memory, and something you can call on at a later time. I do mean a body memory, as our vocalizations exist in our vocal cords, in our postures, in our expressions, and our body is a way to access them. These new voices become part of your toolbox too.

When I was a kid, I used to mimic the TV. I’d copy voices, impersonate characters, mimic accents. Later, I’d do this when the TV was off too. I pretended I was blind for a week or two, then deaf, then I had one leg longer than the other and limped for a week (a problem when I had blood poisoning from stepping on a rusty nail and my mom didn’t believe me.) Who knew that this annoying behavior was the perfect training to be an audiobook narrator? You have to have a good ear for accents and how people talk.

Later, my training as a writer helped me with creating vocalizations too. I’d go to a coffee shop and write down conversations, essentially stealing dialogue. I tried to capture exactly what I heard so I could write believable dialogue. In writing dialogue, I was also listening to the sound of voices and how people actually talk. It’s kinda mind blowing when you notice the variety of voices.

There are many things you can do to create a character. I’ll share with you some rules and then some tips on how to vary your voice.

RULES TO FOLLOW

1)    Never give an accent unless it’s explicitly called for in the text (or it’s stated where they’re from). You never know if the southern accent you gave to a character in book one will turn out to be actually be Russian in book four.

2)    Make it real. This means pulling back sometimes.

3)    Resist caricatures and stereotyping. This pulls you out of reality, but it can also be/sound racist/homophobic/etc.