Keeping character voices consistent for audio books?
I'll admit to being more of a hobbyist than a professional but I would love to know people's approaches to the challenge of making sure the characters in book reads have a consistent and identifiable sounding voice.
Do you identify all the characters individually and plan out who they are or do you let it come organically? Do you create a "voice reel" for each person so you have a reference when they need to speak and its been a while? What do you do?
Kudos to Heath Miller who kills this problem in "He Who Fights with Monsters" with each character having a unique voice and boo sucks to Wil Wheaton's reading of "The Martian" who uses his own voice for every single character, male or female.
Posted Jul 23, 2023, 9:50 AM UTC
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The characters planned out in advance. Have to read the whole book and know who is all there, all their characteristics and what others say about them to help inform their voice. Put that in a spreadsheet with characteristics and vocal placement/description. A tagline to help remember the character and get back into it if necessary/possible. And also add in a clip if that’s helpful.
In my opinion, you actually don’t want the voices to be so distinctive. In an audiobook it’s helpful for the characters to sound a little bit like your voice, but just distinctive enough so that you know somebody else speaking. If they are so different from your own, speaking voice, you can take the reader out of the experience. I personally believe the voices should have a little bit of a connection still to you, so that the reader stays in the story. Hope that makes sense.