Audiobook: Dual Narration
Tips for co-narrating an Audiobook
This month I was asked to co-narrate an audiobook for Dreamscape Audio. The book is called ‘The New Wife’ – a psychological thriller by Amanda Brittany and Karen Clarke. It’s written from each of the two of the protagonist’s point of view. This meant that every other chapter is written in the first person from one of the character’s perspectives. Therefore two voice actors were required to narrate all of their characters chapters. Myself and voiceover artist Helen Day were asked to work together on the book.
Character choices
When it comes to co-narration, it’s helpful to introduce yourself to your co-narrator(s) beforehand. This way you can discuss what voices you think will work best for any character’s that you both have to voice. This is not a necessity. However, doing this will help to make the book sound it’s best. Sharing your thoughts on character voices will provide consistency for the listeners. Of course you are never going to get the voices to sound identical. But if you’re both using similar accents or vocal tones for each character, it naturally produces a more pleasant listen. In my opinion, the fastest and easiest way of doing this is via whatsapp. Helen and I exchanged voicenotes on character voice ideas. This helped us come to a joint decision on what voices were most appropriate.
It was helpful to have these voicenotes to hand. If I had forgotten what choice we had made about a particular character. I could simply play the voicenote back to remind myself.
You can listen to an extract of the book via Audible’s website here.
Rosie.
