0693 – Impartiality For The Audiobook Narrator

2022.11.24 – 0693 – Impartiality For The Audiobook Narrator

Be interested, invested and informed …– only read the genres you enjoy to be more emotionally connected to the text and to draw the listener in. You are the knowledgeable guide on the journey through these characters’ lives; don’t mislead the listeners and even though you may surprise them, you should not be surprised yourself at what happens in the text.

… and impartial – you are watching the scene from the sidelines, have a full view and are telling the listener what you can see from your vantage point. Because of your narrator’s role, you may know more than the characters, indeed, in your role as ‘narrator’ (rather than ‘voice actor’), you will know how the story ends. You should keep this information free of emotion and simply allow the listener to react when you tell them. Just tell them like it is, without favour or bias, as an objective storyteller. You are a trusted guide and know the terrain, and the ups and downs of the story, and do not lead the listener onto the wrong route with misleading intonation. You are never surprised by what a character does. That’s not to say a narrator never shares secrets: almost inevitably you will have access to the character’s thoughts and emotions and may, through the author, share those with the listener but without taking sides, in an unbiased-balancing act. 

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