By: Valerie
Lately I’ve been listening to more books than I’ve been reading, and I’m not alone.
Audio book sales have skyrocketed in the past few years. Publisher’s Weekly reports that audio book revenue jumped nearly 23 percent last year alone.
I’ve been a fan ever since I worked in a public library in my early twenties and had my pick of “books on tape,” as they were called back then. Now smartphones and apps like Audible have made them even easier to get.
In addition, the growing popularity of other audio forms like serial podcasts has led Audible to compete by producing Audible Originals, stories that never existed as a book to begin with, blurring the lines between writing and performance.
PAY ATTENTION TO HOW YOUR NOVEL SOUNDS
But when you get right down to it, they’re all just different forms of storytelling.
Long before stories were written down, they were spoken, probably by a very hairy ancestor to an equally hairy audience around a campfire.
Later, traveling bards of medieval times knew too well that unless their story held the attention of the lords and ladies of the castle, they might go hungry and homeless for the night, or worse.
All of this leads to the conclusion that as aspiring authors, we’d be wise to consider how our novels sound when read aloud. How to capture and hold the attention of readers with seemingly endless choices of entertainment at their fingertips.
I understand the popularity of audio books. They allow a certain freedom that sitting and reading a book does not. None of us are truly fans of multi-tasking, but it’s actually pretty great to be able to listen to the latest thriller while walking the dog or during the daily commute.
However, it’s not so great when the neighbor’s pit bull charges you, or the driver in front of you slams on the brakes, and you lose your place while the narrator just keeps talking.
Even when I’m sitting quietly and listening, often my attention will drift away to whatever worries or list of to-dos are weighing on my mind that day.
Some of this is because of the fractured nature of our schedules and attention spans, but some of it has to do with the writing itself. I’ve tried to turn this into a lesson for my own writing.
I’ve gotten hooked on the Walt Longmire series by Craig Johnson (admittedly a little late, since it’s now a Netflix series), about a grizzled old sheriff in a small Wyoming town. I’m a huge fan of mysteries set in lonely, majestic Western landscapes, and I tend towards long descriptive passages of landscape in my own writing.
My fellow Inkwells compliment those passages, but they also question their length and purpose — and I’m starting to realize why.
USE DESCRIPTION IN YOUR NOVEL WISELY
In the audio version of the first Walt Longmire book, when the author began waxing poetic about the colors of the clouds and the quality of light on the distant mountains, I found myself tuning out. Even George Guidall, a great grumbly-voiced theater actor perfect for narrating the series, sounded a little bored while reading those passages.
It taught me that, while I appreciate beautiful and remote settings and a literary turn of phrase, mainly I want to know the basics. Who’s doing what and why? Who’s saying what to whom? Dialogue, both external and internal, is important to moving the story along, as is action.
Settings can be integral to the mood, theme, and plot of your novel, but they’re best when simply worded and relevant to the scene at hand. Pepper in your descriptions, rather than serving them up in big chunks.
There’s a reason that “read your work aloud” is perennial writing advice. And sure, nowadays you can have your computer read your text to you — it’s a great way to catch typos and small mistakes.
But there’s a more important reason to read it aloud, and in a human voice.
Read it yourself, or better yet ask a friend to read it to you. Chances are, if they stumble over the words or get bored slogging through them, your readers will too. And if you end up self-publishing and want to reap the rewards of the booming audio market, you’ll be the one paying the narrator by the word or by the hour. Good incentive to keep your work lean.
This isn’t to say that we should all pare down to screenplay-style brevity, or dumb down our work to cater to the shortest attention spans. After all, we’re creators of the written word, and there’s plenty of room for beautiful prose.
But in writing, as in life, balance is the key.