Audio Books
The night before last, I did some good work on plotting #2 of my contemporary paranormal romance proposal. Last night I gave myself a guilty pleasure and listened to an audio book, Light in Shadow, by Jayne Ann Krentz.
Advice first, then ramblings. Audio books are GREAT for getting the feel of the language, of different accents and rhythms of speech from Jane Austin's upper class British to an east Texan twang. When I first started listening to audio books, I listened to old favorites of Jayne Ann Krentz. To my surprise, the reader put the emPHAsis on different words and phrases than I did. It was both disconcerting and illuminating. There's old common wisdom that you should read your work aloud (who has time with the schedules publishers' want?), and we do this at my critique group. It can help immensely, particularly if you have a run-on sentence or one of the made up words (like chwisge – whiskey) to see what works and doesn't. Sometimes I won't change a very alliterative sentence or an awkward one, but most of the time I do.
The best audio books I've ever listened to are the Elizabeth Peters historical mysteries read by Barbara Rosenblat. They are just incredible, particularly the ones that have the boy Ramses growing up, Ms. Rosenblat ages his voice...(and one of the best titles ever is The Last Camel Died At Noon). The Harry Potter audio books are exceptional, too.
I won't say the worst I've listened to – mostly because of the books themselves, not the authors' best works – but sometimes the actor screws it up. I listened to one where the actor made the hero's voce sort-of upper crust nasal, this was a ROMANCE and the hero didn't sound acceptable.
BACK TO POINT OF VIEW (FOR ME ALL THINGS WRITERLY ARE RELATED AND CIRCLE BACK): Recently there have been some books where a husband-wife team read the hero/heroine's point of view. I love these too, most particularly Smoke and Mirrors by Jayne Ann Krentz, and Linda Howard's Kiss Me While I Sleep. When Dick Hill makes the car noises, it had me rolling...
That's all for now. BTW, most of the time I usually put into updating my website has been used on some Heart Choice promo to bookstores and doing this blog, so June is NOT up. I'll work on it this weekend and send it to my webmistress and she should put it up sometime next week.
Love to all,
Robin
Advice first, then ramblings. Audio books are GREAT for getting the feel of the language, of different accents and rhythms of speech from Jane Austin's upper class British to an east Texan twang. When I first started listening to audio books, I listened to old favorites of Jayne Ann Krentz. To my surprise, the reader put the emPHAsis on different words and phrases than I did. It was both disconcerting and illuminating. There's old common wisdom that you should read your work aloud (who has time with the schedules publishers' want?), and we do this at my critique group. It can help immensely, particularly if you have a run-on sentence or one of the made up words (like chwisge – whiskey) to see what works and doesn't. Sometimes I won't change a very alliterative sentence or an awkward one, but most of the time I do.
The best audio books I've ever listened to are the Elizabeth Peters historical mysteries read by Barbara Rosenblat. They are just incredible, particularly the ones that have the boy Ramses growing up, Ms. Rosenblat ages his voice...(and one of the best titles ever is The Last Camel Died At Noon). The Harry Potter audio books are exceptional, too.
I won't say the worst I've listened to – mostly because of the books themselves, not the authors' best works – but sometimes the actor screws it up. I listened to one where the actor made the hero's voce sort-of upper crust nasal, this was a ROMANCE and the hero didn't sound acceptable.
BACK TO POINT OF VIEW (FOR ME ALL THINGS WRITERLY ARE RELATED AND CIRCLE BACK): Recently there have been some books where a husband-wife team read the hero/heroine's point of view. I love these too, most particularly Smoke and Mirrors by Jayne Ann Krentz, and Linda Howard's Kiss Me While I Sleep. When Dick Hill makes the car noises, it had me rolling...
That's all for now. BTW, most of the time I usually put into updating my website has been used on some Heart Choice promo to bookstores and doing this blog, so June is NOT up. I'll work on it this weekend and send it to my webmistress and she should put it up sometime next week.
Love to all,
Robin
posted by FantasyAuthor RobinDOwens | 6:32 AM
1 Comments:
I read my dialogue out loud all the time, and do gestures, as the speaker might, to see if they need to be added in to the story. My husband walks in on me and thinks I'm on the phone, and then realizes, no, it's just his nutty wife who hears voices in her head...
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