Narrating Mrs. Oswald Chambers: How I did it.

I’ve been narrating Mrs. Oswald Chambers: The Woman Behind the World’s Best-selling Devotional for the last several months.

And now it’s done and for sale.

It was harder than I expected.

Fortunately, my “audio producer,” our friend Gregg, was a wonderful, patient, good sport with this narrator.

I enjoyed the whole experience–even the breaks when airplanes flew too low overhead for unexplained reasons.

The narrating set up

Gregg’s recording studio included all we needed.

He sat at a table with the necessary equipment.

I took a tall chair before a microphone, a black rounded muffler, and a small window.

Through the window I could see my Ipad screen open to the book.

I put on a pair of headphones and marked the distance between my mouth and the microphone (Just like in the movie The King’s Speech).

Greg counted down and I began to read carefully and not too fast. (One Internet guru advised reading no more than 150 words per minute).

Magic.

As long as I could read, he could manage the recording.

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A Few Narrating Tricks

Why yes, I am an experienced reader–to children.

That experience didn’t always transfer over to narrating an entire book.

My sentences are longer than Dr. Seuss’ sentences–and they seldom rhymed.

That meant my paragraphs were longer, too.

Mrs. Oswald Chambers featured a number of quotations from Oswald Chambers, Biddy, and Kathleen.

I needed to be able to differentiate them from each other with my voice–which involved a bit of acting.

To help me remember how to alter my voice (I only did so for those three), I physically adjusted myself.

For Oswald, I clenched my right hand and firmly set my arm at a 90-degree angle. Then I read the line.

For Kathleen, I sat up straight and spoke forthright.

And for Biddy?

Ah, Biddy.

I relaxed to make my voice softer, more round, and often gently circled my two hands away from my body.

I think it worked.

Unexpected challenges with narrating

The biggest problem?

I’m an American.

A lot of these words–which look like American English on the page–were actually British English. (The video suggests watching The Crown to get a feel for the issue. That would be ish-you, by the way.)

The place names were the worst!

Fortunately, you can find anything you need on the Internet. Several websites helped me ensure I pronounced words like Woolwich, or Herefordshire, correctly.

Try saying those names yourself, then click on the links.

To counter this problem, I read three chapters aloud the day before each narrating session. I then marked words in my Kindle version that I needed to check the pronunciation.

Most were easily identified and practiced. (Do you know how many times I practiced saying, “Herefordshire?” I’ve got it now!)

Some words didn’t yield a check–Port Said is my own pronunciation. (Sigh-eed).

The other issue was a “clicking” or “smacking” sound I didn’t even realize I had. Gregg excised them easily.

After only a few chapters, he could tell where I smacked by how the audio file looked on his computer screen.

My emotional responses to the book

I hadn’t read Mrs. OC in quite a while, so it felt new–even though I remembered and recognized everything!

Several times, I blinked away tears. I got choked up while reading.

I reread those passages!

But I came away impressed, yet again, by the dedicated woman who gave up so much for the sake of the Gospel and her love for Oswald Chambers.

My admiration for Biddy continues unabated. I’m so thankful I had the opportunity to tell her story in words on a page–and now through my voice on an audio book.

How did I do?

Here’s a sample.

Tweetables

A new audiobook: Mrs. Oswald Chambers and how her author narrated the book. Click to Tweet

A first time narrator described the process to make an audiobook. Click to Tweet