April 15, 2022
Daily Diary, Day 593: The day was a bit over cast this morning, so a bit warmer, although the wind has picked up keeping it in the mid-sixties for now. I don't know if it was the overcast sky, or that it was warmer, but I definitely felt sluggish on my first walk of the day, so I didn't walk quite as fast.
I did, however, continue to enjoy the audiobook I am listening to, the first Vera Stanhope mystery.
The book is written from the point of view of other protagonists, not Vera, which has been interesting, especially since I have such a strong vision of her from the TV series. And of course, I also have a clear idea of how she speaks from the show, which then clashes a bit with how the narrator portrays her in the audiobook verson.
As an author, I have a pretty distinct view of what my characters look like. I even have taken the time to find some photographs to stick up with the mini-biographies I write for the main characters. But I also know my readers come up with their own internal vision of these characters, a vision that might not even incorporate the details I have given about hair color etc in the book.
I can say a character is tall and dark-haired--and the reader can fashion what that looks like to them in their own mind without any real problem, they certainly are not going to write a review and say--the author's descriptions of the characters doesn't match the way I see them!
But for audiobooks, if a character is of one sex and voiced by a narrator of a different sex, or the narrator's voice doesn't match what the listener expected from the description of the character (their age, class, ethnicity, region, etc), this can cause some real dissonance.
My husband, who has been listening to audiobooks for over a decade when he walks our dogs, has very decided views about what he feels are good narrators--or at least what proves to be a good match between the narrator and the demands of a specific book. I've only been listening to audiobooks for a year or so and I am still at the stage of knowing what I don't like, but not being sure why I don't like (or conversely do like) certain narrators.
For my own audiobooks, I enjoy my narrator's voice, and she has done a good job of making my main characters sound the way I imagine them to sound--and being willing to make a change if a minor character doesn't sound right. But I do know that what has pleased me, isn't going to please all my listeners. And there is really nothing I can do about that. Just as I assume that writers whose books are turned into tv or films have to accept that the actors and actresses that are chosen may be very different from the characters they created for their books.
So, I'm wondering if any of you have your own likes and dislikes in terms of audibook narrations or film/tv treatments of the characters you first encountered in books? I would love to hear if you do.