This will sound sort of obsessive or something, but I’ve been trying to find the perfect voice to tell a story in. I’ve listened to podcasts and audiobooks and book readings and old radio shows and sleep stories and guided meditations and I’ve read story after story in different ways trying to find the moment when it clicks. It’s difficult. There are so few examples that are close to perfect. Too many stories are performed, not told.
It struck me today that stories meant for audio are worse at this than those meant for screen. Audio stories are often being spoken to no-one, or everyone. They’re recorded in tiny, barren rooms for an audiobook or performed on stage to the crowd. They’re so rarely told to one person. One pair of ears, perhaps whilst looking into one pair of eyes—and of course that changes how we tell a story. We rarely perform for one person.
Stories for screen are often being told to a person, or people. They’re often in the same room. They know exactly who they’re speaking to. In the best examples they embody the character and all of their flaws and their mannerisms and their worries—the worries that all of us have; that I have and I bet you have—and they bring it all out in how they tell the story. When they do that, the stories feel real. They don’t feel performed.
It’s funny, a couple days back I almost said the opposite based on the movie I was watching, but I think it was just the movie I was watching. I watched monologue after monologue today, and then more scenes; more moments. Time and again I felt something move in me. Sometimes the moments felt so real that I felt as though I was eavesdropping. I almost felt like I should apologize. That’s how I want audio stories to feel.
Anyway, I guess I know where I’ll be looking for inspiration. I’m getting close to the kind of stories I want to make. I already know (sort of) the story I want to tell, but I’m getting closer to how I want to tell it. I sometimes wonder why I’m so obsessed with finding the one right way, but it seems like the kind of thing that you shouldn’t try to overthink. If you feel compelled to make something, I think you should make that thing.