As you know, I\u2019ve been excitedly telling you about my new audio book. A lot of people have told me over the last four years that they\u2019d love to read my Klepto Cat Mystery series, but they just don\u2019t have time to read. They listen to books while working out, commuting, vacationing, and so forth. So this year I revised Book One in the series\u2014Catnapped. Why? Well, I think I\u2019ve learned a lot about writing fiction after 23 books and I just felt as though it needed to be brought up to snuff. Then I found Dena Dahilig, who does marvelous voiceover work. And together, we produced Catnapped as an audio book.<\/p>\n
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I thought you might enjoy meeting Dena, so I interviewed her for this blog. Here\u2019s the interview, a picture of Dena\u2019s home recording studio, and an adorable shot of her cat, Stanley. (Stanley actually has a part in the Catnapped story. Listen for him.)<\/p>\n
Q: Dena, welcome. What would you like to say about the process of doing audio for Catnapped<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n A: Well, first of all\u2026 hellooooooo! It was definitely a learning process for me! Most of the work I\u2019m hired for as a voice actor is in the commercial television\/radio realm. Commercials usually top out at 30-60 seconds, so recording a 7-hour book required a completely different toolbox\u2026 and a fair amount of organization! Although I regularly do several \u201clong-form\u201d non-fiction recordings, working with characters is an incredibly rewarding challenge.<\/p>\n As the process began, I realized right out of the gate that this is Book One! I mean, that’s obvious, right? But the full reality<\/em> of what \u201cOne\u201d means hit me! This is Book One of twenty three!<\/em> And counting! That means that Patricia is sowing the seeds of multiple<\/em> books in this first volume.<\/p>\n Starting from Basics<\/strong><\/p>\n There are lots of questions to be asked of any book: Where are we? What is this world like? With a series, I had to go further: Which of the 40+ characters are recurring? Which become lead characters in future volumes? And, of course\u2026 what\u2019s with all the cats?!?!?!<\/p>\n I started by reading the book, of course\u2026 building up a basic familiarity with it. Then I charted out each chapter, scene, location and character as they occur. Finally, I annotated the entire script. For this I use a piece of software called\u00a0iAnnotate<\/a>\u00a0for the iPad and iPhone. I import the script into the software then start bookmarking chapters, noting where each character first appears, and creating a palette of colors to identify who is who. Each of the 40 characters was assigned a distinct highlight color that was easy to identify at a glance. Yellow? Savannah. Lime Green? Aunt Margaret? A slightly-sexy burnt umber? Why, Dr. Michael Ivey, of course!<\/p>\n Finding the Voice<\/strong><\/p>\n I don\u2019t consider myself an expert at \u201cvoices\u201d in the animation\/cartoon\/video game sense, but voicing characters in a novel does require a clear distinction to be made, and these distinctions can\u2019t be arbitrary. So to begin to create clarity, I look for clues. Let\u2019s take a quick look at Margaret, for instance.<\/p>\n This is part one of Dena\u2019s interview. Tomorrow, she talks about Margaret\u2019s character and the process of how she found Margaret\u2019s voice. She\u2019ll also reveal her cat, Stanley\u2019s, part in the recording. Don\u2019t miss it the next segment of Dena Dahilig\u2019s interview.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As you know, I\u2019ve been excitedly telling you about my new audio book. A lot of people have told me over the last four years that they\u2019d love to read my Klepto Cat Mystery series, but they just don\u2019t have … Continue reading ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.matilijapress.com\/catscapades\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/denastudio-300x225.jpeg\")
Who lives here and who are the outsiders? What are the significant relationships? etc.<\/p>\n