fix

Up to now your focus has been on how you sound. Now you are going to focus on the book. I will show you how to make notes that will guide you, so when you get in front of the mic, you will know what you are doing.

If you wrote the book you may be asking “Why do I need to make notes? I wrote the book. I know all the details.”

One of the unique problems that the author-narrator has is familiarity. You know the story and characters so well that it is easy to 'hear' yourself say something that you do not outwardly express with your voice. Here is a simple example of the problem: Compare these two sentences:

• "Hey, come over here, will you?"
• "Hey! Come over here, will you?"

Because you have the advantage of seeing the words in front of you, you can fall into the trap of reading the second sentence out loud just like the first. Subconsciously you added the exclamation point, but you didn't express it orally.

What's in this section:

• What is narration markup?
• Re-read your book first
• Start with a fresh printout
• Converting visual clues
• Punctuation
• Pauses
• Emphasis
• Dialogue
• Change of pace
• Pronunciation
• Getting unstuck
• Point of view
• Create images of your characters
• Chart your character relationships
• Making a pitch chart
• How to remember character details
• Some trivia