A Different Kind of Listening - by - Lynne Benton

 As I mentioned in my blog a couple of months ago, I’ve been recording the first book of my Roman trilogy, “The Centurion’s Son”, for local radio.  I thought it would be a doddle, but inevitably it has not been quite as quick and straightforward as I'd anticipated.  I'm not particularly tech-savvy, so I've had to learn everything as I went along!

First I have to check the length of the chapters I plan to read that week.  I have a half-hour slot, but sometimes I can fit three chapters into the time, while if one chapter is rather longer I might only be able to fit two - bearing in mind that I always like each episode to finish on some sort of cliffhanger.

I have previously written the introduction to each episode, which is the same every week, ie the title of the book, the author, the narrator, where it's set and when.  Then each week I have to add whether it's episode 2, 3, 4 of whatever, and a brief resume of "The Story So Far".  This inevitably takes some thought and planning!  I print it all out, so that when I record it I don't forget something vital, such as who wrote it!

Having done that, I have to remember to unplug my newly-acquired webcam from my computer (newly-acquired so I could do Zoom calls, of course!)  It didn't occur to me that leaving it connected might make affect my recordings, so the next couple of chapters I recorded after connecting it came out terribly faint.  I sent them to the tech wizard at the radio station and asked him what I'd done wrong, and he said UNPLUG YOUR WEBCAM!)  So now I have to remind myself to do that before recording anything!

As I said, I’m not very tech-savvy.  But I'm learning!

 Then I plug in the microphone and record the chapters for that week. (Sometimes something goes wrong, such as an unexpected phone call or a neighbour’s noisy lawnmower or some other external noise, or I make a mistake, and then I have to go back to the beginning of that session and start all over again!  I’m sure it’s possible to stop and start in mid-reading, but I don’t dare risk it!  

Then I send the recording to the incredibly kind and patient tech wizard for him to add in the signature tune at the beginning and the end (and to eliminate the odd cough)  When he’s done that, he sends it back to me, complete with signature tune at each end, for me to check.  I listen to it again, to check that it’s all okay, and email him to thank him and tell him it is.

And finally, on the day it’s due to be broadcast, I sit back and listen to it all over again.  And that’s when I find that this time I'm listening to it in quite a different way.

I know a lot of writers record their books/stories before they’ve been published, in order to hear them back and make corrections/adjustments etc., and this is really useful.  Reading it out loud, or hearing yourself read it out loud, brings out clunky dialogue, strange sentence construction or frequently-repeated words that you don’t notice when you’re reading the manuscript.  But when you listen to it at this stage, it is with your writers’ hat on, and you’re listening specifically to diagnose faults.

However, by the time I get to hearing my book read live on radio, even when I’m the one doing the reading, it is quite different.  For one thing, the book has been published, so there’s nothing I can do to change it now.  For another, it doesn't really sound like me reading it (do we ever recognise our own voice when we hear it back via a recording?)  And for another, it gives me a chance to just sit back in comfort and listen to someone telling me a story!  I’m not judging it, or wishing I’d written something different – I’m just enjoying being read to, like I used to do when I was a child!  Indeed, like I do still!  I’m also remembering that what I enjoyed most when I was teaching was reading a serial story to the children at the end of every afternoon (in the days when you could do that!)  I always chose books I loved, so they loved them too.  (This was before I ever wrote my own, so I’m not blowing my own trumpet here!)

When I reached the end of “The Centurion’s Son” two weeks ago I had no idea whether the radio station wanted any more of my books, or whether they wanted someone else’s book/s, or whether they wanted to scrap the idea of a children’s session altogether – so I was delighted when the boss said he’d love me to record some more!  So I am now in the middle of recording Book 2, “Danger at Hadrian’s Wall”, and enjoying that too.  In fact, because it’s a while since I wrote it, or even read it, it all feels new and exciting (even if I do know what happens in the end.)

So now, having reminded myself how good it is to be read to, even if the radio station doesn’t want any more of my books, I think I might record some more anyway, to keep me (and my husband) entertained through the long winter evenings…

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www.lynnebenton.com