Translating the Novel

We’ve all heard how people are unhappy with the way Hollywood changes their book when they translate it to film. The truth about that is that it’s a completely different medium. Whereas reading a book is an intimate experience, watching a film is a very public one. The writing of a book is a very quiet, personal experience, while making a movie is a collaborative one. While it might take you several hours to read a book, you will watch a film in 120 minutes. The characters in your head as you write your book are not the characters you see on the screen. And when you read a book, you’re likely to be in the point of view of various leading characters, whereas with a film, the point of view is always the audience. Not nearly as intimate.

No wonder that I heard Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Justified, among others) say this is how you deal with Hollywood: you drive to the border, throw the book across, catch the cash, and drive right back home. In other words, don’t get involved.

I’ve had the privilege of one of my books made into a movie and while that was quite a wonderful experience, I can appreciate Leonard’s advice.

But I haven’t heard anybody talk about the translating of a written book into an audiobook, which again, is a completely different medium.

Those of us who have listened to audiobooks likely know that the narrator can make it or break it. Sometimes the voice is just too grating or too annoying to continue. Sometimes the narrator is so perfect that it is a joy to while the hours away listening.

I choose the narrators for my audiobooks. And when I do, I listen to each word as the book is being produced. It is quite the process of letting go. The narrator puts a different emphasis on some phrases, pronounces other words with the reader’s regional accent that is different from my own, uses voices that are different from the ones I hear in my head when I write.

And yet, the narrators are professionals, and I have to decide, moment by moment, as I listen to the audio files before they’re published, if I can live with whatever it is that has caught my attention. It’s been a learning experience.

Geoffrey Boyes, the narrator for my new book, The Itinerant is an Australian. At first, I worried about that, because the book clearly takes place in the US, but Geoffrey is the consummate professional, a delight to work with, and I think I only had to correct his pronunciation of one word. It didn’t take long for me to get into the story as he was reading it to me, his accent soothing and his individual character voices perfect.

Jim Tedder, the narrator for my book Lizard Wine is in the same league. I am honored that these men have given such life to my work.

I hope you will give a read or a listen, and leave a review when you do.