What Fool Her Once AudioBook Narrator Taught Me About Writing

When Rachel Fulginiti, a native New Yorker,  arrived in Los Angeles almost 20 years ago, she had ambitions to be an actor. “But about a year in, I realized you have to be younger, thinner, blonder than your competition,” she says with a laugh.”Also, I didn’t know anyone, and the town is all about connections.”

So, Rachel became a voice actor. “I did an online radio show, and early podcast and I felt so alive behind the mic. Now, I can use all my skills and talents, and not worry about the things I can’t control like what I look like.”

Voice Arts Award

She’s never looked back since. That means that nowadays she does voice overs for commercials and she narrates audiobooks. In 2019, she won the Voice Arts award for a #MeToo anthology she co-narrated. A few months ago, she narrated the audiobook for my new thriller, Fool Her Once. 

“I read through Fool Her Once for the audition, and I thought: “This is for me. I just loved the antagonist. He seems so level-headed in the way he justifies things in his head.” Then, Rachel mentions a drama school teacher who taught her class to ‘never forget, the bad guy doesn’t think he’s the bad guy.’

Rachel adds:”I loved getting into his head.” On social media she’s posted about him: “Best antagonist ever.”

In Demand

Ever since I heard Rachel’s audition for the narration of FHO last summer, I have had “interview FHO narrator” on the to-do list for my website. But these days, Rachel is more in demand than ever so it wasn’t till a couple of weeks ago that we were able to set a time to talk.

It’s no secret that audiobooks are flying off the proverbial shelves. People love them because in our multi-tasking world, it means you can “read” a book while driving, commuting, cooking, washing the dishes, vacuuming the living room, taking  a two-mile walk,  or working out in your home gym.

Personally, I have never warmed up to audiobooks, (most are narrated at a pace much slower than I read) but I became intrigued about what goes into the narration when I heard Rachel’s audition for Fool Her Once.

The audition required narrators to read a part of Chapter Four which begins: “The buzzing of the intercom startled Jenna as she waited for the Bialetti to stop gurgling.”

Bearing in mind that I’d written that particular chapter months –if not years– before hearing it on the audition, I had to rewind because I didn’t catch what the narrator had said. Again, I found myself wondering over the word Bialetti. I know what a Bialetti is; I’ve owned a couple of them and used them but, truth be told I had never thought about how to pronounce it.

Said Rachel, “One of our jobs is to look up to see what that is; to make sure I know what it is, and how to pronounce it.”

Prep Work

She reads through each book once before the narration for content and to annotate it. “I annotate the script and highlight anything I don’t know how to pronounce, and to highlight how dialog is spoken. I’ll write in pronunciations phonetically, and note which character is talking — although when it’s well-written, you know who is talking.”

As she explains, it’s a waste of time to narrate dialog and then realize that the book says “she whispered.” She’d rather not have to stop to go back over the dialog to “whisper” it. Nor to re-narrate dialog which half-way through the book is described as spoken in a “thick Irish accent.”

But an audiobook narrator is not paid for the time it takes her/him to annotate or prepare her script for narration. “The going average rate of approximately $200-$225 an hour may sound high but that’s per finished hour of the audiobook. I may put in 18 hours on the project annotating or researching, but if the finished book runs eight hours that’s what I get paid for.”

Rachel, mother of two young children, allotted four days of six-hour sessions each day for Fool Her Once. She recorded the narration in her home studio with a remote engineer. When she narrates in her home studio, she has a moveable desk so that she can either sit or stand while narrating.

Vocal Athlete

It’s physically demanding to talk for six hours a day. Rachel does it in 90-minute sessions with breaks in between. Even so she prepares like an athlete. “A vocal athlete,” she emphasizes. “I’ll do some stretching and vigorous exercises before a narrating stint. Perhaps do neck rolls to signal my body that it’s about to get into narration.”

“I’ll also cut out certain foods like tomato sauce and spicy dishes because they produce too much phlegm.”

Still and all, she says that “audiobook narration is being able to do something you love. Bringing a book to life is a special experience. You have to love it, love books and be a book nerd.

“Narrating an audiobook is not just reading, it’s telling a story and having fun telling the story.”

What I Learned About Writing For Audiobooks

“I think many more authors are writing for audiobooks, or at least keeping them in mind when writing,” says Rachel.

I understand totally. Having to rewind the audio audition over the brand name Bialetti got me thinking that it’s not a good idea to use unfamiliar brand names that cause readers to stop and interrupt the flow of the story to rewind the audiobook. Or proper names that can be pronounced many different ways.

I’ll also never again ignore the advice of reading one’s completed manuscript out loud. It’s amazing how many passages an author can find that are cumbersome or too long, or which don’t read smoothly or easily. That’s awful for an audiobook.

You never want a listener to stop mid-task and ask: “What did she say?”

Old But Good Advice

It reminds me of advice I got many decades ago, when I was starting out as a newswriter for the 10 O’Clock News on WNEW-TV in New York City. The long-established anchor of that newscast, John Roland told me: “Remember, you’re writing news snippets which viewers are listening to as they go the refrigerator for another beer or as they’re cleaning up after dinner. Your writing needs to be in simple, short sentences and short words.”

Footnote: A Bialetti is a stovetop espresso coffee maker.