How to Track Character Voices Across a Series

You’ve finished a book with a lot of rich characters; it’s a job well done, and you can move on to the next amazing book. But six months later, you get an email saying, “Book 2 is ready!”

As exciting as that is, you freeze for a moment, trying to remember who all the characters were and hoping the minor ogre with the taxing voice isn’t now the main love interest.

You think through all the characters and ask yourself: Was the best friend higher-pitched? Did the brother speak at a slow pace? What accent did the mage have?

Character consistency is important to a positive listener experience, and that doesn’t stop with a single book. You need to find a way to maintain that consistency in subsequent books. Sometimes books come months or even years down the line, and relying solely on memory isn’t going to cut it.

Hopefully, you still have your files from previous books so you can go through and find the voices. But that is time-consuming, so why not create a system to track your characters for each book? This can save you prep time when the next book comes along and keep your listeners engaged because they can easily slip right back into the story with you.

Here are some ways to track those characters and how tools like Pozotron can help.

Prepping Your Characters

Tracking your characters starts with prepping your audiobook. What does the author tell you about each of the characters? Some authors give you a lot of details, either in the book itself or through outside communication with you or the publisher.

Dive into who the characters are. The author may describe their voices with words such as raspy, gravelly, breathy, or clipped. And while that absolutely informs the vocal qualities you will perform, it doesn’t tell you everything about who they are as a person.

Audiobook narrators don’t do voices; they voice characters.

Think about the character’s personality, age, background, energy, relationships, and anything else that might inform your performance. You don’t necessarily need a detailed profile for every character who appears on the page, but you do want enough information to replicate your choices later.

Pozotron can also help during this process. The Character Voice Guide scans the manuscript for characters and, in some instances, can even pull descriptive information about them to give you a jump start on your prep. These entries are marked with an “AI” tag, so you know which information Pozotron pulled from the manuscript.

You can also add your own notes and create full character personas. Capture the information that is most helpful to you in creating an authentic voice for that character and, importantly, information that will help you remember those choices when you return to the series later.

Record Voice Samples

Written notes are helpful, but nothing beats hearing the character in your own voice. Saving a voice clip for each character is helpful for both your current book and future books in the series.

Ideally, choose a section that represents the character's normal speaking voice rather than an unusually emotional moment. A character screaming during an argument may not be the most useful reference when you need to remember how they sound in a normal conversation.

You can also use these voice samples for your 15-minute checkpoint when working with an independent author.

Pozotron's Character Voice Guide allows you to record and save character voice samples alongside your notes. You can even share this guide with your author at no additional cost.

Before recording a returning character, listen to the reference and say a few lines in the voice. That quick refresher can make it much easier to settle back into the character before you begin recording the next chapter or book.

Consider Sustainability

When deciding whether a voice is the right fit for a character, also consider whether it is sustainable.

Countless narrators have given a minor character a voice that stretches their vocal abilities in unsustainable or unhealthy ways because the character only has a few lines, only to find out in the next book that they are now a lead character.

If you are in touch with the author or rights holder, a great question to ask is which characters appear in subsequent books. You may not be able to find out everything that is coming, but knowing which characters will have larger roles can help you make more sustainable choices from the beginning.

And remember, a subtle shift in the voice can be just as, if not more, powerful than a big, unsustainable shift. A character doesn’t need an extreme voice to be distinct or memorable.

Keep All Character Information Together

It’s hard to keep track when your voice files are in one place, your prepped manuscript is in another, and your notes are somewhere else.

Find a system where you can keep everything you need for that series in one place, so when the next book comes along, everything is easy to find.

Pozotron's Character Voice Guide gives you a central place to store your character information and voice samples together. Instead of trying to remember where you put the information you need, you can focus on remembering who the character is.

This can be helpful even before you reach the next book. On a long audiobook, a character may disappear for ten chapters before showing up again. Having their notes and voice sample readily available makes it much easier to jump back into the character without searching through hours of previously recorded audio.

Update Your Notes

As a series progresses, the characters will likely change, shift, and grow. So as you encounter characters throughout the series, update your notes to reflect who they are now and their relationships to the other characters.

That might also include a slight shift in how you are voicing them. Maybe your series spans several years, and a child you meet in Book 1 is now the full-grown love interest in Book 4. The underlying voice should remain recognizable, but the performance may naturally evolve with the character.

You may also learn new information about a character that gives additional context to choices you made earlier. Add it to your notes while it’s fresh rather than assuming you’ll remember it when the next book comes along.

Whether you use Pozotron to track your characters or your own system, make sure it’s editable so you can add to it as your series unfolds.

Don’t Forget About Pronunciations

Not only do characters need to be consistent across the series, but pronunciations need to be as well, especially in a fantasy world where the author may make up names, places, and terminology.

Listeners will catch it if you say the castle’s name one way in Book 1 and another way in Book 2.

Keep track of your pronunciation research in the same way you keep track of your characters. This is particularly important for names, locations, organizations, invented terminology, or any other words likely to appear throughout the series.

Pozotron’s Pronunciation Guide can help with this as well. You can even transfer your research from one project to another to streamline your prep and bring your existing character and pronunciation research into the next book.

That way, when Book 2 arrives, you aren’t starting your research from scratch. You already have a foundation to work from and can focus your prep on the new characters, pronunciations, and information introduced in the next installment.

Consistency Creates a Better Listener Experience

Even though you may record books months or years apart, many listeners experience the series one right after another and will notice inconsistencies in characters and pronunciations. A noticeably different voice or pronunciation can pull a listener out of the story.

The good news is that you don't have to rely on your memory alone to maintain that consistency.

Create character notes as you prep your book and save voice samples so you can hear exactly what you did the first time. Save the information in an easy-to-find location and be sure to add to and update it as your characters evolve.

Then, when the next book arrives, you don’t have to start from square one. You can revisit your research, listen to your characters, and get right back into the world you created the first time.

Want to see how Pozotron can help you keep track of your characters? Book a demo with us to learn more.