In 2019, I gathered everything I had learned about communication and voiceover performance and began pouring it all into a book—Voiceover Narration, Creating Performances from the Inside Out. I'd never planned to write a voiceover book (there are so many good ones out there) but I felt I had something unique to offer. It was published in 2021 by Bloomsbury Methuen Drama.

Once the final manuscript was sent to the publisher, I gave myself a full 15 minutes to rest before getting to work on the audiobook. Although I had written the book for me to speak aloud, it turned out that the pressures of a narrator narrating a book about narration were going to be obstacles for me to overcome. During the recording process, I encountered some of the very same pitfalls that I had warned about in the book so I really had to follow my own advice to get the job done!

Below are excerpts from the book and audiobook:

Chapter 1, The Essence of Communication

We humans have long used language to communicate. Whether you subscribe to the theory that it all began with Adam and Eve conspiring in the garden, or cave dwellers telling stories around the campfire, we can all agree that we’ve been talking to each other for a very, very long time. Language helps us to convey information, express ideas, and share feelings. In many ways, we’d be lost without it, but it does have limitations.

Imagine that every avenue of human communication was bundled into a length of fiber-optic cable. If you could slice this cord open and have a look inside, you’d see that language is only one glass strand among many. Spoken words are only one facet of how we relate to each other. We express ourselves through our eyes, tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, gestures, and (whether we choose to or not) our energy.

We are constantly broadcasting (and receiving) vibrational data via the body’s energy gateways. Information about our inner states, thoughts, and emotions is contained within the electromagnetic fields which emanate from and surround us. Unfortunately, since the time of the cave dwellers, our lives have become much more complex and we seem to have forgotten about our innate ability to influence (and tune into) these vibrations.

Over many centuries, we have trained ourselves to focus and rely more on the words we speak and hear than on the energy, intention, and emotion behind them. We have this wonderfully intricate conduit at our disposal, through which we can transmit, receive, and connect, but most of the time we limit ourselves to using a mere fraction of it. It's a bit like choosing to use a carrier pigeon instead of a cell phone.

Making the best use of our “conduit” enhances all forms of communication—from personal and business relationships to our work as speakers, voice actors, and narrators. But before we get into the actual machinery of voiceover narration, we need to recognize the underlying currents which power it: energy, intention, emotion, connection, and flow.

Together, we’re going to explore these hidden depths of human communication and discover why they are so essential to a spoken word performance. Let’s peer into that fiber-optic cable, look beyond the strand of language for a moment, and see what magic we can find.