Writing for Voiceover

Writing for Voiceover

 

Many clients come to Suncoast Voiceovers from industries who do not typically “write for air.” I'm thrilled that so many new clients are discovering the benefits of professional voice acting and narration, and I would love to help illuminate some of the differences between writing for business and industry, and writing for the spoken word.

 

Whether you're coming from technical writing and instructions, elearning, or formal business writing, there are some key differences between what you're used to and what sounds good and, more importantly, gets across clearly to your audience in a spoken medium.

 

Most of these distinctions become intuitive with one simple trick! Read your own script aloud. I know it seems obvious, but this is a vital step that is often skipped in industries where the vast majority of written content is meant to be read, not heard. Our brains perceive written information ever so slightly differently than oral information, and as such the best way to communicate differs from format to format. When you read aloud, you help engage the language centers of the brain in a manner closer to hearing information than reading it. You'll know if something is clunky, unclear, redundant or any of the other issues that come up when our brains detect something at odds with our internal sense of primal grammar. (For more on this, check out “The Language Instinct”, by Stephen Pinker, utterly fascinating.) This one tip alone will help avoid at least half of the issues that can come up, during a recording session, that would otherwise cost valuable time and money to edit or re-write on the fly.

 

Here is a short list of other tips that can really help your text be understood and memorable:

 

• While some politicians and societal figures may be great orators, with the ability to communicate lofty and complex ideas, most of us...aren't. As a professional voice actor, I pride myself on making sense of and communicating meaning from the most complex and technically specific sentences a human can write. But, that's not how we talk in real life. If you're subject matter is not legalese, or Elizabethan elegy, it's best to write more like speech than literature. From pitching a product to communicating important safety information, it sticks in the brain when it sounds more like it's coming from a trusted friend than from a Biblical profit. Keep it as casual as the subject matter allows and the VO will be easier to listen to, and easier to understand.

 

• Business writing HATES contractions. Human speech LOVES them. If you've already embraced the first point above, nothing breaks up the natural flow of speech like avoiding contractions at all costs. Even the best VO talent start to sound like awkward aliens wondering what is this thing you humans call, “love,” when common contractions are taken out of the mix. It's simply not how we talk. Not using contractions can be a great form of emphasis. That's because it calls out attention to it when we hear people avoid them in speech. If that's not what you want to call attention to, the rule is easy: if you would say it using a contraction when explaining it to a colleague or customer, then go ahead and use it your script.

 

• K.I.S.S. Keep It Short, Sir! Especially in medical courses, elearning, and engineering subjects, it sometimes seems impossible to avoid long, complex sentences with multiple nested clauses. Everyone who writes employee training, instruction manuals and service guides, etc., has had to deal with sentences like this:

 

“If you, or any of your co-workers, having witnessed a safety incident, defined as a policy violation, or other interaction, which either could have resulted in serious injury or damage to equipment, or DID result in serious injury or damage to other equipment, you must report it to your supervisor immediately, or the person listed in your guide in section C12 as the head of the emergency response team for your shift, or the shift during which the incident took place.”

 

Whew! That's a mouthful. It's a single sentence with no less than 13 separate clauses. I've actually had to record much worse. This is a perfectly acceptable sentence in a manual or guide. It sounds ridiculous coming out of a human mouth. The key here is to break it up. (I know sometimes legal says you have no choice but to copy exactly as the original subject material was written, but if you do have any leeway, then the rest of this tip is for you.)

 

“As we discussed in lesson 2, a Safety Incident is defined as “ a policy violation, or other interaction, which either could have resulted in serious injury or damage to equipment, or DID result in serious injury or damage to other equipment”. Should you witness a safety Incident, you, or your colleagues must report it to your shift supervisor immediately. If that isn't possible, reference section C12 of your guide to find the person listed as head of the emergency response team for the shift in which the incident took place.”

 

This is much clearer, laid out more chronologically, and took only ten more words!

 

Or, as one of my favorite instructional designers has said, “If it's that complicated, just use bullet points, everybody loves bullet points!”

 

I hope these ideas prove useful in your writing for air, and as always if you have any questions about script preparation or general ideas about professional narration, please don't hesitate to call Suncoast Voiceovers!