VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

JBarrett · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 10:28 pm Post subject: Short story for critique

Before I found the VO-BB many a moon ago, I found Librivox, and started getting VO practice reading stuff for that site. Looking back on it, though, I'm not sure I'd call it practice. Was it reading out loud? You betcha! Was it practice? Eh....not really.

In the last six months to a year, I haven't done much with Librivox, but I've been working my tail off with lots of informal (off-mic) practice whenever the spark hit me. I feel that my narrative work has come a long way, and on a whim decided to record a short story for a Librivox compilation project not too long ago:

The Cobweb
(13 minutes)

I already have my own list of could-be-betters, and would love to hear your thoughts on it if you have the time. Thanks for listening!
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Justin S. Barrett
http://www.justinsbarrett.com/

Jeffrey Kafer · Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 12:14 am Post subject:

Didn't listen to the whole thing, but what sticks out first is that you need to slow down. You have good spacing in between sentences, but the words themselves feel rushed and as such, you're under enunciating some of them. Each word is important, let them have their time.
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Jeff
http://JeffreyKafer.com
Voice-overload Web comic: http://voice-overload.com

JBarrett · Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 7:18 pm Post subject:

Thanks for listenin', Jeff. Yeah, the speed thing...that's an item that's been on my gotta-work-on list for a long time. While I feel I've made good progress in that regard, there's clearly still more work to do. It's funny, though...when I'm doing character stuff, it's almost never an issue, but when the read is supposed to be more casual, my brain still wants to force the sounds through faster than they should go. It's enough to drive a guy batty, ya know?

Thanks for your frank feedback! Smile

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Justin S. Barrett
http://www.justinsbarrett.com/