Monday, March 27, 2017

Scene Breaks and Audiobooks

Scene break transitions are portals to a new scene,
but if you don't see the door, how do you know you're
in a new room?
One thing I've found about audiobooks is that not all of them have smooth transitions. I'm talking problems with scene breaks, where a half-breath extra pause doesn't seem enough to put you in a new scene.

I never really thought about auditory transitions in a book before listening to audiobooks, because it's pretty obvious when you're reading.

But a visual scene change is entirely different from an auditory one. It makes me wonder how many writers have a plan for scene transitions when they write. Chapter breaks are usually announced by a tone, but scene changes?

Of course, the voice artist plays a big part in this. A really skilled actor or actress can pause just right to cue a switch to a new time or location. But it seems like this is the sort of a thing a writer can work ask for, and maybe help plan for.

Have you listened to any audiobook that does in-chapter scene breaks well? What did they do?

1 comment:

  1. Yeah, but I think sometimes it is better to make your imagination works because we all have our special view, that differs from others.

    ReplyDelete