Interview with Audiobook Narrator Mark Torres

Mark Torres

Today I'm pleased to interview professional actor and audiobook voice artist Mark Torres, who narrated my romantic thriller, The Drive-By Wife.  Mark is now halfway through the narration of The Wrong Side of the Tracks. As feedback from my audiobook listeners has been fantastic, I thought listeners might want to know more about Mark, his background, and his narration process.  In the interview he also shares some interesting thoughts for authors who are considering putting their books in audio format.

Mark, can you tell us a little about yourself and your background? 
I trained as a stage actor at Temple University's Professional Actor Training Program where I received an MFA in acting.  I also hold a BA from Indiana University, where I majored in Theatre and Drama.  When I got out of school, I moved to New York City and was cast in the original cast of Amadeus which ran for three years.  I worked with Ian Mckellen, Tim Curry and Jane Seymour in the original cast.  I soon became interested in directing and began working as a director. I founded a small theatre called Moving Target Theatre Company and produced a number of plays in Brooklyn before moving the company to Dallas.  From there I went to Bangor, Maine to head Penobscot Theatre which I ran for 13 years.  I have now moved back to the New York City area and am once again working as a free lance actor and director.

What led you to start narrating audiobooks?
I have always had an affinity for spoken word communication.  Radio programs and old fashioned radio dramas have held a fascination for me.  When I began researching it as a career option, I was very excited to think I might be able to do it as part of my acting career.

What aspects of audiobook narration do you find the most challenging?
I had heard that recording audiobooks takes lots of personal stamina and I agree.  It takes mental, physical and vocal staying power.  I am often surprised at how much energy I seem to expend after a session of recording and editing.

What parts do you enjoy the most?
I love the to and fro of character to character dialogue, especially if it is witty as in lots of the fun exchanges in The Wrong Side of the Tracks or dramatic, as was the case in working on The Drive By Wife.

Do you have a studio in your home? 
Yes.  I have a recording booth with a standing desk in the guest room of our house (and I can disassemble it pretty quickly when we have guests.) 

Do you do your own editing?
I do my own editing and find that it is during editing that things like the pace of a scene can be addressed if, for instance, I didn't get it quite right when I recorded it.

What's your recording schedule like for given audiobook and how do you pace yourself?
It depends on my schedule.  For instance, with The Drive By Wife, I recorded all the sections and then took them with me to edit when I went out of town to act in a regional theatre production.  When I was not in rehearsal or performance for the play I was in my hotel suite with my headphones on editing the audiobook.

What talents/skills are required to be a good audiobook narrator?
In the case of both of Mike's books that I have worked on, I would say it is character differentiation.  With The Drive By Wife, getting the right tone for the character Billy.  He had to be menacing and yet have a kind of broad regional Appalachian dialect that could have been construed as comic or cartoonish.   With The Wrong Side of the Tracks, voicing the young people with their high school micro-cosmic social hierarchies and concerns also calls on the actor to play them earnestly without a hint of commentary.

Which character was your favorite to narrate in my books?
By far for me was Billy in The Drive By Wife.  Mike created a character whose inner psychological demons drove him to demand from his victims a lengthy and varied cat and mouse game played out over weeks and numerous colorful locales. 

What type of novels do you like to listen to/read yourself?
I enjoy contemporary fiction in both written and audiobook form. 

Do you have any advice for people who want to become audiobook narrators?
Remember that you are bringing the author's work to the listener's ear.  Try to do that while staying out of the way.

Do you have any advice for authors in hiring and working with audiobook narrators?
I would urge authors to consider that they are seeking storytellers, as opposed to someone with a "good" voice. 

Thanks, Mark!

Anyone interested in contacting Mark can do so here on his ACX page.

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Now in Audio! 
Note:  you can download any of the below FREE by becoming an Audible member on a no-risk 30 day trial basis.

The Drive-By Wife (Romantic Thriller)

      
 

Lust, Money & Murder (International Thriller)

      

Baby Talk (Horror)

     

The Mysterious Disappearance of Kurt Kramer (Paranormal Romance)

     

Close Encounters of the Seedy Kind: Why I Left Hollywood to Become a Novelist

When I first started to take my fiction writing career seriously, I decided to try my hand at screenwriting.  I’ve always loved movies just as much as books.  Plus, I figured writing screenplays might be easier than writing novels, as you don’t have to put in a lot of fancy description in film scripts (In hindsight I don’t think it’s any easier, but that’s what I thought then)

I was lucky with my first screenplay.  The working title was Art & Soul. It was a tight psychological thriller about a romance novelist who eavesdropped on private cellphone conversations to get his story ideas, and who falls in love with one of the women he’s been spying on.  I pitched it over the phone directly to producers.  I soon had one interested, an indie film producer who had won the prestigious Palm d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival a few years before.

“Mike, you’re a fantastic writer,” he told me with great sincerity.  “You should move to California, where the action is—you’ll do very well out here.”

I packed up and headed West, giddy about my seemingly fast-track Hollywood career.    

The man was a seasoned producer, in his 60's, and planned to finance the movie himself.  He bought a one year option on my screenplay, meaning that he had a year to pay me the full price for it.  He planned on doing that as soon as I'd made all the “minor” changes he wanted.  

A soon as I arrived in LA, he took me under his wing.  “Mike,” he said, putting his tanned hand on my shoulder, “before we start working together, there's one thing you should know about Hollywood.  Out here, we all practice The Golden Rule.”

“The Golden Rule?”

He grinned.  “He who has the gold, rules.”

We began “polishing” the script. I worked long, long hours, with me doing revision after revision, making small changes that he wanted.  He'd started out as a screenwriter himself, and he taught me a lot of subtle tricks  that greatly improved the screenplay, made it more gripping and engaging.  Some of the changes he wanted me didn't feel quite right.  But I remembered The Golden Rule, and I ended up making all the changes he wanted anyway.

Then, when I thought we were almost finished with it,  he said, “I think Melina (the young woman my hero falls for) should be a long-legged, fiery redhead.”

I wasn’t sure about this.  “But Melina isn’t a ‘fiery’ character.  She’s just the opposite—she’s cool and collected.”

“Trust me, Mike.”  There was deadpan look in his eye.  Don't forget The Golden Rule, it seemed to say.

I made the change.  But when I reread the script, I felt the story no longer worked.  With Melina’s new personality, her actions were no longer believable.  I mustered up my courage and decided that at the next script meeting I would tell the producer this in no uncertain terms, Golden Rule or not.

Well, he brought his new girlfriend along to the meeting.  She was about 1/3 of his age.  It happened that she was a long-legged redhead with a fiery personality.  Coincidentally, she had recently had started taking acting lessons.

The producer began asking for even more changes, telling me to crank up the “voyeurism.”  He wanted new, more titillating scenes added, scenes that were beginning to turn the film into—in Hollywood parlance—a schlocky B movie, the type that would bypass theaters altogether and be released straight to cable TV.

“It may be a little schlocky,” he admitted, “but schlock sells, Mike.  This film will be profitable right out of the gate.”  He gave me a winning Hollywood smile, his bleached teeth nearly blinding me.  “You can write your dream script later.”

I soon lost all my enthusiasm for the project.  I vividly remember staring at the computer screen one day, reading one of the seedy scenes I’d just written, and thinking I can’t do this anymore.  I felt like I was turning my own well-raised, cultured daughter into a cheap tart.

I called the producer and told him I was quitting.  

I left the Great State of California.  I began working my first novel. 

Believe it or not, I don't have any hard feelings about this experience—I pretty much knew how things would be in Hollywood.  Today—20 years later—readers often tell me that my novels have a tight, cinematic feel.  I have no doubt that this is a key element of my “unputdownable” style, and results from the intense training I underwent working with on that first screenplay.

Still, I was disappointed that Art & Soul was never made into a movie.

Maybe one day I will go back out to Hollywood and give screenwriting another try.

But not until I have accumulated enough gold to make the rules.