Hearing is Believing

Recently, I stepping into a recording studio. Well, I stepped into the comfortable production room outside the actual recording booth.

All the Country Club Murders are on audio, but my input as to their production ended when I said, “Yes, I like her voice.” That voice, belonging to Callie Beaulieu, is now Ellison’s voice.

Recording Fields’ Guide to Abduction was a completely different experience.

A partner at Outpost Worldwide and I have been looking for an opportunity to work together for years. Poppy’s adventure was that opportunity. “I have a marvelous actress,” she told me.

And because I’ve seen Outpost Worldwide’s work, I believed her.

I met Cathy—heard Cathy—the morning we recorded. I gave her the briefest of character sketches then settled into a club chair. Cathy disappeared into a box with a glass door and settled earphones on her head.

Then she read—acted—the first chapter.

Cathy Barnett - the voice of Poppy Fields

 I followed along in a word document.

And, wow. Poppy came alive.

Hearing Poppy and watching the people who sat on my side of the booth react—such fun.

Hearing them laugh—more fun.

Saying, “He’s a bad guy. You might want to make him sound less sympathetic”—beyond fun.

Especially when the villain, who sounds an awful lot Ricardo Montalbán from Fantasy Island, came alive, too.

We paused for things like pronunciation (Chariss rhymes with Paris), the odd bit of Spanish, and lunch.

It took two days. Two days when I learned more about the music words can make, about pausing for a laugh, and about character arc. 

Poppy will be available on audio sometime in the next few weeks. I'm counting the days!

***

Julie Mulhern is the USA Today bestselling author of The Country Club Murders and the Poppy Fields Adventures. 

She is a Kansas City native who grew up on a steady diet of Agatha Christie. She spends her spare time whipping up gourmet meals for her family, working out at the gym and finding new ways to keep her house spotlessly clean--and she's got an active imagination. Truth is--she's an expert at calling for take-out, she grumbles about walking the dog and the dust bunnies under the bed have grown into dust lions.