Listen Up!

It’s release day, again, and in-between bouts of coughing I just spent a fine afternoon listening to the audiobook of Blood and Ashes.

I’ve been looking forward to this day for some time, as it’s another milestone to that eventual goal of being a full time writer. Having another short-ish piece interpreted by a professional actor feels pretty awesome, but it highlights again that I have a rather particular writing style that doesn’t always translate to other mediums.

To wit, I use internal dialogue and flashback. A lot. I like to put the reader directly inside the head of whomever is speaking, letting their perceptions do a lot of the heavy lifting for me. And as this year’s fiction projects move forward, it’s only going to become more prevalent.

It doesn’t mean the audiobook suffers for this. Far from it, I think new narrator Todd Haberkorn does a fantastic job with my shifting points-of-view, and an even better one of keeping all the characters distinct and recognizable. But it does bring home the point that as much as I like audiobooks, I’m not writing them as well as I could be, and I’m not sure how I should feel about that.

Word through the publisher vine is that Homefront will also receive an audio release this fall. As my most ambitious work to date, it’s very much a product of my “style,” and as you might imagine contains all sorts of POV wackiness. I’m somewhat familiar with the work, you see, and no matter what my editor comes back to me with I suspect the internal narratives will survive.

So, I’m opening it up to you, gentle reader. What are your thoughts on this style of writing? Or on audiobooks in general–I’m not picky. What’s your favorite listen so far, and how can I as a writer best deliver a similar product to your ears?