Short Story Audio Ambitions
Mar 30, 2021 3:59 pm
Hello from London,
I've recorded my story "Shadows" at home, using my closet as a sound booth. That sounds exactly as weird as it felt at the time, talking into a microphone nestled among a lot of hanging clothes.
Recording this way is necessary because otherwise there's an annoying reverberation that comes from my voice bounding off the walls of the room.The clothes help absorb my voice before it can pingpong its way into the microphone from a dozen different directions.
Is it normal to hate the sound of your own voice when it's played back at you?
I live on a fairly busy street, so in addition to the closet-booth, I had to edit out a lot of car noises, a couple of angry shouts from the street and an odd screeching sound that, I assume, was a truck's rear lift. The editing process took several times as long as recording the audio in the first place.
I read some of the paragraphs in the story as much as six times, so that I knew I'd have at least one take that wouldn't sound like I was recording while standing on a street corner.
I then submitted the story to one last magazine. One final attempt at getting it published. If that magazine decides the story's not for them, then you'll be getting the audio. Their response time is typically around 25 days, so I guess two newsletters from now you may have a new story to listen to.
In the meantime, please find three ideas for new authors to try below.
Author Spotlight
Two of the books below are free. The first book (box set, actually) is available to buy on Amazon, for about $0.99.
The Legacy of a Vampire Witch: The Complete Urban Fantasy Boxset by Theophilus Monroe
5 books and 1200+ pages of vampires, witches, and New Orleans Voodoo fill this complete urban fantasy boxset.
It had been almost a century and a half since I last encountered anyone from the Order of the Morning Dawn. They were religious fundamentalists with the dual goal of eliminating vampires and witches.
Being both a vampire and a witch I was the embodiment of everything the Order hates. Their first attempt to eliminate me failed. Thanks to the fact that my mentor in the Craft was also a necromancer.
When they burned my heart they didn’t kill me. They unwittingly completed a spell that tied my existence to the soul of one who took my place in hell.
Now I’m heartless, literally.
Shifter Falls Academy by L.C. Mortimer
When the first shifters were created, they were strong. Wild. Powerful. Impossibly fast. They were everything.
And then they weren't.
Now shifters are hunted. They're hated. They're despised by everyone in the entire world, and that poses a pretty big problem for me because, well, I'm one of them.
On the eve of my 18th birthday, I discover that I have the shifter gene. Usually, shifters learn to change into their animal forms long before their birthday, but I guess growing up in foster care and struggling to survive caused my body just a little bit of stress.
Now I'm changing into a cat without any notice and struggling to change back, and as it turns out, I only have one option: Shifter Falls Academy.
It's a school for people like me, and it's hidden away deep in the Wolf Mountains.
I don't want to go to this school.
I don't want to go hiding away until I learn to use my powers.
I don't want any of these things, but the truth is that monsters are real, and they're coming after me with everything they've got.
NL Slenderman by Ben Adams
Drew and Silas are young men that met by accident.
They now travel and work together as photographers.
What happens when they meet Slenderman?
Will they survive?
That's it for this newsletter. I'm going to continue worrying about the sound of my own voice, and hopefully drumming up the courage to share "Shadows" with you in about a month. In the meantime I'll continue working on the Emily Voss stories.
Thanks for reading, don't hesitate to reach out.
Nick.
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