Accentuate the Simple

I’m a born storyteller. Whether as a writer, designer, illustrator, audiobook narrator, or simply putting my children to bed, I love to spin a yarn.

When my now-grown son, Andrew, was young, he would demand a story every night at bedtime. I was happy to oblige and made up quite a few wild tales over the years, lying in the dark as he drifted to sleep. Several of them I turned into children’s books.

His younger sister, on the other hand, couldn’t have cared less. When the lights went out and I offered to make up a story, she would shake her head firmly and want none of it. I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it’s because, as a work-from-home dad and her primary caregiver, she was afraid that anything coming from my pen might have some lesson attached to it. I don’t know, but it’s all good. Chacun à son goût.

Amelie did, however, like me to read other people’s books to her. As long as a story didn’t have my name on it, she loved to snuggle up and listen. But no accents, please. She didn’t care that since childhood I’ve loved imitating people and dialects, perfecting accents, or creating character voices. Though it came in handy in my career as an actor, and for voiceovers, character animation, and audiobook narration, Amelie couldn’t stand it. 

“Daddddd,” she would whine, whenever I attempted to slip into a dialect, “just read it normal!” And so I’d stop, disappointed that I wasn’t as entertaining as I had supposed. Mind you, I never blamed her. When in bed readying for sleep, the last thing I would want is some hammy actor blustering and wheezing an overwrought vocal performance in my ear.

And that’s when it struck me: reading books to my daughter was the perfect discipline for reading books into a microphone, or narrating a documentary, or voicing a commercial. My daughter was the perfect critic because she kept me direct and straightforward. 

Simple.

That was a battle hard won for me early in my professional career, when every ounce of my hambone yearned to chew the air with big, noisy overbaked performances. It wasn't long before I understood something that most kids understand intuitively: there is nothing so winning and effective as a good story simply told. Even when creating the most outlandish character, a clear, uncomplicated, artful approach is always the best.

I learned that lesson again one night many years ago when putting Amelie to bed. We had just turned out the lights and she was fussing and fidgeting, unable to relax. (Letting her have the spoon of Nutella as dessert was a rookie dad mistake.) I offered to sing to her. She politely declined. I offered to rub her back.

“There’s nothing wrong with my back, Dad. It’s my brain!”

Fair enough.

Desperate, I popped open my iPad. “Here, let me read you something. We can lie here in the dark, you can close your eyes and just listen. And I promise, no accents!” 

She agreed, and with my heart in my mouth I began to read. Slowly, simply, and clearly. After a couple of pages, I stopped and glanced over at the outline of her face in the glow from the iPad.

“Shall I keep going?” I asked.

“Who wrote that?”

“I did,” I said guardedly. “It’s from a young adult novel I’ve been working on.”

“Wait, YOU wrote that?” Amelie asked.

“Yes,” I said, trying not to be hurt by the incredulity in her voice. “You want me to stop reading?”

“Um, no, you can keep going,” she said. “For a little bit anyway.”

She snuggled up next to me, put her head on my chest and I was in heaven. I read maybe ten more pages, just far enough for her to get a sense of the inciting incident, the main characters, and the general direction of the story. I could tell she was hooked.

But then she asked me to stop reading and my heart sank. I worried that perhaps I’d flown too close to the sun, that she was annoyed at my tricking her into hearing one of my stories. Or that I’d inadvertently done an accent. Worse than all of that, I worried that she was bored.

“No, no,” she said when I asked her. “I’m just very tired. Maybe you can read more tomorrow night.”

Coming from Amelie, this was the ultimate compliment. Indeed, for anyone who fancies himself a writer—or a storyteller—that is the ultimate goal: keep it simple, and leave your audience wanting more.

And I couldn’t wait until tomorrow night!