Let’s talk voice over scripts.

I’ll caveat this blog post by declaring from the very start, that this doesn’t relate to everybody! The vast majority of scripts that I, and most voice over artists receive will generally be great! Well written, well formatted scripts, with excellent direction included, with adequate pauses for us to breathe, and no paragraphs that are about 5 miles long, with little to no punctuation!

However, over the course of my 14+ years in the realm of voice overs, I do occasionally see the same sorts of ‘issues’ over and over again. There is definitely a theme.

In these sorts of scripts, it could be down to the language used. Perhaps they’re requiring a friendly and light conversational read – but the script itself is written in ultra formal Downton Abbey-esque language that is very hard to sound friendly, light and conversational!

Perhaps they’re absolutely filled to the brim with various industry-specific terminology and jargon that most people won’t understand, or wording choices that may look visually very pleasing, but when voiced aloud, sound horrifically clunky and disjointed.

There are also scripts where they haven’t given much thought to how web links or phone numbers are to be voiced, so there’s just random punctuation and numbers in there which are left to us to decipher, or contact the producer for further clarification.

So, I decided to write a reasonably comprehensive eBook on this very subject, appropriately titled ‘How To Write Effective Voiceover Scripts‘, showing you all the common tropes that I’ve seen over the years I’ve been involved in voice over, as I do tend to see the same sorts of concerns across many scripts. From starting to collate my initial thoughts for this topic, it ended up evolving into a 16 page, 4000 word eBook, which is now available to purchase for a massively affordable price over on Gumroad.

For more information on this eBook, and to purchase it yourself, please click or tap here to follow this link.