The Unquiet Coast runs to a little over eleven hours and has thirty-one speaking characters. Before the first session I built a one-page sheet for every one of them: age, region, one physical detail and one word that sums up how they speak.
The sheets matter because long-form narration is a marathon of small decisions. By hour nine you cannot remember how the harbour-master sounded in chapter two, and listeners absolutely can.
Narration is acting with the camera removed. Everything has to happen in the voice, and nothing can look like effort.
I record in two-hour blocks, drink warm water rather than tea, and never do the emotional chapters first thing in the morning.
