Transforming Fourth Wing into a Fully Immersive Audiobook: A Conversation with GraphicAudio®’s Creative Director Scott McCormick

Audiobook publisher GraphicAudio®’s tagline is “A Movie In Your Mind®.” They create intensely immersive audiobook productions with a full cast of narrators, sound effects, and cinematic music to heighten the storytelling experience. Creative Director Scott McCormick gives us a behind-the-scenes peek into how he and the entire GraphicAudio production team achieved their unique audio magic with Rebecca Yarros’s Fourth Wing.

B&N Audiobooks: What are the distinctive attributes of a GraphicAudio audiobook vs. other audiobooks?

GraphicAudio: Our audiobooks very purposefully move the action in the story along through sound effects and music. We don’t describe things that we can produce via sound, such as a thunderstorm or a battle. Instead, what you’ll hear is that storm or battle. Our Sound Designers have access to sound effect libraries, but in cases like this, they will record foley work and create custom sound effects to add to the books. We also have GraphicAudio Sound Designers who are musicians or composers, and, on occasion, the theme is composed specifically for the production. We mostly use music libraries that we subscribe to, and we have a vast music collection that we have curated over the last twenty years.

B&N: How does GraphicAudio choose which book titles to transform into multi-cast audiobooks? Specifically, why did you choose Fourth Wing when there already are other audiobook versions of this best seller in the marketplace?

GA: GraphicAudio looks for content that will work well with our format, which highlights dialogue and action. Genre fiction, such as Romance, Epic Fantasy, Science Fiction, and Westerns, resonates especially well for our audiences. We chose Fourth Wing because we knew it would not only be a compelling story to translate into audio in terms of overall plot, but who doesn’t like to hear the sound of dragons?

B&N: Please outline the process that brings these multi-cast audiobooks come to life.

GA: It takes a small village to create these productions. The Creative Director assigned to a production usually adapts the script from the prose novel. The Creative Director manages the casting and directs the various voice actors during the recording process. We work with over 200 voice actors who record separately. Pre-Covid, we used to record a lot of crowd scenes in our foley studio with the staff. We still do that on occasion. Then a sound designer takes all the elements, the voices, the music, and the sound effects and puts it all together. They make magic as they create rich soundscapes to make the audiobook production come to life.

B&N: Author Rebecca Yarros has created a completely new and enchanting world with the Empyrean series. For GraphicAudio’s edition of Fourth Wing, how did you capture that world in your audio production?

GA: The world that Rebecca Yarros plunges her readers into is a dangerous mix of real-world trauma and fantastic creatures and settings. One of the hardest things to do in any adaptation is meet readers’ expectations. Rarely do the voices or, in the case of film or TV, faces, match up to what our imaginations tell us is “right.” I think the cast we have assembled matches my brain-scape, and I simply ask readers to give these talented voice artists a chance to win their hearts the way the entire cast won mine. My happiest discoveries while directing the book were the number of Fourth Wing fans we had in the cast, especially our lead, Khaya Fraites. Her insights into the book as a knowledgeable and enthusiastic reader revealed corners I wasn’t even aware of and helped me create a fully realized Basgiath War College.

Our Sound Designer, Justin Wortz, adds, “For the soundscapes on this production, I really tried to put a lot into making backgrounds, so everything feels alive. I find the hardest part is usually doing flying scenes, as it’s not always easy to translate a dragon doing a barrel roll or nosedive compared to depicting someone speeding up a motorcycle or drifting around a corner. Creating these sounds, such as the dragon doing a barrel roll, might take layering various sound effects with trial and error until I get the sounds that works. However, it’s fun and challenging.”

B&N: Rebecca Yarros has indicated that the Empyrean series will comprise five novels. Does GraphicAudio have other Empyrean plans you can share?

GA: YES! In addition to Fourth Wing Part 1 and Part 2, we’re excited to reveal that we have already started production on Iron Flame, so stay tuned for more dragon sounds. Iron Flame Part 1 will be available for pre-order spring 2024.

Editor’s Note: You can explore many more GraphicAudio audiobooks here.