Speech Writing

I happens you know, every once and a while, you’ll be asked to speak in front of people. Asked to talk about a particular topic… or even worse asked to talk about whatever you want! The latter being the worse of the two no doubt.

The obvious questions comes up of what you’re going to say. And then how you’re going to say it. Most other speech writing articles help you with the structure of the writing, but often that’s the easiest part. The harder part is structuring your idea. Well have no fear, I’ll help you out… right here:

Note: for some help and examples I’ve block quoted what I did for my valedictorian speech, which you can view in full here!

Speech thinking

Decide on your message.

The message is the soul of your speech. Look deep and analyze what you want your audience to get out of your speech. This is an important step, and is commonly overlooked because you never actually get to write it out. But I encourage you to do so just to keep it in your mind when your actually writing the speech.

The message doesn’t have to be a sentence, or a piece of information. It can very well be an emotion or an idea. For a goodbye speech you could make it a bitter sweet goodbye, which would make the audience sad, but at the same time excited and happy about the future. It’s up to you, but your message should be woven into each paragraph of your speech.

For my valedictorian speech I chose a simple message of chasing your dreams, and living up to your potential.

Decide on your theme. (probably the hardest part)

The theme is similar to your message, but can be literally anything you want. A theme should tie together the entire idea in something simple and common to the audience. A common theme throughout your speech should be referred to throughout but only make complete sense at the end. It’ll help the listener understand your message.

For my valedictorian speech I chose my new puppy to be my theme. It was quite simple really. My new puppy was taking over my life, and one day while teaching him fetch and mulling over speech idea’s it all came to me. And that’s the best way to describe it… Once I knew what the theme was… I just knew. It could connect to my life and my target audience really easily and it’s something that everyone loves (no one can not like a puppy). He was so innocent and naive, and during his dreams he would run and bark, being a part of something huge. Something that could easily be related to my message of chasing your dreams and living up to your potential.

Don’t skip this part, don’t skim this part, this is the hardest part of a speech. It’s really the only thing that can hold the entire speech together, and in the end people can look back and understand more. It makes for a really polished piece of work.

Speech writing.

Some places will bog you down with crazy formatting… but what’s the point. You’re speaking it, you wont hand it in anywhere… You can write it in one large paragraph, you can write it in a million little ones, whatever is easiest to remember for you… write it that way. Keep in mind these three basic structural points.

Opening.

It’s not really an intro, because you don’t have to introduce anything, if you don’t want to. It’s really just a start to your speech. Many people will start the speech off by saying hello and thanking people for coming. Possibly congratulating someone who deserves it.

What you can introduce here is your theme. Don’t explain it, just subtly refer to it or use it as an analogy.

I could say that I recently got a puppy, and it reminds me a lot of how a teacher would see us as students.

Body.

The meat and potatoes – i guess – of your speech. Pick a few points that you want to talk about, and remember your message. You should be able to easily tie them together no matter how unrelated they are to each other with your common theme.

As a general tip, odd numbers seem to work better. You’re able to have a distinct middle and for some reasons humans feel comfortable when they have that.

Write out the points separately, and then organize them based on how strong they are, and what emotions you want to evoke at a particular time.

For my speech, I wanted it to be funny to please the jokers, happy to please the majority, and sad to close the chapter on our life. Hopefully your theme will build up a stronger presence as you continue through your body, reaching a climax in the closing paragraph

Closing.

This is where you have everyone’s full attention, and hopefully they’re eating up what your saying. If so you can do with them what you please. But the closing paragraph is generally where Sherlock would explain his genius.

It’s time for one last referral to the theme. But this time it’s not to enhance a particular point; it’s to enhance your message. Use the closing as your area to pass the message along to your audience.

For my speech I simply explained why I decided to talk about my puppy, and that was enough.

Afterwards, remember to say thanks for listening, and you’re off the hook.

Some general tips to concur the universe.

• The part of your brain that is used for noticing repetition is not the same part that is used for logical thought. How can this help you? Well since your theme can be repetitive (YES WE CAN), you can easily fend off most people who will refute any of your points by adding an extra ounce of repetition to that particular area. Did Obama know this? Maybe… i’m not sure.
• Don’t have your speech written out in full in front of you. This will encourage you to read it, try memorizing it and have cue cards just in case you get lost.
• Speaking slowly is much better than speaking too fast.
• Practise, Practise, Practise! The more “uhms” and “ahs” you can get rid of the better your speech will sound.
• Build on emotions that are already there. If you audience is happy, it’ll take extra work to make them sad, it’ll be easier just to build on the happiness.
• Read this post on public speaking!

Read my ENTIRE valedictorian speech here