Speech Writing #nlpoli

Write in a way that sounds like the person delivering the speech would have said it.

You might not find that on any lists of great speech writing tips, but few people who write speeches would think of using words, phrases and sentence structures that just normally wouldn’t flow out of the mouth of the person delivering the speech.

You can see this point with Kathy Dunderdale.

Listen to her in a scrum on the fishery.  It’s at the 5:15 mark of a CBC newscast from December 2. She mangles a reference to contract negotiations between the fisheries union and Ocean Choice International. 

Then there’s a speech Dunderdale delivered in early November to a Canadian-American trade development group. This does not sound like Kathy Dunderdale:

Few of you would be here in this room today if you did not share my belief that there is indeed a time for courage, a time for stepping forward, a time for stepping up to do things that are hard, not out of hubris or reckless bravado, but out of a pure and rational conviction that greater things can be achieved by facing a challenge than by backing away from it. Fear has been running rampant through the marketplace in recent months. There are some who say this is a time not to build on great dreams, but to bury our ambitions – not to do the hard things, but to hunker down. I suspect that hunkering down is not why you are here. I suspect that you believe this is the time, not to bury or hunker or flee, but to “accept” the challenge, “to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”, to “intend to win”, and to energize this economy the way economic growth has always been energized – with courage, confidence, ingenuity and hard work.

And then it turns into a long-winded recital of Muskrat mythology, everything from it’s low cost to its affordable to “we made an economic miracle.”

The whole thing is flatulent. 

Windy.

All the same, this part of the speech has plenty of potential.  It’s about three or four re-writes away from being a decent one. 

Whoever put it together has managed to pick up the idea that repetition works.  Read through it again and see if you can pick them up:

• …a time for courage, a time for stepping forward,  a time for stepping up to do the things that are hard…
• …to accept the challenge, to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, to intend to win, and to energise the economy…
• …with courage, confidence, ingenuity and bravado…

What the person who wrote this speech missed is that while repetition is good, you should repeat them in threes to achieve maximum impact.  Casual observation and detailed research bear it out.

Groups of three.

Don’t believe it?  Winston Churchill’s wartime pledge that he had nothing to offer but  “blood, toil, tears and sweat” usually gets remembered as “blood, sweat and tears.”

Later in the same speech, Churchill said his wartime aim was victory:

…victory at all costs,  victory in spite of all terror,  victory, however long and hard the road may be…

Let’s take that last bit of Dunderdale speech and re-work it. 

I suspect that you believe this is the time, not to bury or hunker or flee, but to “accept” the challenge, “to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills”, to “intend to win”, and to energize this economy the way economic growth has always been energized – with courage, confidence, ingenuity and hard work.

First of all, it is one big sentence.

So read it out loud.

Take your time and read it again.

Speeches are meant to be heard, not read.

Read it again.

There’s a bit of rhythm there. 

But see a problem?

Yeah, it is basically a series of repetitions of things.  The writer takes an idea to aid memory – repetition – and destroys the impact by doing it over and over again in a single sentence.

But wait a second, there’s another nice touch in there that can help us re-work it.  Look at the front end of that sentence.  There’s another useful device:  the contrast.  This is a time “not to…” ,  “but to”.

It sounds a bit like Marc Antony’s speech from Julius Caesar:

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

Incidentally, remember how that speech starts?

Go look it  up.

Anyway, then the Dunderdale speech gives four things that we “but to”. 

Too much.

Then there are those opening words.  They suggest that Dunderdale is uncertain.  “I suspect that you believe…”.  I think you might believe this, possibly.

Awkward.

Why not just start out with a firm declaration?

“I believe that this is not the time to run away…”.

Run away is a simple phrase that conjures up the image of cowardice.

Bad.

Definitely something you would not agree with.

“Bury” doesn’t real fit.  It’s missing the object of the phrase:  what are you burying? The thought is incomplete.

“Hunker” only works properly if you combine with “down”.   “Hunkering down” is what you do when a hurricane is ripping through your town.  Hunkering down is what you do to survive a storm.  The image this conjures up is wrong.

On the other hand, “flee” is the image that the writer seems to have been shooting for.

It’s just that “flee” is a puffy word.  It is lace doilies.

“Run away” is the same idea but in a word that most people in the audience will pick up instantly with exactly the meaning you want:

“I believe that this is not the time to run away.”

Let’s make that one sentence.  You can add some stage instruction to the speaking notes for the speaker to lean on the word “not.”

So now we just have to complete the thought, tell people what we believe they must do.

Again, we’ve got the fours here.  The repetition is too heavy and even if it seems that this is an effort to work some mission statement into a speech, the result is a bit much.

What we need to do here is give the statement of what we think should happen.  We are looking for the oppose of run away.  Cowards run away.  Brave people do what?  They “face” up to things.

With Americans, a military metaphor would work as well.  A suggestion of combat, of fighting and winning what was lost would set up a clean picture of what the writer is struggling to say with all that repetition.

I believe this is not the time to run away.
I believe this is the time to face the fight.

Almost done.

We just need to close the deal with a line that will have them clapping away in agreement.

Here’s where the group of three comes in.

“…courage, confidence,  ingenuity and hard work…”

The first one and the last one are both naturals. 

The middle two don’t work as well.  It’s hard to be courageous without being confident.

Ingenuity is a good quality.  Americans pride themselves on being inventive.  They are clever.  They come up with original ideas.

But ingenuity is bit of a 50 cent word.  It isn’t quite as plain as the others.

A quick flip through a book of words that have similar meanings gets you in the neighbourhood of “creativity”.

And there you are, done:

I believe this is not the time to run away.
I believe this is the time to face the fight…
with courage, creativity and hard work.

Rule of Three.

Repetition.

Plain language.

And it would all sound like words Kathy Dunderdale would use.

Here endeth the lesson.

- srbp -