Sims Wyeth founded Sims Wyeth & Company, Inc. in 1995 in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers.
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How to work with a speech writer
EmailSenator Howard Baker said that he and his speech writers had a great relationship. “They write what they want me to say, and I say what I think.”
They got along just fine.
The remark points to the essential challenge of speech writing: it needs to be done in the voice of the speaker.
This is important because the speaker will be more effective if the text of the speech is aligned, in style and substance, with the way he thinks and talks.
There are great speakers who can read anything from a page or a teleprompter and make it sound like them. President Obama is good at this, as was President Reagan.
In fact, anyone continuously in front of crowds develops a knack for reading text.
But most of us are not up at the lectern every day, and so we need a speech writer who has the ability to collaborate with us—who has a good ear for our speech patterns, and can get our thoughts into the right words.
A collaboration with a speech writer should begin with your thoughts about what you want to say and what you want your audience to think, feel, and do after hearing your speech.
Your speech writer should also explore with you the problem that you are trying to solve for your audience. Audiences like it when your speech is all about how they can solve a problem or capitalize on an opportunity.
Audiences like speeches that are short, humorous, and generously sprinkled with stories. But make sure that the humor is your own, not offensive, and takes a back seat to the point you want to make.
Similarly, the stories in the speech should be your own. A good speech writer should spend time with you talking about your life experience and pull some stories out of your memory. Of course, if your speech writer offers you a story that you can make your own, use it. Just make sure you practice enough so that it feels natural.
For some of us, the chance to speak is rare, and so it leads us to want to say everything. Your speech writer should be firm. You can only say a few things to an audience before they get dazed and confused.
Make sure your speech writer doesn’t use any big words that are undeliverable. Undeliverable is one such word. So is indomitable, which can come out as “indominabubble.”
William Safire, the great speech writer for President Nixon and columnist for the New York Times, was once asked for a synonym for indomitable and gave indefatigable. He was fired on the spot when someone nearby suggested steadfast. Safire says in retrospect that he now sees he was intransigent.
In plain language, your speaking style should never be fancier than you are.
Above all, when you deliver your speech that someone has helped you prepare, you must feel comfortable with it and sound natural. The pleasure of listening to a good speech depends on the connections that can exist between the elements of the occasion.
First, there is the speaker and the speech. They need to connect.
Then, there is the speaker and the audience. The speech should help the speaker create that connection, and not get in the way.
And within the speech, your own thought should connect with the writer’s language deployed to express it.
Finally, the speaker needs to connect with his own feelings, and rehearse enough so he can bring to the occasion, with his voice, gestures, and the vivid words of his speech writer, a full-throated belief in what he is saying.
Sims Wyeth is a speech coach in Montclair, NJ specializing in presentation skills and public speaking training in order to give accomplished people the knowledge and skill they need to become accomplished speakers. Learn more public speaking tips at www.SimsWyeth.com.
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