On Speechwriting

Fifteen months is long enough to feel like an age and short enough to vanish in a blink.  It’s also short enough to make you feel like an expert in something, but long enough to know better.  I spent the last fifteen months as a speechwriter, and the experience taught me a few things.

First, the number of tricks an orator can use to win over an audience is astounding.  Some are subtle, some overt, but even applying basic skills to a speech takes it to a much higher plane of expertise.  That memorable twist on a cliché that stuck with you years after the speech itself faded away?  Someone workshopped that.  The alliteration that made a speaker’s poignant point perforate people’s perceptions?  I guarantee a thesaurus got cracked.  This is not to say that speakers are tricksters out trying to con you—though some are—just that you, too, can speak better with a little bit of effort.

Second, we are all speakers, and we are all audience members.  Every day, you step out onto the stage of life and speak your heart out.  You may do it with a smile or you may trudge your way through it, but you do it no matter what because communication is everything.  At the same time, you are judging others as they stand upon their stage doing the same.  We talk at each other, with each other, and past each other in a never-ending show.  But like any show, only the most memorable performances live on in the lives of those that witnessed them.

Third, words on paper are worth nothing.  Only words that are spoken matter.  You can write the perfect speech and make no impact if the delivery falls flat.  Vice versa, someone with presence, pacing, and panache can turn the most dry and miserable kindling into a roaring fire of passion.  The real lesson to learn with this, though, is that few—if any—are blessed with the skill to do that without practice.  Even those who seem capable of delivering an ovation-worthy address with no preparation have likely spent years honing their craft to reach that point.  None of us are born with the ability to speak, and like any skill, those who dedicate themselves to its mastery will always outperform those who don’t.

My biggest takeaway from this experience, though, is that we rarely give our words the attention they deserve.  It’s all well and good to speak from the heart, but that also leads to needless wandering, repetition, and mistakes.  The casual cruelty delivered on accident is no less harmful than one sent with precision, and digressions far afield from the topic make speakers’ mouths dry and audiences’ minds empty.  It would be a shame to go through life and never learn to use the gift that language can be.  As Oliver Wendell Holmes said, “Speak clearly, if you speak at all.  Carve every word before you let it fall.”