We Need a Speech…

Then John McCain is toast and Hillary Clinton may end her campaign sounding churlish, self-centered, and yesterday’s woman.

Speeches are more than the right words on the page.  The ability to engage an audience also depends on the oratorical skills of the speaker to deliver those words with a believable and infectious passion.  That means how you look, gesture and sound can be just as important as the words you are trying to deliver.

You would think on the day when the Democratic nominee for President was finally settled that the players who all had a significant stake in the occasion would rise to the oratorical challenge.

Not so much in the case of two of them.

Let’s start with Mr. McCain.  He seems to have this extraordinary way of delivering a speech that totally obliterates the efficacy of his message.  Go take a look at his website where they are playing selected video extracts of the speech he delivered Tuesday night. Regardless of what you might think of the text he was delivering, watching him deliver it leads you to a single conclusion – rhythm is not his forte.  He has this rather alarming habit of stopping in mid-sentence (not a speech delivery sin in and of itself since well placed pauses can certainly heighten dramatic affect) and delivering a cross between a grimace and a grin.  It gave the strange impression of a walking, talking corpse out of a B horror flick.  Then he would punctuate his points by an odd clenching of the fist and a downward motion of the arm, or with both arms with fingers pointing down, totally out of sequence to the delivery of his words. Like a fellow dancing off the beat.  The man needs a speech coach and his handlers should sit him down to watch his delivery style.

Incidentally, the reaction of the audience to his speech, with some occasional proforma cheering, could best be described as muted.

In the scheme of things should style over substance be what counts for the job of POTUS?  Perhaps not.  In terms of electability it does.

In the case of Hillary Clinton, before clearly adoring crowds, she delivered her message with such a sense of entitlement that I am guessing in that moment a whole group of super delegates, who might have otherwise supported her, suddenly had a change of heart.  Actually, 28 of them threw their support to Obama the next day.  How many of those switched their support on the basis of what they heard her say and the way she said it, we will never know.

It was all so unnecessary.  Of the three she can be the most articulate and likely is the most knowledgeable on the issues of the day. It is hard to believe that she could throw it all away by an extraordinary lack of insight into how she comes across in her speaking style. She too needs to watch videos of herself.  Her speech of substance on Tuesday was made less so by an annoying “what does Hillary want” sense of self-importance.

In the scheme of things should tone trump substance in such an important race?  Probably not, but it probablydoes.

Then there is Senator Obama’s speech.  His oratorical skills have been described as a cross between Martin Luther King and John Kennedy.  He so clearly has the best stage presence and oratorical skills, that there is just no contest. The audience didn’t care nearly so much about the substance of his message.  They wanted to come away with a sense of optimism about their lives and the possibilities for their country.  On both counts the Senator delivered.  His was a speech they could cheer about.  And they did.

In the scheme of things, should stage presence and performance skills be what counts for winning the job.  Probably not, but they just might.

It will be very interesting to watch the proposed un-moderated debates between the two men.  How fast they can think on their feet, argue and counter argue, and make their points articulately, without a script in front of them, will be very telling.  Not to mention exciting.  Political junkies the world over will be keeping score.

Next time – a look at the words they delivered on Tuesday.

June 5th, 2008
Comments:4 Comments Category: Essential Speechwriter

One of the trickier types of speech to write, and one that you should consider carefully before accepting, is the speech given by experts to experts.

It is one thing to have an expert, say — a medical specialist — give a status report on the current state of diabetes research — at a fund-raising gathering. It is a fairly easy proposition to interview diabetes scientists on the subject which you then translate into plain English. On top of that you would add the standard bit of promotion to encourage the audience to contribute financially to the cause.

Now let’s say you had that same medical researcher but this time he is giving a keynote speech, opening a three-day medical conference on the latest innovations in diabetes research and everyone in the audience is an expert on the topic as well. Now you have a real problem on your hands. You start out your research as you might have with the fundraising speech. You would do some basic Google research on diabetes, and then track down some experts to interview before you talk to your speaker.

Now it gets difficult. The problem is you don’t know what you don’t know, and so how can you ask intelligent questions, the answers to which you might want to plug into your speech. Unfortunately your interviewee doesn’t know what you don’t know either. From experience I can tell you that after a long interview I’ve asked a question “is there anything else I should be asking you?” Dumb question. It sometimes elicits some fill in the gaps information. More often it is this the rather stunned and understandable silence.

This is where the God question comes in handy. The God question takes various forms – usually prefaced by the phrase ” If you were God…..” followed by words that might elicit a more voluminous response. For example, ” If you were God where would you put the emphasis on diabetes research?” Or “If you were God doling out research funds where would you put them?” Or “If you were God and the government came to you for advice about finding a cure for diabetes, what would you tell them?” This accomplishes two things. It gets them talking about the subject in terms that you might not have thought of, and the conversation can go from there. And they are happy to wax philosophic on the topic since it is unlikely you are going to quote them as God. It is, in short a conversation starter, although I reserve the asking of it until near the end of the discussion.

So, remember the God question. A very useful tool when you are really worried about not knowing what you don’t know!

May 21st, 2008
Comments:1 Comment Category: Essential Speechwriter

Senator Obama talks about race and racism in America. Will laying down a few home truths garner him more support or less?

March 21st, 2008
Comments:1 Comment Category: Essential Speechwriter

March 5th, 2008
Comments:No Comment Category: Essential Speechwriter

February 27th, 2008
Comments:3 Comments Category: Essential Speechwriter

Aside from “how much do you make?” and “how do you find your speaker’s voice?” the question I get most often is “what does it take to become a freelance speechwriter?”

Two starting points to consider

On Craft
When it comes to learning the craft of speech writing the standard advice is to read a lot of speeches. I couldn’t disagree more. You must listen to speeches. Listen to great speeches. You could start by googling famous names in recent history, or “audio clips of famous speeches” and you will find a whole slew of clips. Or you could simply go to the History Channel and poke around there.

And don’t listen just to speeches. Get hooked on audio books. Go to the library and check out CDs of great literature. You get to hear how well crafted sentences sound. You get to hear the music – the rhythm – and the silence between the notes. Don’t read – listen!

On Business
Be a news junkie. Television. Radio. And especially newspapers. They should all be part of your day. As a freelancer you never know what subject you might be writing about next. You need to have a passing knowledge of just about every subject under the sun. It’s ok to be broad but shallow. But you want to be able to ask some reasonably intelligent questions when a potential client phones and wants to talk about a subject you would normally have no clue about. Except that now, news junkie you are, you can do exactly that.

Is this all there is to it? Of course not.

But if you are serious about making a living as a freelance speechwriter, and neither of the two hints above appeal to you, it may be that this is not the best niche for you.

However, if you can see yourself happily listening to audio books now and then, or reading the news every day – or better still you are doing both just for the sheer joy of it – perhaps this peculiar trade might be good fit.

February 20th, 2008
Comments:2 Comments Category: Essential Speechwriter, The Business of...