There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.
Ernest Hemingway
Writing a great speech is just as difficult as writing a poor one.
You’ve got to ask yourself: Why this speech and why this audience? If you do this one thing, people will at least listen. And they’ll listen because they sense that you’re talking about them to them.
I don’t care how wonderfully crafted your speech is because if it doesn’t relate to me in some meaningful way I’ll tune out and all that work will be lost.
All great speeches have great beginnings and great endings. It’s what’s in the middle that’s the challenge.
All great writing is rewriting. Go through your speech with a big fat red pen and stroke out every unnecessary word. Kill all your pet phrases. Blot out all cliches. Use Anglo-Saxon verbs. Don’t use complicated and passive verb forms.
Read your speech out loud. Your ear will tell you more about what’s wrong (and right) with your speech than your eyes will. Your eyes will lie to you. Your brain won’t see the errors. When you read your speech out loud, you’ll stand a much better chance at hearing where it goes off the rails.
Great speeches are simple. The speak to the heart and not the head. They take risks. They compel people to listen to them. They scream out “hear me.”
Don’t write small speeches. Your speech about your day at the beech or your pet dog can be a “big” speech if you put your heart into it.
Now get writing.
