How To Write a Speech: Power Through Structure
When you have a crucial idea to get across, sometimes the written word cannot do it justice — it must be spoken into power. This is where speechwriting comes into its own.
Just ask Michelle Obama, who delivered a major speech at the Let Girls Learn Event on International Women’s Day in 2016. The topic of the First Lady’s address? The challenge that young girls, women of color, and marginalized peoples around the globe face in accessing rights, including the right to education, routinely afforded to their male counterparts.
Complex problems involve complex solutions, but increasing awareness of the challenge, and motivating others to act through the power or oratory, is an important step. And the First Lady’s words offer an excellent case study in how to write a speech that works.
From knowing your audience to fine-tuning speech structure, here are some points to keep in mind to write speeches effectively.
How To Write A Speech
Know your audience: Before you draft your speech, research your audience. What is it that they have in common? How much do they already know about your subject? More importantly, what do you need them to know?
Consider the logistics of the venue. Where will you stand, and how will your voice project? Not having to worry about whether you can be heard will help to keep you focused on what you have to say.
Choose a core message: A politician speaking to their constituents, a CEO presenting to stakeholders, an actor at an awards ceremony — all of these people are trying to convey a compelling message.
However, finding the right message can be difficult. If your messaging lacks substance, you’ll be dismissed; if there’s too much going on, things get muddled and your overall point is lost.
In speechwriting you typically have twin objectives; make a good impression and leave your audience with a few key takeaways. The rest is set-up.
Research and organize: This might be the most important step in the speechwriting process. The better prepared you are, the better you’ll perform.
You will thank yourself later as it is easier to formulate thoughts and draft a speech when you have as much information at your disposal as possible.
Extensive research allows you to digest information, connect pertinent ideas, and arrive at key insights more effectively. Your message will in turn be easier to digest and your audience will have a clearer understanding of the speech.
Power Through Structure
When learning how to write a speech, attention to structure is one of the most important considerations. Here is where your work starts to pay off. Hopefully you have laid the groundwork and your speech is ready to write itself once you know how to structure it.
You’ll want to first develop a rough draft, getting all your research onto paper, then editing as you develop your speech further.
When writing your speech keep in mind that the average spoken sentence runs at most 16 words. Any more than that and the audience has difficulty following.
Your speech shouldn’t exceed 25 minutes in length, with the sweet spot being between 20 - 25 minutes and should look something along these lines:
Introduction: This is where you’ll want to establish your credibility and appeal to the audience. During the speech, you and your message are one and the same; the audience has to buy into you if you want them to buy into what you have to say.
Humanize yourself and grab their attention from the start. Open with a question, challenge their way of thinking, anything you can do hook them. Here is where you’ll want to outline your main points.
Body: Get to the issues. Highlight a couple of points you’ll want to make and from there bolster those points with illustrations, evidence, or anecdotes in order to bring them into the real world. As a speechwriter you have to be able to tell a story and mold that story to fit your message.
The most important thing to remember here is to be passionate about what you’re saying. Everyone loves to see someone that is passionate about something.
You need to keep on track. Your audience is expecting a path and a destination. If you have any details or parts of your speech that don’t aid the overall message, then they most likely can be cut.
Conclusion: The conclusion should include succinctly wrap everything into a digestible takeaway, convey the importance of your message, and most importantly include a call to action. Every step in the process has led to this moment.
Depending on your intentions, you want the audience to leave entertained or persuaded. Hopefully they will also have a deeper understanding of what you cover in the speech.
Reaching The Audience With Rhetoric
In order to communicate complex themes or points, use rhetorical devices.
One such device is repetition. Repetition allows you to emphasize key elements. Think of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream'' speech. The phrase is used to introduce his key points and emphasize a desired change.
Alliteration is the repetition of the initial sounds in a series of words. This repetition again adds emphasis to your talking points and makes your speech more memorable.
Parallelism is a rhetorical device that allows the speech to convey parallel or coordinated ideas in a balanced structure, thus making it easier to digest. For example, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” (James Baldwin)
Antithesis also involves a parallel structure, but in this case it is used to compare and contrast dissimilar things. Think of, “... give me liberty, or give me death.”
There are many rhetorical and literary devices you could use to enhance your speech, but having these few at your disposal will help flesh out and develop your speech into its final form.
Effective Communication In Practice
When you are one of the most influential women in the world, you have a lot of eyes on you and your voice carries a lot of weight. Michelle Obama was well aware of this when she delivered her speech at the Let Girls Learn Event in 2016.
The entire speech is a perfect case study in effective communication through speechwriting. If you want to see a clear example of all the aforementioned tips in action, look at the examples below:
“And no, it will not be easy. And it will not be quick. But make no mistake about it, we can do this. If we can make this kind of project — progress in just a year — in just a year — if we keep putting in this effort and this investment that these girls deserve, we can get this done. ”
— First Lady Michelle Obama
Using antithesis here allows the First Lady to contrast how difficult the work that needs to be done is, with how important doing so will be.
“I know we are all up to the task. I know we are. I see it in your eyes. I know you feel that burning sensation, that sense of unfairness. Turn that into action. Turn that passion into something real. ”
— First Lady Michelle Obama
Here, Obama uses repetition to emphasize confidence and the importance of taking action, making her call to action more effective.
Her speech follows a tight structure - with a clearly defined opening, body, and conclusion. The audience for the speech was a global one. The core message for her speech is stated in the events namesake, to let girls learn. The First Lady has the lived experience of being a woman and seeing the hardships they face daily, that there wasn’t a need for deep research. She knew what she wanted to say.
Words Have Power
It can be tricky to know how to write a speech. It requires a firm grasp of the subject matter, but you also need to know about the audience, and have a clear plan of what you want your speech to achieve. By honing the content and structure of your piece, you’ll be setting yourself up for success.
When the time comes to write your speech, you’ll find that if you adhere to the tips in this article, effective communication through speechwriting will come naturally.
