Speech Writing Truisms

Speech writing is an important craft to master. Even though  it may not always seem like it, particularly these days, there are those who do have important things to share with audiences. But often because they are busy or perhaps not as good in organizing their thoughts as they might like to be, they need writers to help compose remarks that reflect their vision in a way in which people can readily understand and relate. This leads me to several important speech wriing truisms that speech writers should take to heart if they are going to be as good as they need and should be.

Speech writing is about the speech maker, not the speech writer. As it is they who are standing at the rostrum or in front of a microphone, words coming out of their mouth should reflect their perspective, opinion, and/or vision. In order to learn what those points of view are, then the speech writer must spend time with the speech writer. Get to know him or her. What are their likes or dislikes? What motivates them? What kind of background did they have? What is their personal and professional history? Who do they admire? These are the kind of basic questions that should help the writer get a deeper sense of who it is they are writing for.Without this kind of fundamental knowledge, then it is hard to establish any degree of authenticity in a speech.

An important word of caution: any thoughts the writer might have that they are the puppet master and the speech maker is the pupplet should be dispelled immediately. Respect the speech maker and the process. The challenge of the writer is to produce words that best match and/or showcase the speech maker's thoughts/vision. The speech writer is not the candidate or the CEO or the official everyone has come to hear. The speech maker is. Without question, speech writers are important part of the communication process, but their role is one of support. Always remember that. Should the roles ever be reversed, then the speech writer would want nothing less from their speech writer.