The Key to Writing a Great Speech

It's a hot August morning, and you're in church. You're supposed to be listening to a sermon on love, but you're sweating so much that you're sticking to the back of the pew. Besides, you've heard this one before. A lot. So you put your brain on autopilot and think instead about what your grandmother is going to serve for brunch.

All of a sudden, the preacher starts telling a story, and if he has any skills at all he draws you right back in to his message. If the story is good enough, you forget the heat. You forget that trickle of sweat that's rolling down your back. You even forget that annoying toddler behind you who keeps tossing bits of soggy teething biscuit into your wife's hair. And that, my friends, is the key to giving a great speech.

I learned early the power of a good yarn. When I was two I fell from my crib and bit my tongue almost all the way off. My father was caring for me at the time while my mother did some shopping. He ran to my room when he heard the thud and before I could even let go of my startled first gulp and scream, blood started gushing onto the floor. He picked me up and ran with me to the little hospital not two blocks from our home, leaving a trail of blood all the way down the sidewalk. When he got me to the door of the ER, he handed me to a nurse, vomited in the bushes and passed out on the front steps. My mother, meantime, came home from shopping, saw the empty crib, the trail of blood and, after her own mad dash to the hospital, also saw my father still slumped on the steps. Her scream was loud enough to wake the dead before somebody got to her and told her that I would be fine after a little repair work. I have used this story in a dozen speeches. It frequently takes an act of Houdini to make it match my subject matter, but it's worth the effort because it never fails to suck the audience in.

So forget what your speech teacher told you. Here's what you need to do:

First, hook them. Tell a funny story if you're good at it. If not, find the most interesting thing about your subject and start with that. In the sermon on love, start with a love story. Everybody enjoys those (but don't forget to leave a little something for the end of your speech -- more about that in a moment). It also works to jump right into it with something they can visualize, like the hot morning in the church.

Once they're relating to you, get your main point out there, whatever it happens to be, and then follow it up with a good story.

Dole out a little more information and as soon as their eyes start to glaze over, toss in another story. This can take anywhere from 30 seconds to ten minutes, depending on your subject matter. If it's near death experiences you're discussing, you've probably got a little more time than you'd have if your speech is on, say, human resource record keeping. Keep this pattern going until you've delivered all of your main points.

Finally, conclude your speech by wrapping back around to the beginning. In our sermon, it would work well to bring them back to that main love story, give them that final tidbit you've been saving, and finish it off.

It's a technique that can keep your audience in the palm of your hand, whether they're sweating or not.