Choosing a speech topic
Sometimes you are told given a speech topic and other times the choice is left entirely up to you. This latter option can leave people feeling completely stuck. The purpose of this short post is to give you some practical guidance on how to choose the best speech topic of a presentation.
The key is to answer three questions
Speech writing Secrets – Write for the ear
When it comes to speech writing there are many mistakes that you can make. One of the commonest is writing for the eye rather than the ear. Most of us are used to writing prose to be read in letters, memos or reports. When practicing the art of speech writing you must learn to creating something that engaging, human and easy to listen to.
Speech writing tips the Disney way
Most of us probably can’t rely on the luxury of a professional speech writer to craft our presentations but that doesn’t mean we can’t pick up some great speech writing tips from the pros.
In this post I want to share with you how you can use the same strategy to write speeches that Walt Disney used to create his cartoon masterpieces.
Disney used a three stage strategy which has been modeled by NLP expert Robert Dilts. Dilts labelled these three stages Dreamer, Realist and Critic.
Dreamer:
The dreamer phase is where you let your imagination run wild and create as many possible ideas relating to your topic as possible. You don’t criticize and you don’t judge, you just allow your imagination free reign to come up with a theme, structure or argument for your speech. Here are a couple of ways in which I use the dreamer phase.
Example 1: I know I have to give a presentation or speech on a particular subject in a few weeks. So I turn the creative element of it over to my subconscious mind and ask it to “give me a nudge” when it has a solution to the problem of what I am going to say. I then forget about the speech for a week or so and usually an idea or approach will pop into my head in plenty of time to turn it into a good presentation.
Example 2: I will go for a walk and mull over possible ideas or I will sit back, look up at the ceiling and allow myself to imagine the ideal speech on my particular topic. Then and only then will I sit down in front of my computer and write out a first draft of my presentation without editing or judging. Its a stream of consciousness type of writing. I just let the words flow onto the paper. I know that this isn’t the finished article and so I can let go of criticism and perfectionism.
Realist:
This phase is all about turning the initial ideas that came in the dreamer stage into a workable draft. Its still not perfect but it is 80% of the way there. My objective is to develop a plan to realize the dream. In this phase I will develop the original idea and add details, stories, examples and find a flow that allows me to take my audience on a journey from where they are when I start my speech to where I need them to be at the end so that they will be motivated to do what I want them to do.
Critic Phase:
It’s important to understand that in the phase you are not criticizing the basic idea. You are evaluating the way you have transformed that idea into a story and are checking that it has impact and that flows. You are the editor, looking to tighten up the language, clarify the messages and ensure that the words sound good when spoken. You are also checking on the length of the presentation to ensure that you don’t go over time.
Typically I do this phase walking about my office, reading out sections of the speech, listening to how they sound and how they flow as I speak them. When I hit a section that doesn’t sound right, I mark it with pencil and then edit it on the computer once I have done a full read through. I use the stopwatch on my iPhone to check the timings and if I am over time I use this phase to edit out non essential content.
I’d love to know how this speech writing tip compares with your own approach so let me know via the comments link below. I plan to write more speech writing tips in the coming weeks so if you have any specific issues you want me to cover just send me a comment.