The American Frank

13 Commandments to

Great Public Speaking

& Creative Writing

Copyright by Frank A Hilario

Published by American Chronicle
February 22, 2006

I LEARNED MORE ABOUT FEATURE WRITING TODAY, 21 FEBRUARY. I HAVE BEEN READING ON PUBLIC SPEAKING.

In the latest issue of TOASTMASTER (February 2006), published by Toastmasters International, Michael Scroccaro writes his own ‘Confessions of a Political Speechwriter’ (pages 14-15) and grabs my attention. Michael is the Director of Sterling Communication, which I classify as a mass media company, since it provides its high-profile clients in the US and Canada – politicians and CEOs – services in all manner, shape & form of public relations, crisis management, advocacy campaigns and speeches, better tied up together. You have to be on top of the field to be able to do all that. From where I sit in the audience, I can see Michael has learned his lessons excellently. Communication is not a field for everyone; it is not a one-way traffic or simply a Stimulus-Message-Response system as most textbooks theorize it and many newspapers practice it.

I am the Editor of a technical journal in science, and I write a feature article for every issue. I have done some ghostwriting myself, and my interest has not faded, so I have been reading for about a year, among other magazines, the monthly issues of Toastmaster to which my son Paul subscribes. I can now see clearly that speechwriting is more difficult and dangerous than feature writing. You are dealing with a live audience, and anything you say can and will be taken against you. In feature writing, I can always revise before I release, recant after I relate. To use a modern metaphor, public speaking is a CD-ROM disk – write once (read many times), non-erasable; feature writing is a CD-RW disk – rewritable, editable. Give me a rewritable disk anytime.

One lesson I find in Michael’s article itself; another lesson I find outside of it. There are other lessons inside and outside that inspiring piece of writing. I have been stimulated by that article so much that I have gone on and invented 13 steps to great speeches and created a little mnemonic device to help speechwriters master them. There are no boring speakers, only boring speeches.

Here’s how you can write that great speech yourself.

(A) SPEECHWRITING ACCORDING TO MICHAEL’S RULES, 7

In his Toastmaster article, Michael thinks 7 steps towards great speeches, and I will make them more memorable to you by giving them in the form of the acronym GEMS, SiR S:

(a) Grab their attention. You can do it with humor. You can do it with a story that begins with a problem waiting to be solved. In this article, I begin with a little paradox.

(b) Establish your credibility right away. Show them you know something they don’t. ‘Demonstrate to your audience early on,’ says Michael, ‘that you know what you’re talking about.’ I myself do that in the 3rd paragraph of this article.

(c) Make a connection with them. Know your audience and cater to their likes and consider their dislikes. That’s assuming you have found out about them, that you have asked questions.

(d) Share with them something of value. In his case, Michael shares the importance of research. He tells his readers that before you write your speech, you have to have some solid pieces of information with which to write about your topic. In my case, I share with you the value of learning by way of teaching oneself. (More of this a little later.)

(e) Signal for action. Towards the end of your speech, Michael advises that you leave them with something they can do to learn more from what you have just told them. For practice, find out about plumbers, butchers, or babysitters, he says.

(f) Repeat. At the very end, repeat what you have said one way or another; that is, repeat without repeating. Spoken words are easily forgotten unless you somehow repeat them as in the form of a summary or a list of the essential points you have made. I have to remember to do this myself from now on.

(g) Search. Before everything else, you must learn more about your subject matter or topic. Never assume that you know enough, or that you know correctly. Observing is research; and so is asking questions, going to the library, reading a book or magazine or newspaper, or surfing the Internet. Research is a basic rule in feature writing too (think Gore Vidal or George Gilder, of Wired Magazine), or novel writing (think Tom Clancy), or poem writing (think Robert Frost). If you have no firsthand experience, research will give you secondhand, that of others that you can learn from, that you can write about.

Briefly, those are Michael’s 7 steps to great speeches.

Now, they say that the best way to learn is to teach. That’s because you are forced to learn first. You cannot teach what you do not know. And now, to be sure that I myself have learned my Michael lessons, allow me to re-present his ideas in my own fashion.

From my decades of experience as a feature writer, I note that Michael’s 7 steps are actually the LATTER steps in the writing process, as I shall show you in a little while. Right now, to make my point clear, I shall rewrite Michael and assign the numbers appropriate to his steps. Careful now – my numbers are deliberate, the ‘wrong’ numbering being a lesson in itself:

(7) HUMOR them. You can start with a joke you picked up from a book, a friend, or out of the blue. But not just a joke, no matter how funny – it must relate to your subject, or provide a neat introduction to it. Michael starts his article with a problem and ends not with a solution but a joke: ‘If you want to keep enjoying politics or sausages, you should probably never see either of them being made.’ Me, I’ll probably open a speech about writing by saying, ‘If you have been worrying about writing, I’m worried about you!’

( IMAGE yourself. Inform them about an impressive you. Michael does it with these words: ‘For years, I have written speeches for some of North America’s most powerful politicians. I have also helped turn big crises into smaller ones (like the northeastern blackout of 2003) and kept countless other crises from ever appearing in the news (naturally, I can’t talk about those.) ’

I will image myself like this: ‘So now, I’d like to tell you that my first love is writing and my wife is my second. About 10 years ago, I wrote what I called ‘The Ten Commandments of Writing’ (1996) and a woman’s magazine in the Philippines published it, the Woman’s Home Companion, not a man’s magazine. In praise of women, right now I would like to say that the ladies appreciate value when they see one!’

(9) LINK to them. That’s why it’s important to know quite a few things about them, your audience. Michael connects with his audience by giving as his example the TV series ‘The West Wing’ starring Martin Sheen instead of the movie ‘Wag The Dog’ starring Robert de Niro and Dustin Hoffman. He explains to his readers that he has chosen ‘The West Wing’ because he surmises that most of them have seen the TV series and only a few the movie. The TV show and the movie are both about the use of Presidential power for political purposes. It’s a good choice because the movie was shown 8 years ago (199 while the TV show is still running (and will only say goodbye to all that in May this year).

(10) AFFORD them something of value. Michael offers his readers this gem of experience: Research. It’s sound advice. If you don’t do prior research, what are you going to write about? If you want to write the best you can, a thorough background research is a must. Today, we have the best library in the world, open 24 hours a day and ready to help with any search you may want to do: the Internet. No more excuses for not doing your homework.

(11) REITERATE. Towards the end of your speech, make a concise, comprehensive, clear and coherent summary of what you have just presented. Michael does it by simply saying: ‘You know what to do: research, grab your audience’s attention, establish your credibility, make a connection, give your audience something of value…’

(12) INSPIRE. Overall, from beginning to end, the effect of your speech should be to enthuse your listeners to action. If you have not moved them, you have failed them. If you don’t see enthusiasm in their faces, you have failed yourself.

(13) OPEN the possibilities to them as you close. ‘Leave them with a call to action,’ says Michael. If you have truly inspired them, then they will heed your call. Then you can declare yourself a successful speaker.

Now, let me explain why I numbered the list above starting with (7) and not with (1). The reason is that the 7 steps (from #7 to #13) assume that you are ready to write your speech, that you have materials to weave into that piece of writing, that you have done the necessary preparatory steps, that you have done your homework.

You are assuming too much.

(B) SPEECHWRITING ACCORDING TO MY RULES, 6

First things first!

You usually don’t have enough materials to write about something, and so you begin from the beginning. From my 30 years of experience as a science feature writer, I will now add my list of 6 steps to Michael’s list of 7. Mind, mine comes first. This covers the essential creative act.

(1) FIND OUT things you don’t know; double-check what you think you know. Michael calls this simply Research, and it’s a good name for it. Research is search for the unknown: literature search, background search, fill-me-up search. When do you stop your search? You have to learn to rely on your gut feel. Practice makes perfect. Me, when I begin to see that the pieces of information start to repeat themselves, I know I have enough.

How good will your search be will depend on the kind of search you will do, the exact words or ideas you will use in finding out more about your subject. If I were writing on how to do feature writing, I would use the Internet and type separately such compound search words (including the double quotes for Advanced Search) as “generating ideas” “advice for writers” “feature writing” “feature stories” “how to get published” “guidelines for writing” “famous feature writers” “rules for writing” “brainstorming alone” “wanted feature stories” “ten commandments for writing” – the last one because I know there is such a thing, since I created it myself and it’s online right now. Now, for instance, you may ask, why do I search for “guidelines for writing” when I already searched for “rules for writing” – and the answer is that you will get different results, and you need dissimilar results to initiate, impel and impact your thinking and enrich your mind. A rich mind is a fertile ground for writing. I cannot over-emphasize the importance of being earnest in research.

Suppose, Michael says, you are going to speak before a group of butchers or babysitters. Then you have the duty to look into the world of butchers or babysitters. And as you look deeper, he says, ‘you will find connections, interesting things to talk about and humorous stories that will help you build rapport with your audience. You will find something valuable to say to these people, something to enrich their lives.’ I’d like to repeat that: To do research is to look for ‘something to enrich their lives,’ those of your audience.

(2) READ them, but don’t rank them. Ranking is thinking critically – this is not the time for it. Whatever the results of your search, just read them. Don’t assign any rank or weight or value to them. If you know word processing, take down notes as you read, remembering to include a complete citation, then save the file for later reading. Or you can simply mark the Xeroxed pages and note where you may find use for some items in certain parts of the article, but that’s all. Then, if you want to be creative, leave your notes alone. Pile, don’t file.

(3) ACT. After a little while, half a day or two, even if you’re not convinced you have the whole of it in mind, or even if you have only fragments of it, get into the creative act: Write! Just write. Don’t wait to write the best opening paragraph for you to start writing the first complete draft. Let the creative juice flow. Just do it! The first draft is the hardest to do. If the first draft looks bad, at least now you have a good idea of the whole article. This itself will egg you to go on and improve it.

(4) NEED to know your audience. After the first rough draft, make sure you know what is it they say they need and what is it you think they need. Felt needs are not usually real needs. Consider the two together. After making sure you appreciate the need, it is time to appreciate the value of your draft speech measured against that need. Don’t forget that the aim of every speech (or story) is to meet a need.

(5) KNOW more. Now, it’s time to start critical thinking with your first draft. If you find out that what you know or have at this stage is not enough, you may have to do more research. You may also have to verify what you already have.

(6) AMEND. You have to revise whatever you have written. Critical thinking. Read word for word again and I’m sure you will see the need to change here and there. I think it was Rudolf Flesch who said, ‘There is no good writing, only good rewriting.’ I know some people who refuse to look at what they have written a second time, not to mention a third time. They think too highly of themselves. A little humility will get you somewhere you’d like to be. Me, I revised this about 7 times (I wasn’t counting), the last one with a major revision: I turned my old #6 into the new #3 and I have a new #6; you see, in revising, I saw that I forgot about revising so I had to revise!

As a memory aid, and to drive the message of the 13 steps home, we come to THINK 13, parts Michael and parts me. Now I ask you to rearrange the 13 steps as to properly follow one after another numerically, 1 to 13. After that, try and discover the hidden 3 magic words to say, the ‘Open Sesame!’ thing that will help you memorize all 13 steps in an instant (well, almost). Clue: A human male owns it. There are 3 other clues elsewhere in this paper, if you’re paying attention. For the first 10 to email me the correct answer, I will revise your speech free of charge and send you back within 24 hours with Microsoft Word’s Track Changes for you to accept or reject; for the next 10, within 48 hours. For the next 80 emailers with the correct magic words, I will edit & critique your speech gratis et amore and send it back faster than you imagine. Email me at frankahilario@gmail.com/. Yet, whether you email me or not, Think 13 is my happy challenge to you, as it demands that you use both your creative and critical faculties at the same time. An exercise in fertility. That’s my hidden agenda.

But suppose Think 13 doesn’t work for you? Think 10 and use ‘The Ten Commandments of Writing,’ 100% me, that which the ladies published 10 years ago. I follow them myself, the ladies and the commandments. You can email me for a free electronic copy, or visit my website as I have uploaded it there even as I write the first draft of this article (check & click the link below my profile).

And suppose the Ten Commandments don’t work for you either, suppose you find them impossible to follow, perhaps even sadistic? You can always blame the Ten Commandments. Or their author.