How To Write A Speech: Adventures In The Word Trade

Written by Tim Slavin, October 2003.

How many pages double-spaced is a 45-minute keynote speech? Recently I had to answer this question as part of preparing to write a keynote speech. I went to Google and found no answer. My backup, Copernic's Agent Personal software, also failed to find an answer. A search at our local Border's and independent bookstore also failed.

The answer, from experience, is that a 45-minute speech is about 25-30 pages double-spaced. That includes 4-8 title and data slides.

To prepare myself to write the speech, I also picked through Google search results, Amazon.com, and our local bookstores. There were many examples of business speeches. However, there turned out to be little how-to information about writing a keynote speech.

Writing the words, sentences, and paragraphs of the speech would not be a challenge. Nor would research into the audience, the speaker, and the topic. I have fifteen years experience writing business communications in a wide variety of media for many different audiences. The difficulty lay in how to organize the speech. Finding that bit of information turned out to be a challenge.

Then I stumbled across Mariah Burton Nelson's website. In a bit of serendipity, she played for the Stanford women's basketball team. I watched some of their games as a kid (before her time) as well as watched the Stanford Indians, Jim Plunkett, and Randy Vataha play nearby in the Stanford football stadium. Her website includes a thoughtful article about how to write keynote speeches. (Her email newsletter also is good.)

Nelson's article provided me with an excellent outline. This article will describe my experiences with my version of her outline and elaborate on issues discovered in the process of writing a speech.

Here is my abbreviated version of Nelson's outline (her article is a must-read because it includes the all-important reasons for structuring the outline a specific way):

I. Introduction
   *Opening
   *Agenda (topic, reason they should trust you, how they benefit)
   *Promise and/or Key Message

II. The Body
    2-5 Main Points. Lead with most important points first. For each point have some/all of these elements:
    *Statement of your message
    *Fact, stats, findings that support your message
    *Illustration or personal story that supports your message
    *Quick example
    *Visual aid, game, quiz, poem, song, audience interaction
    *Repeat the point and apply it to the audience

III. Closing
     Elements to include (in no particular order):
     *Summarize main points and apply them to audience
     *Final summary story or special effect
     *Thank everybody
     *Repeat the promise and/or key message

Once I had this outline in a Microsoft Word file, my first task involved tacking information onto its bones to create a first draft. As it happened, I left in the outline elements (e.g., Message, Data, Illustration) until the final drafts so that the speaker and others editing it could see how specific parts of the speech related to other elements. When you're on page 19 and a sentence bothers you, it is critical to orient that sentence. You want to judge that sentence on its own merits as well as how it fits into the speech.

Besides the outline, I also had to identify the audience and the context for the speech. The speaker would give one of two keynotes for a conference that covered print and electronic publishing. We had to decide whether or not we wanted to amplify, contrast, or reflect the other keynote speech. We chose contrast and reflect. The other speaker, for example, planned to have 9-10 slides and speak against those slides for their 45 minutes. We chose to use case studies in electronic publishing. However, both speakers made sure to cover common topics so their listeners could connect the keynotes.

The audience would be publishing professionals on the business and technology sides of the aisle. So our speech had to have a level of detail that would engage them with descriptions of problems they faced in their professional lives, offer information they did not know, and provide solutions for them to consider. All in a conversational style for 45 minutes.

With the outline fleshed out with basic information, I cut the speech into pieces and sent it to different groups for them to read as preparation for interviews. I spoke with six groups about how their products and experiences fit into the speech topic, then narrowed the groups down to four. Based on the initial interviews, I engaged the final four groups in detailed interviews, asked them to review the transcripts (I type quickly enough to take notes as we talked on the phone), and provide 1-2 reviews of their section of the speech. This process resulted in a high level of accurate detail. Of course, there was a final edit to ensure the speech did not give away competitive secrets.

My role in the writing process was to clarify the details and processes generated from the research phase. People naturally are swept up with their professional lives and often forget that outsiders need context to understand. I wrote that context into the speech, wrestling with my interview subjects to define acronyms, phrases, ideas, and processes unique to their groups but not their industry. I also used a rhetorical resource found years ago to help me with sentence structures at key transition points in the speech. For example, to remind me to use imagery and how to organize words in a sentence to highlight ideas and emotions. Happily, all four groups provided me with lots of imagery and anecdotes. Good marketers distill their product benefits into stories and images that engage people.

Besides the page count, outline, context, research, writing, and audience, we also had to decide how to use slides.

We chose to use slides to orient the audience to the structure of the speech. The title slides showed how the case studies fit into a larger whole and what benefits listening would provide. Between slides, we displayed a slide with the speech title to remind listeners. Within each case study, we used slides only to help the speaker explain complex ideas, for example, how a range of products fit together. We avoided using slides in any other context. I also included snapshots of the slides in the speech along with instructions to stop the speech, change the slide, then go on. This helped the speaker pace himself and provided the audience with natural breaks.

The final element to consider while writing this speech was the quality of the speaker. How could I fit the speech into his personal style so that speaking the words would come across naturally for him and for his listeners? One way was to include parts of the outline in the final speech so that he could see how his words fit together. The alternative was to leave him with a sea of words in a large set of double-spaced pages.

My Google research to find out how many pages to write and how to organize a speech also led me to several business speeches, some great but most pedestrian. I realized it did not matter if the speaker was brilliant or not. Assuming they have been trained to reduce natural tics (e.g., hand chopping, saying "um" alot), anyone who feels comfortable enough with their speech probably can give a decent speech. Passion and knowledge can compensate for not being born as Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln.

Therefore, once I wrote the speech to everyone's satisfaction, I gave the speaker the speech to polish into his natural speaking style. He had several days and the Word file to change words to fit his needs and rhthyms. This helped him be more comfortable with all parts of the speech and make the speech his own. When I went back to compare his final version with mine, I found that the structure of the speech and its impact were unchanged. He had changed only a few words and sentences to suit his needs.

The results? He gave an excellent speech that engaged the audience for 45 minutes. I was not able to get to Philadelphia to attend but the person who hired me to write the speech told me that his turned out to be the more effective keynote. Several listeners came up to tell the speaker how much they had learned. Even better, he was invited to speak at another conference on a panel of experts.

Resources Mentioned In This Article

How To Write A Keynote Speech
http://www.mariahburtonnelson.com/Articles/WriteSpeech.htm

A Glossary of Rhetorical Terms
http://www.uky.edu/ArtsSciences/Classics/rhetoric.html

Figures of Speech
http://www.robibrad.demon.co.uk/Idioms.htm

The speech outline is © 2002 Mariah Burton Nelson.