How To Write A Speech: Power Through Structure
When you have a crucial idea to get across, sometimes the written word cannot do it justice — it must be spoken into power. This is where speechwriting comes into its own.
In recent history, Michelle Obama serves as a good example. In 2016, she delivered a major speech at the Let Girls Learn Event on International Women’s Day. She powerfully addressed the challenge that young girls, women of color, and marginalized peoples around the globe face in accessing rights, including the right to education, routinely afforded to their male counterparts.
Complex problems involve complex solutions. But as Michelle Obama knew, increasing awareness of the challenge, and motivating others to act through the power or oratory, can be an important first step. The First Lady’s words offer an excellent case study in how to write a speech that works.
From knowing your audience to fine-tuning speech structure, here are some points to keep in mind to write speeches effectively. We’ll then look at how these points play out within Obama’s speech.
How To Write A Speech
Know your audience: Before you draft your speech, research your audience. What do they have in common? How much do they already know about your subject? More importantly, what do you need them to know?
The size of audience and venue also matters. Are you giving a rousing speech to a crowd, or an intimate explanation to a smaller group? Where will you stand, and how will your voice project? What audio and visual features can the venue support? Sorting this out ahead of time will help to keep you focused on what you have to say.
Choose a core message: A politician speaking to their constituents, a CEO presenting to stakeholders, an actor at an awards ceremony — they all want to convey a compelling message.
Finding the right message can be difficult. If your speech lacks substance, you’ll be dismissed; if there’s too much going on, things get muddled and your overall point is lost. Obama’s message succeeded because it was simple: let girls learn!
In speechwriting you always have at least two objectives; make a good impression and leave your audience with a few key takeaways. The rest is set-up.
Research and organize: This might be the most important step in the speechwriting process. Gathering knowledge helps you speak from a place of conviction. Research is a time to connect the dots and arrive at key insights.
You will thank yourself later for any research prep work. It’s much easier to formulate your thoughts and draft a speech when you have all the necessary data points there at your disposal.
Power Through Structure
Attention to structure is one of the most important considerations in speechwriting. You have laid the conceptual groundwork, and your speech is ready to write itself once you know how to structure it.
First things first: develop a rough draft. Get all your insights onto paper, then edit it down and polish. Your draft should have a clear introduction, body, and conclusion.
Introduction: This is where you establish your credibility and acknowledge the audience. The medium is the message, and during the speech, you are the medium. For your message to make an impression, you should make one too.
Open with a question, challenge, or a bold claim — anything you can do hook the audience. Once you’ve grabbed their attention, clearly outline your main points.
Body: Get to the issues. Highlight a couple of key points, and then bolster those points with illustrations, evidence, or anecdotes in order to bring them into the real world. As a speechwriter you need to weave a narrative that fits your message.
Keep on track. Your audience is expecting a path and a destination. If you have any details or parts of your speech that don’t aid the overall message, then they most likely can be cut.
While you should be direct, also be passionate. Everyone loves to see someone that is passionate about something, and conviction helps messages stick. This is a large part of what makes the former First Lady such an effective speaker.
Conclusion: Every step in the process has led to this moment. The conclusion should succinctly wrap everything up, convey the importance of your message, and include a call to action if applicable. Aim for a digestable takeaway.
A Note On Time: Your speech shouldn’t exceed 25 minutes in length, with the sweet spot being between 20 - 25 minutes, depending on your venue. When writing your speech, also keep in mind that the average spoken sentence runs at most 16 words. Any more than that and the audience may have difficulty following.
Reaching The Audience With Rhetoric
In order to communicate complex themes or points, use rhetorical devices.
One such device is repetition. Repetition allows you to emphasize key elements. Think of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream'' speech. The phrase is used to introduce his key points and emphasize a desired change.
Alliteration is the repetition of sounds in a series of words. This repetition again adds emphasis to your talking points and makes your speech more memorable. Obama’s “Let Girls Learn” slogan is a perfect example of this.
Parallelism is a rhetorical device that allows the speech to convey parallel or coordinated ideas in a balanced structure, thus making it easier to digest. For example, “Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” (James Baldwin)
Antithesis also involves a parallel structure, but in this case it is used to compare and contrast dissimilar things. Think of, “... give me liberty, or give me death.”
There are many rhetorical and literary devices you could use to enhance your speech. Having even a few of them at your disposal will help flesh out and develop your speech into its final form.
Effective Communication In Practice
When you are one of the most influential women in the world, you have a lot of eyes on you and your voice carries a lot of weight.
Michelle Obama was well aware of this in 2016. The “Let Girls Learn” speech is a perfect case study in effective communication through speechwriting. To see some of the aforementioned tips in action, here are some examples:
“And no, it will not be easy. And it will not be quick. But make no mistake about it, we can do this. If we can make this kind of project — progress in just a year — in just a year — if we keep putting in this effort and this investment that these girls deserve, we can get this done. ”
Using antithesis here allows the First Lady to contrast the difficulty of the work to be done is with its practical realizability if everyone pushes.
“I know we are all up to the task. I know we are. I see it in your eyes. I know you feel that burning sensation, that sense of unfairness. Turn that into action. Turn that passion into something real. ”
Here, Obama uses repetition to emphasize confidence and the importance of taking action, making her call to action more effective.
“These girls risk everything – the rejection of their communities, the violation of their bodies – everything, just to go to school each day. And then here I show up with a hoard of international reporters shoving microphones in their faces - these girls don’t blink. They stand up. They look straight into those cameras and they proudly explain who they want to be – doctors and teachers, forces for change in their countries.”
This is an example of an effective narrative, and a passionate one. It’s easy for a speech about girls in poverty to come off as condescending. Obama avoids this by putting the focus on the girls’ experiences, and the extraordinary courage of their own efforts.
Obama’s speech follows a tight structure - with a clearly defined opening, body, and conclusion. The audience was a global one. The core message for her speech is stated in the event title, “Let Girls Learn”. The First Lady has the lived experience of being a woman and seeing the hardships they face daily, and with carefully arranged stories and stats, she extended that message to a global context. She knew what she wanted to say.
Words Have Power
It can be tricky to know how to write a speech. It requires a firm grasp of the subject matter, but you also need to know about the audience, and have a clear plan of what you want your speech to achieve. By honing the content and structure of your piece, you’ll be setting yourself up for success.
When the time comes to write your speech, you’ll find that if you adhere to the tips in this article, effective communication through speechwriting will come naturally.