The most important issue, I think, is that a speechwriter needs to metamorphose into the speaker (or at least his or her personality!) so the material is written in the way the speaker would speak it naturally.

Tricky though it sounds it’s actually not that difficult; you just need to spend a bit of time getting to know the person as a person rather than as a client, perhaps recording him/her speaking informally, so you understand what they will be comfortable with saying in the speech. It’s just like getting into a character’s way of speaking when you’re writing dialogue for fiction/drama.

I never forget being interviewed for a radio programme once, about speech making. The producers had hired some supposedly expert speechwriter (not me – I was there as an external “expert” to comment) to write a speech for this man who stood up and delivered it. The speech was well structured and well written, but dull. After that the speaker opened the session up for questions, and replied to them with witty, amusing humour and flair – completely different in style to that of the speech.

Eventually the presenter came up to me and my co-commentator (a journalist from the Daily Mirror,) stuck a microphone up my nose, and asked me what I thought of the presentation. I said I thought it was very good indeed, but it was shame it had been written for somebody else and not the man we listened to.

There was a long silence. The Daily Mirror man spluttered into his beer, chortling “what a f***ing shame this show isn’t going out live.” I have a funny feeling my interview ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak, and needless to say I was never asked to comment for that production company again. The Emperor’s New Clothes and all that.

Most of my clients like the way I can write “in their personal style” and that skill now works when I edit books, too – the authors come back to me and say “it’s much better, reads better, yet it still sounds like me.”

Rocket science? Nope. Just 20 years’ hard-but-fun grind as an advertising copywriter, where you learn to write in myriad different “voices…”
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites

The most important issue, I think, is that a speechwriter needs to metamorphose into the speaker (or at least his or her personality!) so the material is written in the way the speaker would speak it naturally.

Tricky though it sounds it’s actually not that difficult; you just need to spend a bit of time getting to know the person as a person rather than as a client, perhaps recording him/her speaking informally, so you understand what they will be comfortable with saying in the speech. It’s just like getting into a character’s way of speaking when you’re writing dialogue for fiction/drama.

I never forget being interviewed for a radio programme once, about speech making. The producers had hired some supposedly expert speechwriter (not me – I was there as an external “expert” to comment) to write a speech for this man who stood up and delivered it. The speech was well structured and well written, but dull. After that the speaker opened the session up for questions, and replied to them with witty, amusing humour and flair – completely different in style to that of the speech.

Eventually the presenter came up to me and my co-commentator (a journalist from the Daily Mirror,) stuck a microphone up my nose, and asked me what I thought of the presentation. I said I thought it was very good indeed, but it was shame it had been written for somebody else and not the man we listened to.

There was a long silence. The Daily Mirror man spluttered into his beer, chortling “what a f***ing shame this show isn’t going out live.” I have a funny feeling my interview ended up on the cutting room floor, so to speak, and needless to say I was never asked to comment for that production company again. The Emperor’s New Clothes and all that.

Most of my clients like the way I can write “in their personal style” and that skill now works when I edit books, too – the authors come back to me and say “it’s much better, reads better, yet it still sounds like me.”

Rocket science? Nope. Just 20 years’ hard-but-fun grind as an advertising copywriter, where you learn to write in myriad different “voices…”
Twitter: SuzeStMWrites

I’m sorry – I forgot to say thank you – So Thank you !
PS Gives me a chance to say I also liked the bits about humour…
Twitter: Linda_Mattacks

I’m sorry – I forgot to say thank you – So Thank you !
PS Gives me a chance to say I also liked the bits about humour…
Twitter: Linda_Mattacks

The one about women’s pitch immediately hit home – at least we have it easier nowadays with naturally deeper voices than say 50 years ago.

When you catch old black and white films that are ‘on the box’ every now and again and clips of the queen speaking during the first few years after she ascended the throne, you realise just how high up the scale most women’s voices were (okay – I guess Margaret Rutherford was a wonderful exception to the ‘rule’ ).

The second thing that struck was a little slower to dawn on me (okay, I’m being a bit thick) and that was the amount of work a good speech writer does that nobody sees.

I’m getting the impression that writing the best speech for someone else to deliver is only possible after the ‘behind the scenes’ work has been done and all the factors of the occasion – deliverer’s strengths and weaknesses, audience size and make up, venue and acoustics, purpose, necessary material and so on – have been drawn out and taken into account.

It gives me a much better insight to the real value of this service and the importance of working with the best.
Twitter: Linda_Mattacks

The one about women’s pitch immediately hit home – at least we have it easier nowadays with naturally deeper voices than say 50 years ago.

When you catch old black and white films that are ‘on the box’ every now and again and clips of the queen speaking during the first few years after she ascended the throne, you realise just how high up the scale most women’s voices were (okay – I guess Margaret Rutherford was a wonderful exception to the ‘rule’ ).

The second thing that struck was a little slower to dawn on me (okay, I’m being a bit thick) and that was the amount of work a good speech writer does that nobody sees.

I’m getting the impression that writing the best speech for someone else to deliver is only possible after the ‘behind the scenes’ work has been done and all the factors of the occasion – deliverer’s strengths and weaknesses, audience size and make up, venue and acoustics, purpose, necessary material and so on – have been drawn out and taken into account.

It gives me a much better insight to the real value of this service and the importance of working with the best.
Twitter: Linda_Mattacks

The tip about status is interesting – in my last Open University creative writing course, one of the texts was from drama teacher Keith Johnstone – and was all about how those body language cues can alter everything in a scene, without a single word of dialogue being changed.

Personally, I am so terrified of public speaking, I even managed to skip it in a scene I was just writing for a character!

The tip about status is interesting – in my last Open University creative writing course, one of the texts was from drama teacher Keith Johnstone – and was all about how those body language cues can alter everything in a scene, without a single word of dialogue being changed.

Personally, I am so terrified of public speaking, I even managed to skip it in a scene I was just writing for a character!