Image Credit: David Stone
The goal of any speech that we give is for us to find a way to connect with our audience. If we can do this, then we’ll be able to clearly communicate our message to them. An interesting question for you is if you were in your audience listening to yourself speak, would you rather hear two people having a conversation or hear a summary of what they said? I think that most of us would agree that hearing the conversation would be more interesting. What that means for our speeches is that if we can find a way to work conversations into them, then we’ll have a better chance of connecting with our audience.
The Power Of Conversations
If we are able to work a conversation into our next speech, then our audience will be presented with a vivid and engaging part of your speech. Adding a conversation to a speech is a very valuable tool for any speaker that we can use in many different types of speeches. When we add characters to our speeches, they can be either real or imagined, we give our speech a real-life dimension and the result will be that we draw in our audience.
However, adding a conversation to a speech is not an easy thing to do. We’re going to have to find a way to let our audience understand that there are two distinct characters who are having a conversation. The audience is going to have to be able to recognize who is talking at any given point in time. If we are not careful, our characters can end up sounding like each other so much so that our audience won’t be able to tell them apart. Additionally, we need to find a way to make our characters sound realistic to our audience. In order to develop the characters that we can use in our speeches, we need to use a three step process.
The Power Of Mindset
The first step in the process is to understand the mindset that you are going to have to adopt in order to present characters as a part of your speech. As speakers, when we want to take on the identity of a character that we will be using in our speech we need to step outside of our normal personality. Generally, when we are giving a speech we tend to find ways to limit how much we express ourselves. The reason that we do this is because we are concerned about what our audience will think about us. When we are working conversations into our speech, we need to be willing to become far more expressive that we normally are. You may believe that you have gone too far; however, the good news is that your audience will not think so.
Drawing A Portrait
If you want to incorporate conversations into your speech, you are going to have to be able to picture the people who are speaking. You need to be able to create mental pictures of these people. The way to go about doing this is to start with one of your speakers. Ask yourself what do they look like? How do they sound? What is their posture? Do they speak with an accent? Can you see how they are dressed? What is their attitude?
Executing The Mechanics
The final step in the process is to understand the mechanics of adding a conversation to your speech. This involves how you are going to go about making your characters come alive. Take the time to mimic the voice that you envision your character having. Additionally, you are going to want to assume the physical characteristics that you believe that this character has. If you take the time to do this, you will not only provide your audience with a clearer picture of your character, but you may also make the character’s voice more realistic. You’ll be able to accomplish this because you will become the character.
What All Of This Means For You
The goal of every speech that we give is to find a way to connect with our audience and to make our speech memorable. One powerful way that we can make this happen is by introducing conversations between characters as a part of our speech. This technique can allow our speech to come alive and be remembered. However, introducing characters can be difficult to do correctly.
Speakers need to realize the power that adding a conversation to their speech can bring. Conversations draw an audience into our speech. However, when we add a conversation we need to make sure that we allow our audience to understand that there are two separate people having a conversation. We need to follow a process. This process starts with adopting a mindset that allows us to take on the identity of the characters who are talking. After we’ve done that, we need to draw a portrait of the characters who will be speaking: how do they sound, move, look, and dress? Finally, we need to bring it all together and take on the personality of each of the people who are having the conversation.
Finding ways to connect with our audience is the most important thing that a speaker can do. It turns out that if we can find a way to add a conversation to our next speech, we can draw our audience into our speech and make the connection that we’ve been trying to make. Adding a conversation is not an easy thing to do. We need to take the time and plan out how we’re going to go about doing this. However, if we can get it right then we’ll be able to deliver a speech that our audience will remember long after we are done.
– Dr. Jim Anderson
Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™
Question For You: Do you think that you could ever add a conversation with more than three people to a speech?
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Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!
What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time
With a little luck, I think that we all understand the before we give our next speech we need to do some practice. I mean, you’ve put in the time to create your speech, you’ve probably jotted down some notes, now it’s time to give it a run through in order to make sure that it all works and you can show your audience the importance of public speaking. However, this is where things can get a bit tricky. Just exactly how much time should you allocate to this practice thing? For that matter, just exactly what should you be doing when you practice? What do speakers have to do in order to be prepared to deliver a great speech?