Writing A Speech For Someone Else

Writing a speech for someone else can be hard to do
Writing a speech for someone else can be hard to do
Image Credit: Jimmie Quick

Let’s face it: writing a speech is something that most of us find difficult to do. However, if you want to kick things up a notch, then just imagine how hard it must be to write a speech for someone else? However, that is exactly what will happen to most of us at some point in time. If you find yourself in a situation where you have agreed to create a speech that someone else will end up giving, then you are going to have to understand how to go about doing this difficult task.

How To Write A Speech For Someone Else To Give

The first question that we have to be able to answer when we are considering writing a speech for someone else is just exactly what will we be doing? A speech writer turns what a speaker wants to say into a talk an audience wants to hear. As a speech writer your job is going to be to find a way to build a bridge between the speaker and the audience, so the speaker can share their ideas and personality in a way that will both engage and persuade an audience. If you can find a way to do this correctly, then your speaker will say, “This sounds exactly like me,” and the audience will never knew that you were there.

We have experience in creating speeches for ourselves. When we are creating a speech for someone else it can be very different. What we are going to have to do is to find a way to develop an ear for another speaker’s voice. One way to go about making this happen is to have a dialogue with the speaker and react to their ideas. This is different from when we are writing a speech for ourselves. In this case we are working alone without anyone to respond to. When we are trying to capture a speaker’s voice, we need to listen to them when they’re speaking without a script. Our goal should be to analyze their speaking style and determine if they are more comfortable with stories or statistics, if they prove a point inductively or deductively, and if they are direct or if they go off on tangents. In general, it’s better for use to write simply using short declarative sentences that the speaker can make their own rather than to write in a highly ornamented way that uses words that the speaker may stumble over.

Who we are writing for will matter. We need to understand that there are differences between CEOs and senators. What we need to realize is that the biggest difference is that in politics, speeches are used to develop policy. This contrasts with business where speeches are used to announce policy. In politics, the process of speaking and debating an issue can help shape the resulting law. In business, the policy is often developed internally and then will be announced through a speech. We need to understand that each of these speaker types has different levels of freedom. A member of the U.S. Congress is allows to say almost anything thanks to the “Speech or Debate Clause” in the U.S. Constitution. However, for the CEO of a public company there are times – like right before earnings are announced – when they can’t talk about certain topics that might affect the stock price. As speaker writers, we need to understand that for both types of speakers, the stakes are high; they’re just different. The cost of making mistakes is high for both types of speakers. If a politician says the wrong thing, he could lose an election. If a CEO says the wrong thing, his company’s stock price could fall.

Speeches Have To Tailored To The Speaker

In order to be successful in creating a speech for someone else, we are going to have to understand what the biggest challenges are. Often this can have to do with getting access and handling revisions. In order to capture someone’s voice and their thought process, you will need to spend time with that person. We have to understand that if a speaker is too busy to provide you with access, the speech that you create won’t be successful. Another challenge that you may be facing is when there are many different people weighing in with suggestions and edits to the speech draft. Often in companies there is a battle between executives to shape the company’s position. You can get stuck in the middle of battles like this. On the positive side, a speech can force an organization to be clear about its priorities. Often, your speech becomes the vehicle that helps the organization gain the clarity it needs in order to be successful.

Agreeing to create a speech for someone else means that you are also agreeing to provide them with the speech at a given point in time. How quickly that is can vary from occasion to occasion. When time is tight, you can draw from your past speeches and then move very quickly. Getting started as a speech writer means that you are going to have to prove to people that you can create speeches for them. Potential clients and employers will want to see what you’ve written for others, so you’ll need to build your skills by practicing writing speeches. A great way to get started doing this is to volunteer to help a speaker. In order to become a good speech writer, you need to study how other people have written speeches. You can do this by immersing yourself in the great speeches. This means that you need to read Churchill, Lincoln, Kennedy and King. How did this speaker get the audience’s attention? How did that speaker prove her point in their speech? How did this speaker use a theme to tie things together?

In order to become a successful speech writer you are going to have to learn rhetorical devices like metaphor, alliteration, anaphora, parallelism and triads. These are the classic tools that all speakers have used to engage audiences for centuries, and they really do work. To meet the needs of today’s modern audiences you will have to learn how to write a sound bite that echoes in listeners’ minds. You can listen to a speech by a political leader and then write a short rebuttal speech. Once you’ve been able to build up your skills, you’ll need to volunteer to write speeches for others. A good way to start doing this is to find a local charity that is having an awards program and volunteer to write the remarks or the emcee’s script. Additionally, you can find a local politician who is in sync with your views and volunteer to help write a speech or two.

What All Of This Means For You

Writing speeches is hard work. Writing a speech for someone else is even harder. If you find yourself in a situation where you have agreed to create a speech for someone else you are going to have to realize that this will be different from creating your own speech. Your goal is to be able to create a speech that looks like the person created it themselves. This means that you’ve got some research to do. However, just exactly how does one go about creating a speech for someone else?

When you agree to create a speech for someone you need to understand that you have agreed to create a speech that people will want to hear. In order to write a speech for someone we need to take the time to listen to how they speak so that we can develop an ear for their voice. We will create different types of speeches depending on who we are writing a speech for. If you want to write a speech for someone, you will need to make sure that they are willing to allocate the time to spend with you to allow you to do this. Before you can write a speech for anyone, you are going to have to be able to prove that you can write speeches. Good speech writers study how good speeches are created and use them to guide their own speech creation.

Becoming a writer of speeches for other people will make you very valuable. Everyone knows that creating a speech is hard work and if you can do it for them, you will be sought out. However, you are going to have to do some studying in order to determine the best way to create speeches for other people. If you can master this skill, then you will have become an even better speaker.


– Dr. Jim Anderson Blue Elephant Consulting –
Your Source For Real World Public Speaking Skills™


Question For You: How much time do you think that you have to spend with someone before you can write a speech that sounds like them?


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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

Let’s face it: sometimes we are asked to talk about complicated topics. As though the process of giving a speech was not tough enough, now we have to find a way to explain a complicated topic to our audience in a way that will hold their attention while communicating what we want to tell to them. Clearly this is not going to be an easy thing to do. A great example of a potentially difficult topic to talk about is finance. Anything to do with money is of great interest to our audience. However, if we do a poor job of giving a speech like this we’re going to lose them. What’s the right way to give a speech about money?