Take your skills as a speechwriter to a new level.

This practical training day introduces a systematic approach to speechwriting.

We’ll look at how to:

• formulate striking key messages;
• structure a speech as an engaging performance;
• use rhetorical devices to give our language flair;
• make our ideas more memorable;
• adjust the text of the speech to the delivery style of the speaker; and
• help our speeches survive poor delivery.

We’ll also explore how to manage speakers in the context of political, corporate and academic realities, and how to survive with our professionalism and self-esteem intact.

We shall be working throughout with real speeches, as many as possible submitted by participants themselves.

The day will end with your speech being read out by an invited guest who will evaluate what it's like to deliver your work.

This course is limited to six delegates.

Who is this workshop aimed at?

The workshop is aimed at people who are writing speeches for executives within organisations, who want to learn new techniques and to get new strategies to overcome the challenges they face.

The Programme

Introduction and objectives

• The challenges of speechwriting (and how to meet them)
• Sources of inspiration
• Five-dimensional speechwriting

Formulating a message

• Understanding the kairos
• Three modes of appeal
• Pulling focus: subject, audience, objective, topic, message
• The elements of microstyle (with thanks to Christopher Johnson)

Creating a structure

• Constructing a performance
• Four modes of discourse (and how to use them)
• Patterning information

Developing our style

• Writing for speaking (and why it’s not like writing for reading)
• Sentence structure and sequencing
• Words, words, words: secrets of vocabulary management
• Tropes and schemes (and understanding the difference)

Making it stick: weaving the magic of memory

• Appealing to the senses
• Building credibility into the text
• The uses and abuses of narrative

Using technology

• Microphones, autocues and other devices
• Death by PowerPoint (and how to avoid it)

Practical exercises

Throughout the course, participants practise preparing, editing and delivering speeches and parts of speeches.

Action session

Delegates identify actions they will take as a result of attending the course.

What you will learn and leave with:

• A better understanding of what makes an effective speech
• Techniques for writing better speeches
• Tips for managing your speakers
• Ways to find persuasive stories
• New contacts, ideas and perspectives on the trade

The Trainer