Visualizing a speech

In my years of being a Toastmaster, I have never once used notes in giving speeches.

I have written out speeches ahead of time to practice, but when I get up to speak
I leave notes behind. It does help that I have a good memory and have done plenty
of memorized presentations in the past - Shakespeare in high school and college
memorized passages in church as a child, etc - but also how I build my speeches.
And how I visualize them.

For me, a speech is like a room. It has a floor, a ceiling, and walls.

The flooring is the introduction of your speech, both the Toastmaster-read introduction
and the first spoken paragraph of your speech.
They set the stage for what is to come. They tell the audience where you are coming from
and hint at where you are going - the ceiling.

The ceiling is your goal - the point or points you want to make by giving the speech.
You need to have that firmly in mind. If you don’t you will get off track
and your audience will get confused. And instead of a nice neat room,
you will have just a mass of lumber.

The structure of the speech is composed of the walls, 3 or 4 main points
that support the ceiling and are grounded on the floor. Having just 3 or 4 main points
helps you focus on the message you want to communicate and helps the audience
follow as you lead them to your conclusion. You can subdivide each point,
but keep your focus so that the ceiling will remain strong.

Once you have created that basic structure you can go about decorating,
adding illustrative details. Explore the “room” and see what it can contain.
As you write, rewrite, and rehearse the speech make sure that all you “see”
in the room fits and is the best use of the space.

Make sure you time the speech so that you will know the ‘dimensions’ of the room
because you will need to trim and sometimes it can be hard to cut out words
to make the time fit.

We all can fall in love with our words and phrases, and it is easy to exceed
the time limits that speeches entail. Filler words, “helping”phrases,
and just plain wordiness - using many words when one or two will do -
are easy to spot and remove.

Off topic sentences are harder. And some of the hardest are very creative
bits of writing/speaking that we are proud of, but which don’t fit into this
particular speech. They can be fragments that would be very supportive of
another point, but don’t fit here.

The words of a speech that illustrate a point are like the furniture in the room.
In any room, you have certain furniture that would be suitable but not others. It doesn’t matter how well made it is you only have items in the room that fit i
ts purpose.
The same thing applies to a speech. You may have been very creative
and it sounds great,but if it does not fit the room you must remove it.
You may have created a very beautiful, solid and functional pool table,
but if you are creating a restaurant dining room - it does not fit.
Save it for your next speech - the pool hall. Likewise, a “bed” would not fit either.
Don’t fall in love with your words.

And don’t forget that any good room needs doors or windows.
There needs to be an opportunity for people to leave and take the message
with them. Your speech should call for action and provide guidance for listeners
to respond. Otherwise, all you have is an echo chamber,

This helps me go without notes and still stay focused so that the audience
understands and benefits. I hope this will help you as you tell your own stories.
I delivered a speech on this a while back and will share others as we continue
this journey together.

Cheers