How to write a speech people remember

Most speeches that people forget were written as documents. Someone pasted the annual report highlights into a script, added thanks to every partner and handed it to the speaker the night before. Learning how to write a speech starts somewhere else: with the people who will listen.

The Community Tool Box at the University of Kansas, a widely used guide for community and public health work, suggests a short checklist before any presentation: know who your audience will be, know the setting, clarify your objectives and develop an outline.¹ Write the answers down in a few lines. Who is in the room? How long is the slot? Is the speaker opening a conference, launching a report or closing a workshop? What should people think, feel or do when it ends?

If you cannot state the purpose of the speech in one sentence, the audience will not be able to either.

Good speeches follow patterns, and that is a strength, not a weakness. A Toastmasters International magazine guide notes that the best openings and closings follow easy-to-learn patterns, and lists options such as a thought-provoking statement, a startling statistic, a story, an open-ended question or a comparison.² It warns that a joke may be inappropriate unless the rest of the speech is humorous.²

In the conclusion, the same guide advises restating what you said in the introduction, and if you opened with a question, referring to that exact question again.² It also advises against announcing "In conclusion" or "This is the end".² A guest article for the Chartered Management Institute makes a related point: keep the beginning and ending concise, get to the point and save anecdotes, statistics or props for the middle.³

For most organisational speeches, we use a simple shape:

• Opening: one story, fact or question that shows why the topic matters to this audience.
• The point: one sentence that says what you want people to take away.
• Two or three main ideas, each with an example, a person or a figure.
• What happens next: the decision, commitment or action you are asking for.
• Close: return to the opening image or question, then stop.

A reader can slow down, reread a sentence or check a footnote. A listener cannot. Writing for the ear means accepting that every sentence is heard once, at the speaker's pace. Journalism course notes from the University of Kansas sum up the discipline: keep sentences short and simple, use concrete terms the audience will understand, prefer the active voice and present tense, put the subject first, keep the subject and verb together, have only one new idea per sentence, and read the copy out loud.⁴

Sentence length is a useful test. The Australian Government Style Manual recommends an average of 15 words per sentence and no more than 25, and advises breaking longer sentences in two.⁵ It also suggests varying sentence length so the text has rhythm.⁵ Rhythm matters even more in a speech than on the page, because the speaker needs places to breathe and pause.

Numbers need special care. A table of percentages does not survive being read aloud. Choose one figure, round it if accuracy allows, and say what it means in human terms.

Listeners need to know where they are. Signposts such as "There are three things I want to share" or "The second change is harder" do the work that headings do in a report. Repetition, which an editor would cut from a document, helps a listener hold on to the main idea. Repeat your central sentence at least twice, in the same words.

Stories carry ideas further than statistics on their own. A short, true account of one person, one place or one decision gives the audience something to picture. In our own practice, we ask programme teams for examples before we start drafting, and we only use a story with the consent of the people in it. Thank-you lists are necessary at many events, but keep them brief and place them near the start, so the speech does not end on a list of names.

A speech has to sound like the speaker. Listen to how they talk in meetings or interviews, note the phrases they use and avoid words they would never say. Format the script for delivery: large type, short paragraphs and page breaks that fall between ideas, not in the middle of a sentence.

The CMI article suggests a practical tool: a script table with four columns, covering the words of each section in two or three sentences, the cumulative speaking time, the body language and how each part will be delivered, such as pausing after a key point.³ Even a simpler version, with the words on the left and timings and pause marks on the right, helps a busy speaker who sees the text for the first time on the morning of the event.

A memorable speech is one that everyone can follow, including people who are blind, Deaf or hard of hearing, and people listening through interpreters. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative's checklist for accessible events asks speakers to avoid speaking too fast, so that participants and interpreters can keep up, and to pause between topics.⁶ It also asks speakers to say all the information that is on each slide, including text and graphics, though not necessarily word for word.⁶

The same checklist recommends sending slides and other materials in advance to interpreters and captioners, with explanations of acronyms, terms and names, and repeating audience questions into the microphone before answering.⁶ For events in Rwanda, where a speech may move between Kinyarwanda, English and French, an advance copy and a short glossary help interpreters enormously.

The Community Tool Box checklist ends with practice, using notes, preparing for questions and following up after the talk.¹ The Toastmasters guide adds that the introduction and conclusion deserve as much practice as the body.² Ask the speaker to read the full text aloud at least once, ideally to a colleague, and time it.

Rehearsal is also where you edit. Mark every place the speaker stumbles: those sentences are too long or too abstract. If the speech runs over its slot, cut whole sections rather than trimming words everywhere. A speech that finishes a minute early is always better received than one that eats into the next speaker's time.

• Audience, setting and time slot confirmed
• Purpose of the speech written in one sentence
• Opening and closing that mirror each other
• Two or three main ideas, each with an example
• Sentences averaging around 15 words, one idea at a time
• Slide content spoken aloud, not only shown
• Advance copy and glossary sent to interpreters and captioners
• Full rehearsal out loud, timed and trimmed