Keeping it simple

Today's Toastmasters was Charlie.  In his opening speech about Being Optimistic, he did something that caught my ears. There was the section where he talked about how we are healthy, at least we're not earthquake victims; we have some wealth, at least we're not on the street.  Well, something along those lines.  Charlie used very simple words, and in a simple but repeating structure that is captivating to the audience.  'We are A, at least we're not B', while A and B are contrasting ideas.  Like a catchy tune, this type of verbal pattern is key to helping the audience remember.  I felt that Charlie could spend even more time fleshing out this section. 

I think one trap that beginners fall into in their speech writing, is not thinking 'out loud' during the writing.  Appropriately, a speech is written to be spoken out loud, like poetry, sonnets, prose, lyrics.  That is why the repeating pattern that Charlie used was so powerful.  Perhaps in a future Chat, I will try to draw closer analogy between poetry writing and speech writing.  An 'essay' approach to the speech writing, on the other hand, has a tendency to lose the audience.  I have to admit, that it is tempting to add variety in the speech:  You shouldn’t use the same words or phrases repeatedly.  Try to express the same thought in a different way.  Use “less common” vocabulary to spice up the sentence.  When possible, use the SAT/GMAT words:  That would surely grab the reader’s attention.  I’m sure we all heard that feedback from our teachers.  I have written many papers with that approach. But there is a big difference between ‘reader’ and ‘listener’.  

Using simple, easy to understand words (manual #4 - How to say it) can vastly improve your speech delivery 100% without additional work on Body Language or Vocal Variety.   If the audience is mostly non-native English speakers, this is even more important.  It is OK to repeat words, even simple words.  especially if it is part of your core message.  Can you imagine if Obama had said "Indeed, we are capable".  Doesn't have quite the same ring as "Yes we can", no matter how many times he repeated it.  And none of us feel that he has a vocabulary problem.