14.4 Delivery Modes

If you watched Ben Carpenter’s wedding speech, mentioned in the previous chapter, you may have noticed an extraordinary thing: Ben has nothing in front of him through the entire nine-minute speech, even the parts that are in Korean. That’s almost as daring as spending a year learning a new language so you can talk to your in-laws. Was he making it up as he went along? It’s so well-structured that it doesn’t seem so. Did he memorize the whole thing? I’m certain he memorized the part in Korean, but nine minutes is a lot to memorize…and clearly some of it is responding to the situation, such as the boy who walks back into the room near the beginning. How did Ben do that, and why?

There are four general approaches you can take to delivering a speech, each with their own challenges.

1. Manuscript style means writing out every word of the speech, and reading it to the audience.
2. A memorized speech is written out word for word, but instead of reading it, the speaker goes through the whole speech from memory. This is what actors in most movies and plays have to do (the exception being “improv” scenes).
3. Extemporaneous style means coming up with a structure for the speech and deciding ahead of time what the main points will be, but making up the phrasing as you go along
4. Impromptu style means making up the whole speech on the fly, without any preparation.

Manuscript style has the advantage of meticulous word-smithing; you (or your speech writer) have figured out exactly how to say everything, and there is no risk of fumbling for words, working to figure out the most effective phrasing, or your mind going blank. If it is a challenge for you to speak fluently without a script, or if there is a high risk of getting in trouble by saying something not perfectly right, this is the best option. It’s the preferred choice of world leaders and political candidates, celebrities issuing apologies, and company spokespeople reporting something to the public with potential legal consequences. On the other hand, the drawbacks are many:

• If you’re reading from paper or an electronic screen, your eye contact with the audience will be poor, which can create a bad impression. Some teachers recommend using 3”x5” cards, but it’s hard to fit every word of a speech on those small cards, you may end up squinting at them, and if you drop them it can be catastrophic. Full sheets of paper are another option, and allow for bigger font sizes, but can also be dropped. Obviously there’s a tradeoff between number of pages and font size: the bigger the type, the more pages will be required and vice versa. If you read a speech from paper sheets, even if the font size is on the smaller side, I strongly recommend you write the page numbers in very large dark print, to minimize the risk of mixing up pages. In terms of technological options, reading from a cell phone is, in my opinion, a terrible choice that inevitably seems to end up with a lot of squinting, scrolling, and technical glitches. Another technical solution is teleprompters, if they’re available. They work by projecting the script up onto an angled pane of glass, allowing the speaker to read the words as they scroll by, but the audience just sees clear glass. This creates the illusion that the speaker is looking at the audience, especially if there are multiple teleprompters spread throughout the audience. Another option is to put the entire speech into PowerPoint slides, allowing the audience to read along; but this can require an overwhelming number of text-heavy slides, be deadly in terms of keeping the audience’s attention, and sometimes make audience members wonder why they can’t just read the slides on their own.
• With any scripted speech, regardless of the technology used, the audience doesn’t know if the speech was written by someone else (e.g., a speechwriter, publicist, or lawyer). This can severely undermine the impression that the speaker is being sincere, and raise questions about their credibility. This can be a big problem in personal or corporate apologies, for example, where there is a world of difference between “speaking from the heart” and reading something you were forced to read.
• As I noted in the Listening chapter (Chapter 4), written language is quite different from spoken language, which makes it more difficult for audiences to listen to. Written language is also more difficult for a speaker to say, which some speakers don’t realize until they try to read a written speech out loud. Some speechwriters just treat this as the listener’s problem, while more considerate ones will read the speech aloud once or twice to identify which parts are difficult to read, and change the language to a more easily spoken style.
• With manuscript style, you can’t adapt on the fly, or respond to what is going on in the room. This removes an element of spontaneity that might have enhanced the speech. How important is spontaneity? It depends on many factors, of course, but think about why Saturday Night Live has been running for 50 years: how much is because of the “Live” factor?
• If anything goes wrong (the teleprompter fails, your phone battery runs out, or you drop your notes), the train derails. (See the “Be Prepared” section above). A wise speaker should have a backup of some kind, or be prepared to switch to one of the other three delivery modes instead.

Memorization is the most difficult choice, at least for modern audiences. The Ancient Greeks were very good at it, though, and came up with useful techniques (SEE BOX 14.4). Actors can memorize thousands of lines for a three-hour Shakespeare play, so it is possible to memorize even lengthy speeches. You can maintain eye contact with your audience, retain the advantages of having all the wording worked out in advance, and not worry about dropping paper or having technology fail you. But it’s hard, and the risk is obvious: what if it’s your memory that fails you instead of a teleprompter? It can happen, especially when there’s more adrenaline in your system than there was when you were practicing alone.

On the other end of the scale is impromptu speeches, where the speaker makes it up as they go along. These can be fun and lively, demonstrate credibility, and be engaging for the audience. The art of acting is to a large degree about making scripted speeches sound impromptu. Some people say that the best part of a stand-up comedy is seeing how the comedian responds to hecklers, since those impromptu responses show the comedian’s true talent (and proves they aren’t just reciting jokes purchased from others) — but one sometimes wonders if even the heckling is rehearsed, since it is such high risk. Impromptu speeches, short or long, are difficult to pull off and require a lot of quick thinking. The likelihood of a lot of hemming and hawing, backtracking, and disjointed thoughts is high, and the only real way to get beyond that is an awful lot of practice.

That brings us to extemporaneous style, which is the preferred style of many public speaking teachers. It involves carefully constructing the structure of the speech, but not the actual wording. It leads to a more natural speaking style, requires you to be engaged and thinking, and allows for flexibility and eye contact. The risk of “derailment” is low: if you veer off the road for whatever reason, it’s easy to get back on. Yes, there is still risk that you’ll have to struggle to figure out how to say things, but the payoff is worth it. And it can be mixed with other styles; there may be parts you’ve memorized, and sentences that are carefully worded, but most of the speech will be in “skeleton form.”

How can you capture this structure for your speech? By using the same methods already mentioned: 3”x5” cards, full-page notes, or PowerPoint. If you opt for 8-½”x11” paper, keep it to a single page; if you use PowerPoint, be sure to limit the number of lines on each slide and the number of slides overall (see guidelines below). You can start by writing out the speech in full and then creating a skeleton outline from it, or start with the outline itself.

The most important principle is to practice, practice, practice your speech from the skeletal outline. The more you practice, the better the extemporaneous style works, and the more you get the benefits of audience connection without the risk of being at a loss for words. You may even find that you can memorize the structure (using one of the techniques from Box 14.1), so you don’t need any notes — which I think is what that groom did.