Writing powerful speeches is like making wine. You take those words, and just like grapes, you macerate them until the point where you obtain a pure liquid. That pure liquid is the essence of your writing.
As a result, the speech will most likely become unrecognizable to you without losing its essence. But that is exactly the point you want to reach, because only then will your audience be able to recognize your message and truly listen to it.
It might seem counterproductive, but as long as you still recognize your text too clearly, it will be about you and not about the audience. If you want it to be impactful, you have to place it at their service and use your personal story only to support their story. But first things first.
Why care about your writing if a speech is recited?
A well-written and well-crafted speech, followed by a strong performance, is guaranteed to capture attention—and therefore guaranteed to create impact.
You might say that a speech is first and foremost recited, and you would be right. Rhetoric first existed orally. So did literature. So why care about writing?
It turns out that written language works as an excellent tool to support rhetoric. The writing part of a speech needs to be considered and used as a tool.
Because writing, in this case, is not the art itself. The art is delivering the speech with excellence. Writing your speech allows you to visualize it and therefore perfect it more effectively. Writing your speech may be its birth certificate. It allows you to give a name to your baby, to watch it grow, and to guide it to a certain extent, without forgetting the autonomy of the idea.
This is a whole other debate, and I have written an entire article about it in Portuguese: Como escrever um livro em 3 meses, if you are interested.
What’s important while writing powerful speeches?
I mentioned many things above, including processing your text like grapes in order to obtain wine. For me, this is indeed the most effective way to reach the essence of a speech—or of any text you may be dealing with, for that matter.
Please bear in mind that the writing does not have to be perfect. You, as an orator, need to find your own personal balance between performance, literature, and rhetoric.
While writing a speech, you need to understand that this is your way of visualizing your ideas, of making them concrete by laying them on paper and by unraveling them.
How to give life to written words
Your notebook works as a great visualization board to support your ideas. But it is by enunciating them that they become alive.
Just like the ancient idea of breathing life into inanimate things, you give life to your words by breathing them into existence. Using your lungs and your voice, you breathe them into the audience. One of the ways to give words existence is to use your powerful voice.
By combining your spoken words with your written words, you will clearly be able to grasp the true core of your speech.
One of the things I do myself before giving a speech is rehearsing it without reading my notes, relying solely on the idea. It is my belief that the idea will speak through me. As soon as I hear it speak, I immediately capture it on paper, because paper helps me visualize the idea.
Writing powerful speeches: Final Thoughts
A few points to wrap up what this article is about:
Combine written and spoken words in order to listen to the idea. Do not be mistaken: ideas live just like you and me, and they seek manifestation through people. Invest time in writing your speech first. It does not have to be perfect, but it does need to support you in visualizing your thoughts and the idea. Once you have written it, start processing your speech by cutting here and there, changing things, until it becomes unrecognizable to you. But pay close attention so that the speech does not lose its essence.
Begin right now. Write down on the comments what are your ideas for your next speech.
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Disclaimer: Article written by me in English. Corrected with AI.