I write speeches and help people deliver them. I love the work; it is its own reward. And post-speech client feedback gives me the smug hot-water bottle in the gut feeling you get from a well-cut hedge, a maiden over, or watching your grandchild take his or her first steps.
What happens is this: someone gets in touch because they’re due to give a speech at a wedding, charity event, school speech day, that sort of thing. I call them ‘Important Personal Speeches’. Their first question is, ‘Can we keep this between us?’ Discretion is key to my work, which is why I am writing about it here.
The client proceeds to tell me they were awarded a first in creative writing from the University of East Anglia and are very experienced at public speaking but for this one important occasion and because they’re so busy with other important things, could I give them a little help? A few pointers, ideas, jokes? The secret to writing jokes in speeches – which I’ll share since this is between us – is that you don’t write them. They write themselves. All you have to do is see them. That’s the tricky part.
I meet the client at a discreet location. We chat over coffee. I take notes, go home, do some research, see the humour, find the pathos, write a draft and send it over. The client loves it. We meet again and practice the delivery. I encourage them to step outside their comfort zone – a lectern is not a life raft for example – and get physical. I encourage them to use their hands, but not like a traffic policeman. They say they feel stupid. I show them on camera how they’re quite the opposite. We give the text a final brush-up and rehearsal just before the day itself. The speech is a triumph. The client sends me a thank you note and my modest fee. Job done.
That’s how it’s supposed to go. But if there’s one consistent problem I bump up against it’s the client saying, when they read my text, ‘But I wouldn’t say that.’ I do not reply, ‘Then why did you ask me to write it?’ I will have tried to get a handle on their character and style, just as I did with the hedges and grandchildren for you. But sometimes I do write something they wouldn’t think of, which is what they’re really concerned about.
My cunning solution is to ask the client if they use a cookbook when they entertain at home. They always answer with disarming honesty, although I sometimes wonder if they substitute Ottolenghi for Delia. But that means they’ve paid attention to another of my top tips: never let the truth get in the way. Once I’ve got them where I want them, I ask if they themselves take the credit when their guests rave about their culinary skills. Of course they do. And I’ve proved my point.
But recently I have come up against a new obstacle, and this is where I need your help. Nothing to do with Chat GPT. Chat GPT is artificial. It cannot be genuinely amusing. It cannot see jokes. Besides, anyone who wants to give a boring speech plagiarised by Chat GPT is never going to come to me, so I never encounter it.
No, the problem is you, the friends of the speechmaker. It’s the high season for wedding speeches and I’m crazy busy. I have taken on some people who have written much of the speech themselves. These are the ones who got double firsts in creative writing at the University of East Anglia, or maybe it was a single first in creative non-fiction, whatever that is (it sounds like speechwriting). They present their text with the quivering pride of an obedient spaniel. I read it. I shudder, which is very different to a quiver. My comments are delivered as unbelievably politely as plausibly possible. I make suggestions so humble even Baldrick would tell me to stand up for myself.
And then it comes. ‘I read it to my friends, and they said it was excellent, so I will leave it as it is, thank you.’ I want to scream. I shall not give examples: people talking about themselves not the stars of the day, in-jokes, or worse: in-jokes with a put-down of the other side’s star of the day no one will understand but whoever does should feel mightily upset.
Now could you please, Friends of the Speaker, when my client reads his or her speech to you – true friends speak truth to true friends – remind them: ‘It’s not about you. That joke is embarrassing and certainly not funny. And the bit that you said does not sound like you (and it does, because you just said it) which ‘someone’ suggested, is on the nail. Ask them for more.’
Thanks. Here’s to the bride and groom.
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