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Writing a powerful speech

AliceL

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Hey y'all! Does anyone have some tips for writing a speech by a powerful character thats both motivational and energizing to the fictional audience and establishes some important world-building exposition?

Currently I'm writing a series about a racing academy and a scene of the main characters in an orientation lecture where a famous guest speaker drops some wisdom on the characters and world-building on the reader. My top priorities are keeping all the relevant info, establishing the school's prestige and the upcoming challenges the characters'll face, and to have it be not boring.

I'm happy to provide an except if my quick explanation sucks haha. Thank you guys!
 

jjdebenedictis

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Writing that resonates with people is what stirs them. The speech-giver needs to be expressing sentiments the audience recognizes but perhaps hasn't put into words themselves. Aim for something that the audience can relate to, and slip the world-building, etc., in as you go.

E.g. "You stand here so proud and so keen, but is your heart not trembling in fear? Fear that you will reach the end of your talents and yet fall short of your goal? I promise you, every successful racer to come out of [academy] has felt that heart-tremor, that terror of failure. But they did not fail. And you won't either, if you keep reaching for the hand up that your instructors extend to you. For you are in the best of hands here -- but you already knew that. After all, taht is why you fought so hard to come here, to [academy]."

In other words, have the speech-giver tap into what the audience is feeling, reinforce their existing beliefs, and fuel their hopes. S/he should be attempting to speak from their hearts, not his/her own.
 

BethS

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In addition to the excellent advice above ^^^, maybe spend some time reading famous speeches and if you can find it, analysis of same. Study up on rhetorical devices, which add power to the words used. And keep it short. Some of it you can potentially summarize or skip over.
 

Albedo

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I think this is one of those things that can trap an author. You can write a character as the world's greatest poet, but if the story calls for samples of that poetry, you're setting yourself up (unless you happen to be a great poet yourself). Ditto making them the world's funniest comedian: you'd better hope you're funny.

I'd try writing the crowd's response to the speech, with maybe an inspiring excerpt or two.
 

Bufty

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Ditto to all above.

Writing a whole speech of that nature is a huge challenge, which I personally would not consider attempting.

It's worth thinking about only giving a few carefully worded extracts that relate to high points of emphasis and listener connection and, as Albedo mentioned, focus on crowd reaction.

Good luck.
 

AliceL

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Oooh! All great advice! I’ll try giving them all a shot and seeing how it goes~
 

AwP_writer

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Another thing important for a powerful speech is HOW you give it. Hand motions, pitch and pace, etc. There is a skill to giving speeches separate from the words spoken.
 

blackcat777

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establishing the school's prestige

I don't know your story's backstory, but I have a real-life story that might be relevant.

I know someone who worked a summer stint at a well-known hospital. There is apparently a statue of its founder there. This person told me that his experience was weird and creepy in the way that every time he passed the statue with a colleague, they would tell him factoids (often in an over-the-top, I-am-not-worthy way) about the founder.

My point is... the subject of something or someone's prestige could also be explored through worldbuilding.
 

OneWhoWrites

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Rhythm and repetition are your friends. Winston Churchill's we shall fight on the beaches is a great example of this:

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender
 

Bufty

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Churchill- oh, to have a fraction of the gift he had for placing the right words in the right order.
 

AliceL

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Rhythm and repetition are your friends. Winston Churchill's we shall fight on the beaches is a great example of this:

We shall go on to the end. We shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender

Thank you for the example! This helps me get a clearer idea of how I want my speech to flow.
 

AliceL

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I don't know your story's backstory, but I have a real-life story that might be relevant.

I know someone who worked a summer stint at a well-known hospital. There is apparently a statue of its founder there. This person told me that his experience was weird and creepy in the way that every time he passed the statue with a colleague, they would tell him factoids (often in an over-the-top, I-am-not-worthy way) about the founder.

My point is... the subject of something or someone's prestige could also be explored through worldbuilding.

Good point. I've put in additional world-building nuggets prior to the speech scene that establish a couple points relating to the school's prestige:
1.) There's an early scene of walking and talking through the school's campus that shows off a huge diversity of expensive facilities and resources available to students. (The medium of this story is a comic so while this probably would suck as a print novel, my aim is to have the panels drawn in a way that focuses on the characters' conversation but each panel has a different background showcasing a different area of the school.)
2.) There's a separate bit of exposition that establishes the hair-trigger academics of the school, expelling students who's scores fall below a certain threshold without hesitation or second chances.

Why I hope to convey in the way of exposition in the speech scene is to establish that some of the most successful/talented figures in that world originated from that school and to emphasize that the school will chew up and spit out students who do not meet the standard of excellence.
 

Enlightened

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I think you might get in trouble with telling instead of showing with such a speech. Readers will know you are info dumping. It may turn some readers off if it is too blatant, reads like a laundry list (infodump), and so forth.

Pacino's speech at the end of Scent of a Woman was extremely emotional. Lots of voice flares, anger, sympathy building for Charlie, and so forth. This was a well done speech; i.e. it retained viewer interest. Alas, Hollywood isn't novel writing.
 

Jack Judah

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This article might help you out a bit. It breaks down the structure of the Gettysburg Address to a few simple steps, analyzes them, and even provides a modern example of how to use the same structure in your own work. It's not meant for fiction, but I still think it might just help you out a bit. Especially since the Gettysburg Address, apart from being one of the world's greatest speeches, is also at least 80% info dump. Done well, nobody notices. Just remember to do what Lincoln did, and tie every fact to a powerful emotion.

https://www.inc.com/alison-davis/to-improve-your-storytelling-skills-use-abraham-lincoln-as-inspiration.html
 

Lakey

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I think you might get in trouble with telling instead of showing with such a speech. Readers will know you are info dumping. It may turn some readers off if it is too blatant, reads like a laundry list (infodump), and so forth.

Pacino's speech at the end of Scent of a Woman was extremely emotional. Lots of voice flares, anger, sympathy building for Charlie, and so forth. This was a well done speech; i.e. it retained viewer interest. Alas, Hollywood isn't novel writing.

And films have other tools to use to manipulate viewer emotions during a big speech - the actor’s delivery, swelling music, slow zoom toward the actor’s face, and so on. And even then, big speeches in Hollywood films often feel ... well, big-speechy.

Every time I read this thread I think of Henry James’s novel The Bostonians, in which one of the three principals is an incredibly stirring orator - good enough to turn the minds of 19th-century New Englanders toward feminism, or at least to bring throngs out to hear her speak even if they think feminism is ridiculous; and good enough to make the other two principals, one man and one woman, both fall ferociously in love with her (their rivalry is the central conflict of the novel). James never transcribes a single one of her speeches, which puzzled me at first but I came to realize what the right approach. He shows you the effects her speeches have on other people but doesn’t try to reproduce that effect on you.

That said, I think it’s a cool idea to study oratory and see if you can write something stirring yourself. It would be a super-fun challenge, and if it doesn’t work out, you still have the James approach to fall back on. Jack Judah’s suggestion of the Gettysburg Address is a great one. I also recommend King Henry’s speech on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt in Shakespeare’s Henry V.
 

Jack Judah

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I also recommend King Henry’s speech on the eve of the Battle of Agincourt in Shakespeare’s Henry V.

I second that motion. "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers." Henry had two good speeches in that play, both worth looking at, since they're very different yet employ the same techniques. His "once more unto the breach" speech outside the walls of Harfleur is less well known, but equally stirring. Shakespeare's always a good guy to consult when it comes to evoking emotion through language.
 

Jack Judah

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I thought it might be helpful to show you an example of a speech within a book. What follows is from a book that won the Pulitzer. Michael Shaara's Civil War novel Killer Angels. This scene takes place only 29 pages into the novel. Chamberlain, commander of the 20th Maine regiment (part of the Union Army), has received a consignment of soldiers who have refused to fight. Their regiment was disbanded and mostly sent home, but they had signed longer contracts, and were forced to stay on with the army. They refused transfer to another regiment, mutinied, and eventually, ended up Chamberlain's problem simply because nobody else wanted them. His orders are explicit. They fight or they get shot. In this scene, moments after getting orders to advance toward the sound of the guns, he addresses them for the first time. It's the eve of the Battle of Gettysburg, and he needs every man he can put in line:

_________________________________________________

They were silent watching him. Chamberlain began to relax. He had made many speeches and he had a gift for it. He did not know what it was, but when he spoke most men stopped to listen. Fanny said it was something in his voice. He hoped it was there now.

"I've been ordered to take you men with me. I've been told if yuo don't come I can shoot you. Well, you know I won't do that. Not Maine men. I won't shoot any man who doesn't want this fight. Maybe someone else will, but I won't. So that's that."

He paused. There was nothing on their faces to lead him.

"Here's the situation. I've been ordered to take you along, and that's what I'm going to do. Under guard if necessary. But you can have your rifles if you want them. The whole Reb army is up the road a'ways waiting for us and this is no time for an argument like this. I tell you: we sure can use you. We're down below half strength and we need you, no doubt of that. But whether you fight or not is up to you. Whether you come along, well, you're coming."

Tom had come up with his horse. Over the heads of the prisoners Chamberlain could see the regiment falling into line out in the flaming road. He took a deep breath.

"Well, I don't want to preach to you. You know who we are and what we're doing here. But if you're going to fight alongside us there's a few things I want you to know."

He bowed his head, not looking at eyes. He folded his hands together.

"This regiment was formed last fall, back in Maine. There were a thousand of us then. There's not three hundred of us now." He glanced up briefly. "But what is left is choice."

He was embarrassed. He spoke very slowly, staring at the ground. "Some of us volunteered to fight for Union. Some came because we were bored at home and this looked like it might be fun. Some came because we were ashamed not to. Many of us came because it was the right thing to do. All of us have seen men die. Most of us never saw a Black man back home. We think on that, too. But freedom. . . It's not just a word. "

He looked up into the sky, over silent faces.

"This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you'll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we're here for something new. I don't. . .this hasn't happened much in the history of the world. We're an army out to set other men free."

He bent down, scratched the black dirt into his fingers. He was beginning to warm to it; the words were beginning to flow. No one in front of him was moving. He said, "This is free ground. All the way from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow. No man is born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by what your father was. Here you can be something. Here's a place to build a home. It isn't the land--there's always more land. It's the idea that we all have value, you and me, we're worth something more than the dirt. I never saw dirt I'd die for, but I'm not asking you to come join us and fight for dirt. What we're all fighting for, in the end, is each other."

Once he started talking he broke right through the embarrassment and there was suddenly no longer a barrier there. The words came out of him in a clear river, he he felt himself silent and suspended in the grove listening to himself speak, and he felt the power in him, the power of his cause. For an instant he could see black castles in the air; he could create centuries of screaming, eons of torture. Then he was back in sunlit Pennsylvania. The bugles were blowing and he was done.

He had nothing else to say. No one moved. He felt the embarrassment return. He was suddenly enormously tired. The faces were staring up at him like white stones. Some heads were down. He said, "Didn't mean to preach. Sorry. But I thought. . . you should know who we are. . .This is the army, but you're free as I can make you. Go ahead and talk for a while. If you want your rifles back for this fight you'll have them and nothing else will be said. If you won't join us you'll come along under guard. When this is over I'll do what I can to see you get fair treatment. Now we have to move out."

He stopped, looked at them. The faces showed nothing. He said slowly, "I think if we lose this fight the war will be over. So if you choose to come with us I'll be personally very grateful. Well. We have to move out."

He turned, left silence behind him. Tom came up with the horse. . .His face was shiny red. "My Lawrence, you sure talk pretty."

-------------------------------------------
All but a few end up joining the 20th after that speech, but Shaara's too deft a writer to leave us with just one view of his theme. Chamberlain later has a conversation with an old, wily Irish sergeant. They've encountered a runaway slave, and are discussing slavery and equality. Chamberlain quotes Shakespeare, saying all men have the same divine spark. They discuss equality and their causes for fighting. Kilrain says he doesn't judge men by race but on an individual basis. What follows is a speech I'll include so that you can compare the techniques Shaara used to bookend and expand his themes without banging them on the nose. Note that Kilrain's talking about something far bigger than "the cause," bigger than the war, yet his thoughts are a natural reaction, even extension, of Chamberlain's earlier speech.

----------------------------------------------

"Colonel, you're a lovely man." He shook his head. "I see at last a great difference between us, and yet I admire ye, lad. You're an idealist, praise be."

Kilrain rubbed his nose, brooding. "The truth is, Colonel, that there's no divine spark, bless you. There's many a man alive no more value than a dead dog. Believe me, when you've seen them hang each other in the old country...Equality? Christ in Heaven. What I'm fighting for is the right to prove I'm a better man than many. Where have you seen this divine spark in operation, Colonel? Where have you noted this magnificent equality?

"The Great White Joker in the Sky dooms us all to stupidity or poverty from birth. No two things on earth are equal or have an equal chance, not a leaf nor a tree. There's many a man worse than me, and some better, but I don't think race or country matters a damn. What matters is justice. 'Tis why I'm here. I'll be treated as I deserve, not as my father deserved. I'm Kilrain, and I God damn all gentlemen. I don't know who me father was and I don't give a damn. There's only one aristocracy, and that's right here - " he tapped his white skull with a thick finger - "and YOU, Colonel laddie, are a member of it and don't even know it. You are damned good at everything I've seen you do, a lovely soldier, an honest man, and you got a good heart on you too, which is rare in clever men.

"Strange thing. I'm not a clever man meself, but I know it when I run across it. The strange and marvelous thing about you, Colonel darlin', is that you believe in mankind, even preachers, whereas when you've got my great experience of the world you will have learned that good men are rare, much rarer than you think.

"The point is that we have a country here where the past cannot keep a good man in chains, and that's the nature of the war. It's the aristocracy I'm after. All that lovely, plumed stinking chivalry. The people who look at you like a piece of filth, a cockroach, ah." His face twitched to stark bitterness. "I tell you, Colonel, we got to win this war.. . What will happen, do you think, if we lose?"
 
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AliceL

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Even though I don't quite have 50 posts wracked up yet would it be allowed to post an excerpt of the speech scene I've written in this thread for opinions and critiques?
 

-Riv-

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Even though I don't quite have 50 posts wracked up yet would it be allowed to post an excerpt of the speech scene I've written in this thread for opinions and critiques?
The place for crits is in the Share Your Work section (password protected: vista), and you'll need fifty posts for that. Once you have your posts, you could post in the appropriate section of SYW and put a link in this thread. If you haven't spent time in SYW, it might be a good idea to browse some of the threads and even do some crits of your own before posting!

All the best,
Riv
 

AliceL

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For me, writing fiction is like acting. Characters are much more vivid if I'm into the part -- "be the character," so to speak. A rousing speech would flow from imagining I'm the captain on the ship's deck trying to motivate the crew in the face of great danger. In taking on the personality of the captain, the speech would be shaped by it. I say play the role, get it out first, then tinker and compare if it doesn't seem up to snuff.