Man, I have conflicting feelings about this post. This entire approach to speeches is… probably the right choice for someone with typical public speaking skills, but puts a ceiling on how good it can get.
For comparison, here is my general approach for basically all of my public speaking:
Write the speech/presentation/whatever
Run through it many times mentally in the course of writing, maybe once or twice out loud
As with any good plan, throw it away and then go do what makes sense in the moment (which usually mostly means following the outline and using load-bearing word choices of the written version, but definitely not matching every little detail of the plan)
The whole strategy of “write speech, practice doing that exact speech, then deliver it exactly as practiced” leaves no room to match the audience’s energy on the fly. It rules out most forms of audience interaction as part of the speaking, because real audience interaction introduces the possibility of surprises. When I watch other people use the “follow the plan” style, it feels like it’s not engaging with the audience (because, well, it isn’t).
And entire concept of holding a written script while on-stage would just be complete anathema to engaging speaking, at least the style I usually use. You’re stuck to the podium, so basically half of good public speaking is immediately ruled out; you can’t use most really expressive body language, can’t use space and movement to communicate context switches or move attention flow.
… but the flip side is that the style I usually rely on requires being completely comfortable on stage, and requires a deep understanding of the plan such that one can generalize off-distribution as surprises come up. It would be totally nonviable for lots of people.
I often like to give talks in the improvised way. I think it works a lot less well for the middle-act of a large public Solstice, where you can’t really see the audience and interaction usually doesn’t make much sense. (small solstices are a different game)
One thing I’ve noticed is that when I improvise a solstice speech on the fly… usually it ends up with more words, and the words are mostly filler, and it makes it worse.
The whole strategy of “write speech, practice doing that exact speech, then deliver it exactly as practiced” leaves no room to match the audience’s energy on the fly.
I don’t think this is true. Yes, you can’t ad-lib freely this way, but a lot of why I’m strongly in favor of getting off-book is that you can respond to the audience on the fly; mostly not with your words, but you can emote with body language, move, maybe shift the emphasis. You don’t want to be stuck to your script—that’s the point. This is probably a skill and not one I know how to teach because this part I think I just got right naturally, but I think it does come pretty naturally to most people, when they don’t feel stuck to checking their notes.
Separately, I expect for most people, even ones who are pretty good, heavy practice and polish on a prewritten script will have higher EV than ad-lib. Ad-libbing is higher variance, and you’re almost certainly right that it has a higher ceiling, but the downside is larger than the upside relative to a strategy of preparation and polish. (As well as requiring more skill.)
Man, I have conflicting feelings about this post. This entire approach to speeches is… probably the right choice for someone with typical public speaking skills, but puts a ceiling on how good it can get.
For comparison, here is my general approach for basically all of my public speaking:
Write the speech/presentation/whatever
Run through it many times mentally in the course of writing, maybe once or twice out loud
As with any good plan, throw it away and then go do what makes sense in the moment (which usually mostly means following the outline and using load-bearing word choices of the written version, but definitely not matching every little detail of the plan)
The whole strategy of “write speech, practice doing that exact speech, then deliver it exactly as practiced” leaves no room to match the audience’s energy on the fly. It rules out most forms of audience interaction as part of the speaking, because real audience interaction introduces the possibility of surprises. When I watch other people use the “follow the plan” style, it feels like it’s not engaging with the audience (because, well, it isn’t).
And entire concept of holding a written script while on-stage would just be complete anathema to engaging speaking, at least the style I usually use. You’re stuck to the podium, so basically half of good public speaking is immediately ruled out; you can’t use most really expressive body language, can’t use space and movement to communicate context switches or move attention flow.
… but the flip side is that the style I usually rely on requires being completely comfortable on stage, and requires a deep understanding of the plan such that one can generalize off-distribution as surprises come up. It would be totally nonviable for lots of people.
I often like to give talks in the improvised way. I think it works a lot less well for the middle-act of a large public Solstice, where you can’t really see the audience and interaction usually doesn’t make much sense. (small solstices are a different game)
One thing I’ve noticed is that when I improvise a solstice speech on the fly… usually it ends up with more words, and the words are mostly filler, and it makes it worse.
I don’t think this is true. Yes, you can’t ad-lib freely this way, but a lot of why I’m strongly in favor of getting off-book is that you can respond to the audience on the fly; mostly not with your words, but you can emote with body language, move, maybe shift the emphasis. You don’t want to be stuck to your script—that’s the point. This is probably a skill and not one I know how to teach because this part I think I just got right naturally, but I think it does come pretty naturally to most people, when they don’t feel stuck to checking their notes.
Separately, I expect for most people, even ones who are pretty good, heavy practice and polish on a prewritten script will have higher EV than ad-lib. Ad-libbing is higher variance, and you’re almost certainly right that it has a higher ceiling, but the downside is larger than the upside relative to a strategy of preparation and polish. (As well as requiring more skill.)