To Outline or Not Outline? That is the Question of the Day

I believe that corporate writing can be just as creative as any other form of what is labeled creative non-fiction. Nowhere more so than in the writing speeches.
I find writing an outline to a speech is very counter-intuitive to the creative process.

The act of speech writing should be fluid and organic. It is not a paint-by-numbers fill-in-the blanks game.

Now not for a minute am I suggesting that speeches shouldn't have some structure. Wandering all over the map in an aimless search for a point is a disaster. Some politicians - Bill Clinton comes to mind - can pull it off because they have a style of delivery - a stage persona if you will - that allows them to give free-form speeches.

But most of our clients are not natural performers on stage. They need to lean on the words you give them. So yes - I think speeches should have a beginning,middle and end - and some logic. You don't want audiences leaving, scratching their heads asking themselves if they have just needlessly sacrificed 20 minutes of their lives.

It is just that outlines never get me where I want to go. Although of course I have the key messages pinned up on my computer monitor to make sure I stay in the agreed upon ball park.

That said - I know some of my colleagues disagree with me on this point.

So what do you do? Do you write outlines first? Are you forced into the outlines provided by your clients? Or do you find outlines a help in your creative process?

I would love to hear your comments. Just click here. Just think. You need an excuse to procrastinate and I have just given you one.

Whose Voice Is It Anyway?

Of all the questions I am asked about freelance speech writing, the first is how do I write in the voice of so many different clients?
Well, actually it's really the third question I get. The first two things the curious ask are: "How much do you get paid?" Usually followed by "did you write that piece of crap by [and here they fill in the name of the politician they hate the most]? But I digress....

The short answer to the question of how I write in other people's voices is I don't even try. I don't mean it to be flippant, but to a large extent it is true.

First - I have clients across Canada and into the US. Many I will never meet. Some I will never get to talk to. There are still others who don't even know that I am their speech writer for a particular event - I am hired by a Director of Communications who I will talk to on the phone.

So to a large extent I am a nameless faceless wordsmith working in total anonymity giving real meaning to the term "backroom boy."

But such is life if you want to make a living as a freelance speechwriter.

All that said, I wonder if we can ever find the "authentic" voice of our clients. We scarcely know our own. I really write in my own voice. In a language that I hope is simple - with a text that most anyone can deliver. With sentences that are declarative and varied in length - but never overly long or in the passive voice.

It's not that long complex sentences can never be used - it is just that few speakers can deliver them.

Above all I try to write in a style that is engaging - with text full of stories that speak to the human condition.

I do tape record all the interviews I do get. For two reasons. The first is that I might be running six projects concurrently, and may not get back to any one speech until weeks after the initial and only interview. I don't transcribe the tapes but I do listen to them to a least to refresh my memory on his/her natural sound. And usually there is a story or two on the tape. Those I do transcribe word for word because stories "as told by" gets you closest to your client's voice because they tend to tell them unedited by "corporate speak."

What do you think? How do you capture the voices of your clients?