Writing a Speech That is Informative and Entertaining

It’s never easy writing a speech and this doesn’t change whether it’s a speech for a seminar, a speech for a class project, or whether it’s a speech for a wedding. In fact, unless you’re a paid speech writer, most people know they are going to be the person who has to get up in front of a crowd of people and deliver the speech that they wrote.
And this is really where most of us get into trouble. When we’re writing a speech, we tend to think in terms of what we would like to say, how we would like to deliver the speech with style, and how we’re going to give the best speech of our lives. In between panicking and worrying about delivering the speech of course.
This makes it almost impossible for us to write a speech that we can give naturally, and in a tone of voice that best suits us. For instance, most people will try very hard to introduce a joke or two when writing a speech, and this can be a good thing – unless you’re the type of person who finds it abnormally hard to get the punch line to sound like a punch line.
This can, and has, happened before, and if you do this on a continual basis, don’t worry – you’re not the only person in the world who can’t tell a joke when under pressure.
And that’s what happens when you’re delivering a speech. When you’re writing a speech, you’re under a different sort of pressure altogether. Here, at this point before you have to get up in front of a crowd of people and speak in a coherent manner, you need to get to your first goal, which is that of actually writing a speech.
Some people find this a laughably easy step and then freeze up when they have to deliver the speech, but for the most part, most of us find that writing a speech is just as difficult as delivering a speech. To be able to do the latter however, the former (writing a speech) is a very necessary part of the job – unless of course you can afford a speech writer to do the job for you.
If you’re stuck doing the honors however, there are a few rules of thumb that you will want to follow, but only one main one. And that one is, be yourself. Be who you are, don’t use big words if you don’t normally do so, and don’t try to be funny if you find this to be difficult in social circumstances.
And most of all when writing a speech, keep it to the point, informative and entertaining. You really don’t want your audience to fall asleep on you for lack of substance in your speech!

By Muna wa Wanjiru