Of all the writing assignments freelance and staff writers are asked to take on, speech writing can be the most complex, the most interesting, the most intense, and the most enjoyable form of corporate assignment going.
After all, we get to write on all sorts of topics. We get to put words in peoples’ mouths. We get to help in articulating government or corporate policy. Or help launch a new product. And by the time we are sick of the subject it is finished.
Not that there isn’t a down side. By definition the deadlines are tight, access to the speaker almost always minimal, and even though our brilliant words might hit the 11 o’clock news we can’t take credit for them.
For the in-house speech writer there is an added complication. Most have many other communication tasks on their plates other than speech writing. Let’s say it takes 20 hours to write an important keynote speech for a CEO. I know very few public affairs/communications employees who can drop everything for three days and devote all hours in the day to this one activity. So it gets spread out over time - half an hour here, half a day there and - fingers crossed - a coherent speech comes out at the other end.
For the freelance writer it’s a similar dilemma. If you have a medium full plate of non-speech assignments on your hands, you pretty much have to drop everything if you are taking on an urgent speech. And they are almost all urgent. What do you do?
So when someone calls and says “We need a speech” and you don’t know where or how to start, this online speech writing course might just be the ticket.
Next session: September 15-October 30, 2008. Full course description and sign up/registration can be found here.
August 17th, 2008
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