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Do you write word-for-word scripts, or just loose collections of keywords? I've never managed to give a good speech while trying to exactly recite a prepared script, I either screwed up or it sounded as if I was just reading it off (vs really talking to the audience). I also struggled to find the current position in the script when looking down. Completely memorizing doesn't work since I just can't.

My best talks (based on the feedback I got) have been based on a few keywords and connecting them with a narrative, live. Free-form storytelling, so to say.




I totally agree. Coming from a teaching background, I'm much more comfortable with working off of a loose framework of bullet points, then filling in the talk with my own anecdotes and narrative.

Still, practicing a few times helps me remember, in a broad symbolic sense, what I'm going to improvise. It's a bit like jazz or improv comedy. You build up a body of material and just draw off of it at the appropriate point, using your bullets or slides or whatever as a "pointer" into your own memory.

I've had to work off of a word-for-word script a few times and it's very hard for exactly the reasons you mention. I remember practicing a speech like this 20 or 30 times because I kept losing my place in a couple spots in the speech whenever I looked up.

It's probably why teleprompters are so popular these days. If you watch the president give a speech, he appears to be looking around, but in fact he generally looks directly at one of two or three transparent teleprompters.




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