Speechwriting is like: building a house

This is the third entry of a series examining the value and appropriateness of different analogies to speechwriting.

A fortnight ago, I posed and subsequently tried to answer the question of whether speechwriting is anything like following a recipe (spoiler: not really, at least not in any way that’s interesting). A week before that, I pondered if speechwriting was anything like sculpture (spoiler: yes! At least in the abstract).

Today, I ask: is speechwriting anything like building a house? Put another way, is the experience of being a speechwriter comparable to the lead builder on-site?

Thrillingly, I’ll start with the same kind of caveat which I led with on the recipe post: I don’t know anything about building a house. Therefore I will use the most simplified model of house-building imaginable. Will that fatally undermine the value of what is about to follow? Let’s hope not.

I’m going to present a highly stylised version of how a house is built and then compare each of these stages to how one develops a speech. Let’s get into it.

The very first step is most likely meeting with the developer or owner. Compare this to a first meeting with the client – you’re feeling each other out and forming first impressions.

After that, you’ll make a building plan in consultation with key stakeholders. That’s directly comparable to the speech plan: it is your blueprint for how the project will be managed.

The next step after that is seeking permission from the relevant authority to actually build the house. Let’s compare that to, slightly imperfectly, to getting the job.

Next, you’ll begin procuring the building materials – the steel, the timber, the concrete. This sounds a lot like learning and absorbing the key messages that the speaker wants to communicate. Both are they key building blocks of each project.

You’re now ready to begin pouring the foundations. That’s developing the thesis – giving the speech a solid base on which everything else is built.

From there, you can start building the structure, brick-by-brick and beam-by-beam. This is the substantive content of the speech. The words, in other words.

Next is the floors. I’d compare these to the facts and research. They are necessary, but they’re by no means sufficient. A speech with only facts is just like a house without any furniture: technically possible but highly impractical and very boring.

You’re now ready to connect the utilities. I’d say this is like building the transitions between sections of the speech, which is often a discrete task done independently of writing the first draft.

Unless I’ve forgotten something important, you’ve now got something which looks mostly like a finished house. But it’s still quite bland. I think you’re ready to start adding the details – the paint, the appliances, etc. Consider these like the addition of humour and anecdotes to your speech.

If you’re building a house, then hopefully you’re regularly checking in with the people who’ll be living in it. Major speeches will also typically have regular check-ins between writer and client and also approvals (including from other staff), which will hopefully provide you with an opportunity to make any required adjustments before you’ve gone too far down the wrong path.

It’s now down to final details – dotting the Is and crossing the Ts. Painting the picket fence, installing the mailbox, etc. The equivalent part of the speech would be finalising the acknowledgements, formatting the text so that it’s optimised for delivery (bigger font, spacing that more closely resembles speech, etc).

You’ve built a house and the keys are ready to be handed over to its proud owners. At the same time, you’ve completed the speech and it’s ready to be handed to the speaker. It doesn’t belong to you anymore – but the truth is that it never did belong to you. 

The only thing obviously missing from my simplified model of house-building which is vital to every speech is that there’s really no obvious process for making revisions as you go. Every keyboard has a backspace button. Knocking down a wall is a bit trickier. If you’re making major revisions to a house halfway through construction, you’re in big trouble.

I really like this analogy: it helps to demystify the speechwriting process, it acknowledges the interaction of different steps of the process, and it recognises the importance of other stakeholders. Just like only the most determined or deranged would consider building a house by themselves, speeches are not written by one person. This is true in the basic sense of the giver of a speech usually being different to the writer of a speech. But it is also true in a more meaningful sense: a big speech is a major project which requires the input of many minds. An external or freelance speechwriter will need to borrow wisdom and ideas from other people in that organisation when developing the key messages. They are likely to also contribute data and research. They will probably need others to review and approve the speech. The bigger the speech, the more likely it will be the product of many people.

I think comparing speechwriting to building a house can help people involved with the process, especially on the client side, better understand what needs to happen, and their contribution to the final product.

I think, reader, we have found it: perhaps the ideal analogy to speechwriting. Speechwriting is like building a house. Now, where’s my high-viz vest…