Speechwriting is like: following a recipe

This is the second of a series (number still unknown) where I consider analogies to speechwriting.

Last week, I wrote about speechwriting as sculpture – or at least my novice impression of it. Today, I look at a better known activity: following a recipe.

A caveat to begin. I am sure that there is a galaxy of opinions about the worth of following cooking recipes. Some people treat them as a holy text, a blueprint to be interpreted literally. For others, recipes are suggestions, inspirations, loose guardrails within which to improvise. Science vs art are the two most populous schools of thought here. 

I’ll spend some time today considering both interpretations.

Recipe as blueprint
If recipes are blueprints, how valuable is the comparison to speechwriting?

I don’t like this version of the analogy for two reasons.

The first is that it only holds in the most banal of ways. Recipes have steps which are followed. Speeches, like any text, also progress from an introduction all the way to a conclusion.

There is nothing particularly interesting about that. But it is the deeper insight which I take greater issue with.

The analogy that speechwriting is like a blueprint to be rigidly followed makes an implicit assumption that speeches are all alike. That, beyond repeating the form (introduction-body-conclusion) they also hit the same beats. Call for the same amount of seasoning. Lame jokes in the same spots. Tired old rhetorical clichés, applied to diminishing effect.

Perhaps it’s a utopian view, but I truly believe that no two speeches are alike. How can they be? Besides the fundamentals – how often will the same person be delivering the same speech about the same subject to the same audience in the same room on the same day of the week? (Pretty much never.) – it is the intangibles which often separate the great speeches from the merely good. Intangibles such as the composition and energy of the audience, improvised lines, jokes or even just body language, even the mood of the speaker on the day.

Any reasonably experienced speechwriter will know the feeling of your speaker delivering something that diverges from the prepared text. But, beyond the concern and frustration this can cause, eventually you learn that there are some speakers that are great at sizing up a room and understanding what is required in that moment to best achieve their goals. They use their experience to deviate from a speech when they have to. (Of course, sometimes a speaker is undisciplined or unprepared, but that’s a different story…)

Following a recipe step-by-step simply can’t capture that messy complexity.

Recipe as suggestion
Hence why I think the comparison of speechwriting to recipes makes sense only when the recipe in question is much more open to interpretation.

A good cook, especially one who has cooked a dish before, will learn how to be creative. They will make their own adjustments to the recipe. Sometimes, they will spontaneously improvise, because they think that last time they made the meal, it was lacking something. So they’ll add a dash of vinegar (a joke) or turn down the heat a little earlier (deliver a shorter speech).

The same is true for good speechwriters and speakers. Good speechwriters will learn about the habits and preferences of their clients, even if they’ve not previously worked together (there’s a lot you can learn in a first meeting!). Beyond writing for their sensibilities, that means knowing the places the speaker likes to go off-script and improvise. A written speech can accommodate that! Similarly, a speaker will have an innate sense of where they want to freestyle, especially if there’s a section of the prepared speech that perhaps hasn’t quite landed with them. Even novice speakers have a sense of this: whether we’re capable of articulating it or not, we all know about our strengths, weaknesses and habits when speaking.

The bottom line is this: a speech which is delivered ‘straight’ can be good. It can even be brilliant. But if speechwriters and speakers close off the possibility of improvisation and creativity in the writing and delivery process, then they are depriving themselves of an ingredient that can often elevate a speech to being truly memorable.

Even if it is slightly more risky.