There are times when it makes sense to write out what you want to say. It helps clarify your thinking and helps you find the most effective way to make a point. I particularly like using a script for the first and last minute of your presentation. At the beginning, a script gets you into your speech when you are most uncomfortable and immediately build a perception of yourself as a polished and confident speaker. At the end, a script helps you close off concisely and unambiguously.
In between, I don't recommend using a complete script for most people in most situations. Attendees can spot someone reading a script a mile away. Unless the script is REALLY well written and you are REALLY well-trained in vocal acting, you are most likely to bore your audience and make them wish they had your notes to read for themselves instead of listening to you recite the words verbatim. They want you to speak TO them, to communicate WITH them. They didn't show up to a live session in order to be greeted with a "books on tape" narration.
But let's assume you feel the need for a script. Maybe just for one section of your presentation that has to be spot-on. Or maybe you have to write for someone else acting as presenter. What can you do to help improve the quality of the presentation script?
One of the best, most value-packed summaries of writing for the ears versus writing for the eyes is a short column that John Coleman wrote in 2014 for the Harvard Business Review. I urge you to follow the link and read "A Speech Is Not an Essay." Mr. Coleman includes practical tips with supporting research citations. I'm not going to rehash his points here… His article is short enough to read on its own, and he explains things clearly and eloquently.
But I will attempt to supplement Mr. Coleman's suggestions with a few specifics to watch out for in your webinar scripts.
1) Parentheses. If you have parentheses in your script, you aren't writing for the ears. People cannot hear punctuation (Victor Borge aside). Rewrite the phrase using words to connect the subordinate concept to the primary concept in the sentence.
2) No mention of the audience. Most business webinar scripts ignore the audience. They are written in the abstract: "This is a fact. This is another fact." -- It doesn't matter whether someone is listening or not. If you don't see direct references to your listeners, with plenty of "you" and "your" pronouns, you have a bad script.
3) Long sentences. Make a point. Then make another point. Introduce a fact. Then say something about the fact. At the end of a sentence, the audience must remember how it started. If you review your script and find yourself going back to re-read the beginning of a sentence, that sentence needs rewriting.
4) Lots of numbers. You can present a slide with a chart, a table, or a list of statistics that support something you are communicating. Your script should not concentrate on what the numbers ARE. Your script needs to say something ABOUT the numbers. What they mean, why they are important, how they impact the listener. Nobody can remember a bunch of numbers recited in a narration. If the numbers are important as reference information for later, provide them in a reference document. Saying them in your speech is not just ineffective, it's counterproductive.
5) Overflowing the slide notes area. If you find that your script notes don't fit in the notes area of your PowerPoint slide or you have to use a teeny font to fit them, you should probably break the slide and your script into more pieces. A webinar needs repeated visual changes to keep refocusing the audience's attention on the materials. If you stay on one slide for 5-10 minutes, attendees lose interest and start multitasking. I try to change slides roughly once a minute on average. According to Mr. Coleman, that is a mere 130 words of script per slide.
Let's close out with a practical example. Here is a short monologue from the movie "Malice." The screenplay was written by Aaron Sorkin and Scott Frank. The character's goals are to be extremely persuasive in a short speech. The writers know that there is not much in the way of visual dynamics in the scene (even though the director includes a few quick reaction shots to break things up). I might even suggest listening without looking at the video. Is the writing effective for use in an oral presentation? (We'll leave aside the question of agreeing or disagreeing with the character's opinion.)
Here is the speech, written out:
The question is, “Do I have a God complex?” Which makes me wonder if this… lawyer, has any idea as to the kind of grades one has to receive in college, to be accepted to a top medical school? Or if you have the vaguest clue about how talented someone must be to lead a surgical team? I have an M.D. from Harvard. I am board certified in cardiothoracic medicine and trauma surgery. I have been awarded citations from seven different medical boards in New England and I am never, ever sick at sea. So I ask you; when someone goes into that chapel and they fall on their knees and they pray to God that their wife doesn’t miscarry or that their daughter doesn’t bleed to death or that their mother doesn’t suffer acute neural trauma from postoperative shock, who do you think they’re praying to? Now you go ahead and read your bible - Dennis. And you go to your church and with any luck you might even win the annual raffle. But if you’re looking for God, he was in operating room number two, on November 17th, and he doesn’t like being second guessed. You ask me if I have a God complex? Let me tell you something: I am God.
211 words, taking a minute and 32 seconds… Almost exactly what Coleman's word/time calculator predicts, and well within my timing guidelines for making a single, contained point. The next thing Alec Baldwin says would need to be on another slide!
Almost all the sentences are short. Easy to follow. The one long sentence in the middle is separated into three easily followed "case study" examples that can be understood without any statistics. The speaker is not being academic, but is speaking directly TO his listener, asking rhetorical questions and even addressing one of the people in the room by name.
I'll leave Alec Baldwin's delivery of the lines as a topic for another post. Having a well-written script is one part of the battle. Studying it, internalizing it, and presenting it in the moment as if it were your spontaneous thoughts is the second half of the battle and is just as critical to your webinar success.
