Constructing The Speech

The common wisdom about speech writing is to create an opening, body and dynamic close.  That's well and good, until you define those elements; worse, until you try to fit your speech into those components.  At least for me.

A good opening is supposed to be an audience grabber.  Get their attention at the start, then proceed to the body of your speech, where you might explain your opening statement, and then summarize what you have just talked about with a dynamic, call-to-action closing.  Yeah, but how do you do it?  Sounds good in theory, but how do you apply it?

Here's a suggestion.  Start with a story that you can relate to your subject matter, say, "When I was 13 years old, I went to my favorite shoe store where I had seen a pair of shoes I just had to have.  I had saved all my allowance for those shoes, but when I got to the store, they were gone!"  I might start my speech about disappointment with that story, and proceed to define disappointment, explaining its various ramifications and manifestations, closing with a summary of what I had just spoken about, but with a plea for the audience to accept disappointment, and then move on.