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Writing and Speaking

paulgraham.com

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Re: Writing and Speaking

#151

Post by Spearchucker »

jonnathanson wrote: post #148
edw519 wrote: post #58

I dunno, I think the definition of "good speaker" really depends on the audience. I probably speak for many here as an introverted, deeply introspective outlier. I have seen many great speakers in person (Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Deepak Chopra, Steven Covey) and almost always come away underwhelmed. I struggle to understand why the audience gets so worked up with so little content transferred. I have trouble with co…

"I dunno, I think the definition of "good speaker" really depends on the audience." I agree with most of your post. But I'd actually invert that relationship. A good speaker is someone who understands his audience, so that he can maximize both his connection to it and his impact upon it. The intent of speaking, and the intent of writing, aren't altogether different. In either case, a typical goal is to convey informa…

Understanding the audience, as you suggest, is not, in my experience, what makes for a good speaker.

I've spoken in front of audiences - large and small - more times than I can remember. Some of my talks tanked. Badly.

Most go really, really well. And the difference between the tankers and the good ones is one thing - a belief in what I'm saying.

It can (and often has been) an openly hostile audience (I've had people unexpectedly sit in just because I was "the guy from Microsoft", and that presented them with a rare opportunity to heckle). And most times I win those over as easily as the ones that are open to what I have to say to begin with.

And it's quite simply that when you believe in your message, when you just know you're right/your approach is right/your message has integrity, that you appear authentic.

And authenticity is very compelling, as a speaker.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#152

Post by drostie »

pg wrote: post #142
ThomPete wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Derrida thought a whole lot about the spoken word vs. writing. According to logocentrist theory, speech is the original signifier of meaning, and the written word is derived from the spoken word. The written word is thus a representation of the spoken word. Logocentrism asserts that language originates as a process of thought that produces speech, and it asserts that speech produces writing. http://www.angelfire.com/…

I agree with that. Good writing should sound like spoken language. One of the classic mistakes of beginning writers is to use excessively formal diction, e.g. to use connectives like "furthermore" that they'd never use when speaking.

Well, it depends what you're writing. One of the horrible things about early fiction is that the writers usually insert their own interpretations of how characters talk -- including stuttering and "ums" and whatnot. Thankfully much of this is wasted on fanfic, where you know what the author was trying to emulate -- but usually it's a distraction. Great characters can get by without habits written into their dialogue.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#153

Post by jonnathanson »

Spearchucker wrote: post #151
jonnathanson wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I dunno, I think the definition of "good speaker" really depends on the audience." I agree with most of your post. But I'd actually invert that relationship. A good speaker is someone who understands his audience, so that he can maximize both his connection to it and his impact upon it. The intent of speaking, and the intent of writing, aren't altogether different. In either case, a typical goal is to convey informa…

Understanding the audience, as you suggest, is not, in my experience, what makes for a good speaker. I've spoken in front of audiences - large and small - more times than I can remember. Some of my talks tanked. Badly. Most go really, really well. And the difference between the tankers and the good ones is one thing - a belief in what I'm saying. It can (and often has been) an openly hostile audience (I've had people…

What you're saying and what I'm saying are not mutually exclusive. Authenticity should always be a goal. Belief in one's own words, likewise, is a solid precondition to success. All of these things are factors in success, as is knowing the audience. It's possible to make a successful speech without achieving any or all of these factors, but achieving them makes success much more likely. It makes the delivery of the speech less of a dice roll.

I didn't mean to suggest a reductionism in favor of one factor over all others; I was simply replying to a statement in the grandparent comment about the relationship between audience and speaker. (Also, I'm not suggesting that one should pander to his audience).

Re: Writing and Speaking

#155

Post by Spearchucker »

jonnathanson wrote: post #153
Spearchucker wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Understanding the audience, as you suggest, is not, in my experience, what makes for a good speaker. I've spoken in front of audiences - large and small - more times than I can remember. Some of my talks tanked. Badly. Most go really, really well. And the difference between the tankers and the good ones is one thing - a belief in what I'm saying. It can (and often has been) an openly hostile audience (I've had people…

What you're saying and what I'm saying are not mutually exclusive. Authenticity should always be a goal. Belief in one's own words, likewise, is a solid precondition to success. All of these things are factors in success, as is knowing the audience. It's possible to make a successful speech without achieving any or all of these factors, but achieving them makes success much more likely. It makes the delivery of the s…

That's fair enough.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#156

Post by 6ren »

The arguments here signify the content of the essay - if it contained only joke and anecdote, it would be impossible to dispute.

To add my own dispute, content-free writing is possible. Consider some self-help books; and Ed Catmull described most business books as "content-free" (in his Stanford Business School talk).

Most public speaking is entertainment - like TV news.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#157

Post by mikeleeorg »

This made me think of a presentation I recently gave. The first version of my talk was packed full of information that was relevant to my audience. Some advisors encouraged me to reduce the content and increase the emotional appeal. In the end, my presentation contained 25% content and 75% rhetoric designed to make an emotional connection.

And they were totally right. The audience loved it.

(Arguably, the information I originally packed into it would have been overwhelming to this audience.)

In contrast, I heard a talk from pg. It was 100% content. And I loved it.

I think it ultimately depends on the audience. Most people probably unconsciously prefer an emotional connection to a talk, though there are exceptions. Some of the most lauded talks on TED make a strong emotional connection while still imparting some important information, though it's arguably more emotion than content.

And come to think of it, had I gotten pg's talk in written form, I would have gotten just as much out of it.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#158

Post by mikeleeorg »

neilk wrote: post #44

pg, I may be alone in this, but I think your talks, even when read out verbatim, have an extra dimension that is missing in your essays. When you speak, your curiosity and sense of humor come through strongly. You like to use writing to explore radical new ideas, and to this end, you refine your essays to have as few qualifications as possible. On the page it sometimes comes off as arrogant. But with your voice, I ca…

> When you speak, your curiosity and sense of humor come through strongly.

Now that you say that, I gotta agree. Hearing him talk, I had no idea he used so many colorful metaphors and analogies. His essays don't quite have the color his talks have.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#159

Post by jpeterson »

ahoyhere wrote: post #85

The whole thesis behind this essay is overly facile. A person who is a bad public speaker -- and admits it -- propounding on The Meaning of Public Speaking, its worth, and comparing it to acting (when he presumably is not, and has never been, an actor), and making all sorts of broad sweeping statements which seem to make sense in the moment the sentence passes into your brain but which, if examined for a moment, do n…

I sense a certain amount of enmity from your pg-related posts here and your tweets.

Re: Writing and Speaking

#160

Post by mechanical_fish »

pg wrote: post #140
jonstjohn wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I heard PG speak at PyCon last weekend, I hardly even noticed any 'ums' - in fact, it wasn't until I saw it raised on HN that I remembered it. I was thoroughly engaged in his ideas, and my mind likely used those pauses to process what he was saying.

The weird thing is, I've now started to notice the ums myself. I was talking to the founders at the last tuesday dinner and suddenly started catching myself every time I did it. I found that if I made a conscious effort to, I could suppress them. But when I was talking about something interesting, I'd forget and start umming again.

I believe I've heard of linguistic studies which demonstrate that the use of "filler" words like um is, in part, a form of "code switching". For example, when teenagers talk to their peers, or to people they don't particularly respect, their speech will tend to be peppered with ums and you knows and likes [1], as in: "I'd, um, you know, prefer to watch something, like, interesting.". But when talking to respected elders, or working as waitstaff in a restaurant, the same people suddenly prove capable of uttering perfectly fine sentences in formal English. The "reversion" to the broken-up speech pattern is not necessarily because the speakers are thinking too hard, or drinking too hard, and it's certainly not because they don't know how to speak: It's often a subconscious but deliberate technique for setting an informal mood.

Some languages actually have a syntactically-distinct informal mode; English has the word um.

Why do I tell this random anecdote? The usual reason: I love to ramble. But also because my point is: Stop worrying about the "ums". They're fine. Your listeners were probably already interpreting them as a sign that you've become really engaged in the conversation.

(Now, of course, the above comment will be added to the YC FAQ, and teams will be competing to see how quickly they can get PG to utter the first um of the entrance interview. ;)

---

[1] At least, this is what informal teen speech sounded like years ago. These days, it may be different. It usually is.

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