9 ms·

This resonates. As a frequent public speaker and coach of others in public speaking, the top priority is to just deeply understand the material. The second pri

This resonates. As a frequent public speaker and coach of others in public speaking, the top priority is to just deeply understand the material. The second priority is to create the habit write like you publicly speak (i.e develop a style). You put these together, and you have no choice but to explain it the way you’d have written it anyways. This enforces resilience against interruptions and allows for improvisation. But this is hard. It requires two great efforts: to deeply understand the material, and to craft a speaking/writing habit that makes for powerful, public speaking. It doesn’t surprise me then, that actors do the same.

rurban 2y ago
This would only work for actors bring able to play themselves, and nothing else. The screenplay is not always written for a specific actor, there are strange lines there that you have to transport naturally. There is where the method helps. play different personalities.
stdbrouw 2y ago
I'd add to those the necessity to have some distance from the material to avoid the recency effect. You can have that distance either because you'll be talking about something you haven't worked on for at least a couple of weeks, or because you've developed an ability to retain a birds eye view and adopt an outsider's perspective even when you're in the weeds. A lot of academic talks go wrong because, although the speaker deeply understands their topic, that teeny tiny detail that they were fiddling with yesterday is really not the thing they should try to communicate today, but they can't help themselves. Yet ask that same person to talk about their previous work, and you'll get a high quality impromptu introduction to the field.
boerseth 2y ago
I am reminded of Socrates, who lamented the practice of memorization being replaced with writing. Today one might dismiss this idea as silly, since memorization alone is frequently associated with dumb parroting and regurgitation, neither of which imply any depth of understanding. But from this discussion, we see the old man may have been on to something! If understanding something deeply is necessary in order to memorize it well, then one might achieve understanding as a secondary effect by aiming to memorize something by heart.
- eru 2y ago
  > If understanding something deeply is necessary in order to memorize it well, then one might achieve understanding as a secondary effect by aiming to memorize something by heart. I heard there are people who memorise the Quran without knowing the slightest bit of Arabic? And there's also the Kiwi chap, Nigel Richards, who memorised the whole French Scrabble dictionary in order to win the French world Scrabble championship, without learning any French in the process. (Whether you call what he did to the French word list 'understanding' is up for debate, I guess. I am fairly sure he went much deeper into understanding the underlying probability distributions of letters in French words than most speakers, but he couldn't read a newspaper.)
  - n4r9 2y ago
    I went to a Saturday school for many of my childhood years, as my dad wanted me to learn Arabic. They were bad at teaching the language, but did get us to read the script and memorise several Quran verses. You were supposed to get "rewards" in heaven just for memorising without understanding. To this day I can recite Al-Fatiha [0] despite not understanding a word, being an atheist, and not having prayed for maybe 15 years. [0] https://myislam.org/surah-fatiha/ https://myislam.org/surah-fatiha/
    - freedomben 2y ago
      Same, as a kid there were a whole bunch of bible verses to memorize, which was required. To this day I can recite quite a few of them, and (despite now being an atheist) I still occasionally have some of them pop into my head in situations where it might be relevant. Memorization is an extremely powerful tool, and particularly religions have known and used this for millenia.
      - n4r9 2y ago
        The difference between your experience and mine is that I have no idea what the verses are saying! They almost never pop into my head because I can't relate them to situations.
bowsamic 2y ago
This doesn’t make much sense: actors don’t write their material, they are given it. They can’t write like they speak, and also they can’t improvise
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 2y ago
  Actors (especially big names) can and do improvise all the time, in almost all movies. It's rare they say all lines exactly as in the script. In fact often the script gets updated with ideas that came up during shooting including improvised lines.
  - flkiwi 2y ago
    A fascinating topic around my family is the playwrights who insist that the play be delivered precisely as written, most of whom are the same playwrights who refuse to allow genderswapping roles (even innocuously), updating pop culture references, etc. They are not the norm, and pretty much everyone understands that performance is as much a part of the creative act as writing, with all the deviations and imperfections that suggests. And that's without even getting to the idea of consciously changing the script midstream that you mentioned.
    - rurban 2y ago
      That's why in almost all cases screenwriters or source novel writers are strictly forbidden on set. The biggest problem are writer/directors who cannot deal with improvising actors. Like a Haneke, who would turn around in his grave if an actor goes against his sacred script. That's why they have 25 shots per scene, and 3-6 months per shoot.
  - etse 2y ago
    Harrison Ford says, "I know," instead of "I love you, too" (or something like that) in Empire Strikes Back's carbonite freezing scene. That's an immensely significant and meaningful update.
watwut 2y ago
I don't understand what does the "writing and speaking should be the same" thing is supposed to achieve for public speakers.
- coldtea 2y ago
  It means that if your speech is written in the way you casually speak, it's easier to remember it (since you'll not have to remember fancy words or turns of phrase that you wouldn't normally use). The idea being that it's easier to remember or reconstruct speech that comes natural anyway. It will also be easier to improvise and fit the tone if you forget what you were supposed to say. Aside from the above, which are about memory, it's also good for making it natural: you'll sound more authentic/natural speaking as you normally do, than trying some fancy speech, and it will also be easier to add off the cuff remarks that also fit the tone, like an idea that occured in the moment, or to respond to something that happens just before/while speaking.
flkiwi 2y ago
A few years ago, I came into the orbit of a public speaking coach, and he and I worked together for a few weeks. Your comment fascinates (and reassures) me, because he was emphatic that I had to abandon my own natural way of speaking entirely, and adopt a "persuasive persona" that sounded to me like a Saturday Night Live parody of a TED talk. This has exactly the opposite of the intended effect, because any anxiety I felt about speaking was multiplied by my anxiety about how I sounded and "staying in character". By comparison with the linked post, however, I was attempting to stay in a character that I didn't understand, with no thought given either to understanding what I was saying or, crucially, understanding who I was speaking to. This got me thinking about the people who find value in his style, and I realized that the consistent feature was that they didn't care about understanding the material and, in some cases, were so incapable of doing so that the notion wouldn't occur to them. Not dumb, just not interested. They were simply transactional, and almost always very, very scared of talking in public, and this coach's method allowed them to get through it. This also helped me realize that I don't particularly suffer from stage fright or public speaking anxiety, which has been a benefit, though it's important to note how insignificant that actually is. A family member has worked on stage with some extremely successful actors, and it's REMARKABLE how many of them have absolutely crushing stage fright. To me, that's more interesting than the line-learning thing: you take a person, someone most people in this thread would have heard of, and imagine them hiding out in a bathroom because their terrified of going onstage, then they get out there and utterly blow the room away. Something about pretending to be someone else unlocks so many actors. This ties right back to my friction with this public speaking coach, because he was attempting to coach me into playing pretend, though without any empathy or understanding. So this guy is producing two categories of students: people like me who want to understand the material and the audience and simply speak like a better version of ourselves, and people who sound like they're selling you a car they've never driven but doing so competently, checking more "good public speaker" boxes at a superficial level. I'm guessing the great actors and public speakers do both: love the material AND love the act of becoming a person you want to listen to.
- gedy 2y ago
  > This ties right back to my friction with this public speaking coach, because he was attempting to coach me into playing pretend, though without any empathy or understanding. This is my experience as well, and ironically mirrors my time as a manager. I want to understand and empathize with people, and there are managers and orgs who absolutely don't want that, and want the "people who sound like they're selling you a car"
jorl17 2y ago
I've been described as a good communicator and public speaker on several occasions. I have also felt that I have improved this aspect of my life tremendously as the years have gone by. I also noticed that what used to be a rather...impeccable or "by the rules" writing style...has morphed into a much more "writing what you would speak/recite" style. For a long time, I felt annoyed at the fact that my mom (who teaches language) would rightfully find more and more problems with the way I wrote. I felt as if I was losing some of my younger qualities (I was always considered a pretty good writer). Now, though, I have realized that it's exactly as you described: I accidentally started writing as I talk — and that has morphed the writing into this sort of weird stream of consciousness thing with its own rules, ebbs 'n' ibbs. Most people who know me like what I write because they feel as if I'm talking with them via text. My personality is there. And as someone managing both bits and people, personality and the associated gift of energy is perhaps the best thing I can give my team. I try to counteract this perceived reduction in quality by practicing my other passion: writing poetry :)

rurban 2y ago

This would only work for actors bring able to play themselves, and nothing else. The screenplay is not always written for a specific actor, there are strange lines there that you have to transport naturally. There is where the method helps. play different personalities.

stdbrouw 2y ago

I'd add to those the necessity to have some distance from the material to avoid the recency effect. You can have that distance either because you'll be talking about something you haven't worked on for at least a couple of weeks, or because you've developed an ability to retain a birds eye view and adopt an outsider's perspective even when you're in the weeds. A lot of academic talks go wrong because, although the speaker deeply understands their topic, that teeny tiny detail that they were fiddling with yesterday is really not the thing they should try to communicate today, but they can't help themselves. Yet ask that same person to talk about their previous work, and you'll get a high quality impromptu introduction to the field.

boerseth 2y ago

I am reminded of Socrates, who lamented the practice of memorization being replaced with writing. Today one might dismiss this idea as silly, since memorization alone is frequently associated with dumb parroting and regurgitation, neither of which imply any depth of understanding. But from this discussion, we see the old man may have been on to something! If understanding something deeply is necessary in order to memorize it well, then one might achieve understanding as a secondary effect by aiming to memorize something by heart.

eru 2y ago
> If understanding something deeply is necessary in order to memorize it well, then one might achieve understanding as a secondary effect by aiming to memorize something by heart. I heard there are people who memorise the Quran without knowing the slightest bit of Arabic? And there's also the Kiwi chap, Nigel Richards, who memorised the whole French Scrabble dictionary in order to win the French world Scrabble championship, without learning any French in the process. (Whether you call what he did to the French word list 'understanding' is up for debate, I guess. I am fairly sure he went much deeper into understanding the underlying probability distributions of letters in French words than most speakers, but he couldn't read a newspaper.)
- n4r9 2y ago
  I went to a Saturday school for many of my childhood years, as my dad wanted me to learn Arabic. They were bad at teaching the language, but did get us to read the script and memorise several Quran verses. You were supposed to get "rewards" in heaven just for memorising without understanding. To this day I can recite Al-Fatiha [0] despite not understanding a word, being an atheist, and not having prayed for maybe 15 years. [0] https://myislam.org/surah-fatiha/ https://myislam.org/surah-fatiha/
  - freedomben 2y ago
    Same, as a kid there were a whole bunch of bible verses to memorize, which was required. To this day I can recite quite a few of them, and (despite now being an atheist) I still occasionally have some of them pop into my head in situations where it might be relevant. Memorization is an extremely powerful tool, and particularly religions have known and used this for millenia.
    - n4r9 2y ago
      The difference between your experience and mine is that I have no idea what the verses are saying! They almost never pop into my head because I can't relate them to situations.

bowsamic 2y ago

This doesn’t make much sense: actors don’t write their material, they are given it. They can’t write like they speak, and also they can’t improvise

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 2y ago
Actors (especially big names) can and do improvise all the time, in almost all movies. It's rare they say all lines exactly as in the script. In fact often the script gets updated with ideas that came up during shooting including improvised lines.
- flkiwi 2y ago
  A fascinating topic around my family is the playwrights who insist that the play be delivered precisely as written, most of whom are the same playwrights who refuse to allow genderswapping roles (even innocuously), updating pop culture references, etc. They are not the norm, and pretty much everyone understands that performance is as much a part of the creative act as writing, with all the deviations and imperfections that suggests. And that's without even getting to the idea of consciously changing the script midstream that you mentioned.
  - rurban 2y ago
    That's why in almost all cases screenwriters or source novel writers are strictly forbidden on set. The biggest problem are writer/directors who cannot deal with improvising actors. Like a Haneke, who would turn around in his grave if an actor goes against his sacred script. That's why they have 25 shots per scene, and 3-6 months per shoot.
- etse 2y ago
  Harrison Ford says, "I know," instead of "I love you, too" (or something like that) in Empire Strikes Back's carbonite freezing scene. That's an immensely significant and meaningful update.

watwut 2y ago

I don't understand what does the "writing and speaking should be the same" thing is supposed to achieve for public speakers.

coldtea 2y ago
It means that if your speech is written in the way you casually speak, it's easier to remember it (since you'll not have to remember fancy words or turns of phrase that you wouldn't normally use). The idea being that it's easier to remember or reconstruct speech that comes natural anyway. It will also be easier to improvise and fit the tone if you forget what you were supposed to say. Aside from the above, which are about memory, it's also good for making it natural: you'll sound more authentic/natural speaking as you normally do, than trying some fancy speech, and it will also be easier to add off the cuff remarks that also fit the tone, like an idea that occured in the moment, or to respond to something that happens just before/while speaking.

flkiwi 2y ago

A few years ago, I came into the orbit of a public speaking coach, and he and I worked together for a few weeks. Your comment fascinates (and reassures) me, because he was emphatic that I had to abandon my own natural way of speaking entirely, and adopt a "persuasive persona" that sounded to me like a Saturday Night Live parody of a TED talk. This has exactly the opposite of the intended effect, because any anxiety I felt about speaking was multiplied by my anxiety about how I sounded and "staying in character". By comparison with the linked post, however, I was attempting to stay in a character that I didn't understand, with no thought given either to understanding what I was saying or, crucially, understanding who I was speaking to. This got me thinking about the people who find value in his style, and I realized that the consistent feature was that they didn't care about understanding the material and, in some cases, were so incapable of doing so that the notion wouldn't occur to them. Not dumb, just not interested. They were simply transactional, and almost always very, very scared of talking in public, and this coach's method allowed them to get through it. This also helped me realize that I don't particularly suffer from stage fright or public speaking anxiety, which has been a benefit, though it's important to note how insignificant that actually is. A family member has worked on stage with some extremely successful actors, and it's REMARKABLE how many of them have absolutely crushing stage fright. To me, that's more interesting than the line-learning thing: you take a person, someone most people in this thread would have heard of, and imagine them hiding out in a bathroom because their terrified of going onstage, then they get out there and utterly blow the room away. Something about pretending to be someone else unlocks so many actors. This ties right back to my friction with this public speaking coach, because he was attempting to coach me into playing pretend, though without any empathy or understanding. So this guy is producing two categories of students: people like me who want to understand the material and the audience and simply speak like a better version of ourselves, and people who sound like they're selling you a car they've never driven but doing so competently, checking more "good public speaker" boxes at a superficial level. I'm guessing the great actors and public speakers do both: love the material AND love the act of becoming a person you want to listen to.

gedy 2y ago
> This ties right back to my friction with this public speaking coach, because he was attempting to coach me into playing pretend, though without any empathy or understanding. This is my experience as well, and ironically mirrors my time as a manager. I want to understand and empathize with people, and there are managers and orgs who absolutely don't want that, and want the "people who sound like they're selling you a car"

jorl17 2y ago

I've been described as a good communicator and public speaker on several occasions. I have also felt that I have improved this aspect of my life tremendously as the years have gone by. I also noticed that what used to be a rather...impeccable or "by the rules" writing style...has morphed into a much more "writing what you would speak/recite" style. For a long time, I felt annoyed at the fact that my mom (who teaches language) would rightfully find more and more problems with the way I wrote. I felt as if I was losing some of my younger qualities (I was always considered a pretty good writer). Now, though, I have realized that it's exactly as you described: I accidentally started writing as I talk — and that has morphed the writing into this sort of weird stream of consciousness thing with its own rules, ebbs 'n' ibbs. Most people who know me like what I write because they feel as if I'm talking with them via text. My personality is there. And as someone managing both bits and people, personality and the associated gift of energy is perhaps the best thing I can give my team. I try to counteract this perceived reduction in quality by practicing my other passion: writing poetry :)