Okay, if you’ve opened this then maybe you’re dead serious about impromptu speeches because when you’re on stage and asked to speak about a topic for a fixed duration on time, trust me the fragility of the motion is immense. Your speech can be disastrously bad or miraculously brilliant. It’s all about the 30 sec of prep time you get. But again trust me, in no way is that 30 sec prep time going to shape your speech if the topic is completely new to you. You might think of a nice opening but you will def leave out the rest part of speech bland.
Well don’t worry, I’m writing this to share a technique that I developed to deal with my impromptus so that my speech doesn’t appear unprepared or disorganized. This technique won’t guarantee that you’ll ace the speech as if you had prepared it a week ago, but I’ll tell you the audience will be baffled with your ability to deal with unknown topics. Here’s how.
By the name, Skeleton, it means the major structural unit of most living beings. It’s because of the skeletons, which are almost dead, that we have the shape that we possess, else we would all be a flaccid ball of some slimy protozoan. So skeleton here is trying to represent the framework.
Before you appear for your speech what you need to do is create three elements for your speech. They are:
i. Antagonist (who’ll challenge your belief) ii. Protagonist (who’ll support your belief) iii. Framework (how the situation generates)
Your antagonist and protagonist are maybe your fictional characters who demonstrate the execution of your idea. These come along with the
Your major task here is to create a very versatile story line where you just need to figure out the situation in which the story proceeds. You should know that most stories basically has three Cs: Commencement, Conflict, Concession
Now you individually have to work on all 3 segments to deliver your message to the audience. For example, *picking up something right of the batch hai ta!*
Commencement
Here you need to begin your speech with something very unusual scenario where your audience thinks that you’re way off your topic but they are curious to know more about how you’ll screw up.
I made mine like
“One unusual day, as I came down my house and sat on my scooter to reach office my scooter wouldn’t start.”
The very first line of your statement is called the ‘Fundamental Line’, this helps audience know the scenario of where the story is going.
“One kick, two kick, three kick. The scooter just wouldn’t start. Have you faced such frustrations in life?”
Now I’ve played two methods here, first is the thumb rule of Three where repetition in any statement engages the mind of the audience. It creates a different impact to the audience where they witness the gravity but aren’t bored. A number of speeches use this and you must have experienced in many stories that the hidden answer is always behind the third door.
And the next is engagement but asking the audience a question, you’re trying to make it less monologist and more of a dialect for your audience.
“I lost all hope and left the scooter in my garage and stomped to the micro stand. I was really pissed by this time and I was asking the question, “Why always me?” As soon as a micro bus came I immediately grabbed it and secured a seat. The conductor was a hefty punky boy in his prime adolescence and was asking fare with other passengers as if they’d owed me big time.”
Conflict
This is the main part that I leave empty now. This the area where you introduce your idea to the story. Like skeleton leaves spaces for organs to fill and make a complete being, this framework leaves space for conflict to be introduced and play with audience’s emotions. The conflict should be symmetrical or a derivative of the major topic that you have been assigned for the impromptu speech.
Generate the conflict where there are two characters or more if you wish to, including or excluding you where someone is the protagonist and someone is the antagonist. You then create this scene where something usual happens and your motion comes to foreplay in action maybe the cause, reason, excuse, message, anything. You just need to give birth to an unusual situation where your motion is played.
For example:
“The conductor is in very arrogant tone asked for the fare. I was pretty agitated by him. He was way more rude that he deserves to be. I then opened the outer pocket of my bag where I keep my purse. My hands traced the entire fabric of the outer pocket but couldn’t find the purse. I got scared. I looked around and opened the zipper wide to see if my hands were unable to find but to my horrible misfortune I remembered that I had kept the purse on my table but I somehow forgot to keep it in.”
Now this is the unusual situation rising and then you introduce your message.
For example the title was: “Never judge the book by its cover“
Now the conflict according to the title is where one judges other by their outer look and assumes their personality likewise but is deliberately mistaken and the misconceived person turn out to be very opposite.
In the above framework I have judged the Conductor by his speaking tone so I think he is very rude, I’ve even mentioned it. And my inability to pay him his self acclaimed fare might worsen the scenario but as your topic suggests you should plot the story line in the opposite direction. Try adding details in this phase to make your story bit more compulsive and audience engaging so that audience feels the tension you want them to feel.
I would say
“I then explored all possible holes of my bag and my clothes to spot the 15 rupees that the conductor expects. I thought I could be thrown out of the moving bus if the conductor was too mad. I thought that I would trade my earphones for the fare. But it was worth more than 1500, more than 100 times of the fare. But it was much less worth than me being thrown out of the bus. I didn’t want to be screamed at the entire crown of strangers for not being able to pay a single bus fare.
I searched everywhere but I couldn’t find any money. I thought that tipping Rs 20 to the waiter was very less but look at me, not being able to find a sum of 15 rupees. Why always me?
I even thought of asking the guy next to me for money, but he looked like a serial killer. I was shit scared.
The conductor again asked, “Dai bhada dinus na.”
I could feel my voice trembling and I was prepared for the loss of my earphones as I bundled it in my right palm and in a very shaky voice said.
“Bhai sorry yaar aaja wallet nai halna birsechu….”
My hands with the earphones had already moved forward to trade it with him and was just about to say if he liked my earphones. But then he looked dead in my eyes and simply slipped attention from me to the guy sitting beside me with no comments.
I couldn’t grasp what was happening and I wasn’t expecting for mean looking conductor to just pardon me without any clarification. I felt immensely light but heavy with guilt at the same time.”
Concession
Now this the important influencing segment of your speech where you give reasoning how your characters justify your major point. I’ll leave this part to you.
In addition, like the first statement was the Fundamental statement and the final statement is the conclusive statement. Here make sure your conclusive statement makes a lasting effect of your major motive to the audience.
So this is a general outline of how you use your skeleton method to deal with impromptus. You can mold your ideas and story line in accordance with the motion that you are assigned.
By now I’m pretty tired by writing all of these but hope it was helpful to you. The technique to create your own framework is entirely in your own hands, so make sure you don’t have any controversial or slipping story.
I might make a presentation on this but don’t trust me, I’m the pinnacle of procrastination.
Let me know if this worked for you.
I will try to make it more efficient with feedbacks from you.