Swisivo

Could you divulge your honest and thoughtful opinion, please?

What do you think about the relationship between being a good speaker (and I mean very good) and a good writer. Are good writers better speakers than good speakers are writers? Are good writers better speakers at all? The most plausible answer seems to be an affirmative one, but there's something elusive here. It's not a direct relationship, and it doesn't seem to be a direct skill transition.

I think I am a decent writer, but a sub par speaker. I find that my writing skill is sufficient for most common purposes in life so far, aside from professional writing, and I'm not too concerned with improving it, though it never hurts. Speaking seems to be a more important skill in life anyway, and mine suffers. When I say "speaking", I'm talking about being able to tell a story in an interesting, vivid way. I'm talking about the ability to clearly and concisely explain things on the fly. Also, I'm talking about being able to defuse an argument, convince people, and to command affinity and respect.

I'm basically working on it, trying to put every conversation I have in perspective and learn something from it. Also I'm reading books on communication.

I just want to make it clear that I'm not talking about trying to socialize or meet people - I'm talking about raising the ability to converse to a very high level (think Nick Naylor from Thank You For Smoking). Self improvement kinda thing ... you know, right?

So I've got this idea - that regularly practicing to write fiction or detailed descriptions of real events poses your mind a lot of interesting problems having to do with wording, sequencing events, and general story telling. This could very efficiently exercise all linguistic abilities, as well as speaking.

Do you think this is logical? Will the practice of writing greatly affect the ability to speak? Are good writers good speakers?

Anyone on the same page with me here?

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Midnight

Sometimes, it's all a matter of perspective....

I've always considered myself to be a moderately decent writer, and an "ok" speaker. I read young and very well. On finding this out, my teachers unfailingly dumped the task of reading anything which had to be read aloud to the class on me all through elementary school. I was (and still am) the kind of person that loathes attention being drawn to them, and as you might imagine, this was torture. The result was an abject detestation of public speaking of any kind. I read aloud, speak, and converse with great animation and expression. It is a natural, not learned talent which I did not ask for. I would rather listen to a jackhammer than hear a recording of myself. Unfortunately, others do not share this opinion.

Writing is something I do with a great deal of feeling, but I've been thrown out of more English and writing classes than I care to admit because of my dogged determination not to accept criticism on anything I write, and because in my opinion, what I write, when I deem it finished, is not open to editing. It is DONE. I will not take suggestions, change things, or rewrite anything to acommodate the whims/likes/dislikes/education of another person.

Whats my point?

I will always be a good speaker, despite my preferring to avoid it at all costs.
It is simply something I do very well. End of story.

I will never be more than a sub-par writer. I refuse to do what is required to do in order to "become great"

Sometimes, what you want, and what you are destined for greatness in are not the same thing. You can IMPROVE something you would like to improve upon. You can become technically better with it. but there some things that you were either born to do, or not. and no amount of training or learning will do anything more than make you a little bit better.

Good writers can be good speakers. Good speakers can be good writers.
Some people can be both. Some will be neither. Some people weren't made to be storytellers, or the ones to "able to defuse an argument, convince people, and to command affinity and respect." it just isn't how they were made.

Being a brilliant speaker I fully believe is either a skill you have, or you don't, and that it is not one that can be developed past a certain fixed point.

But what do I know?

Fast Forward

More than often - NO!

The proof is in everyday communication via the telephone versus letter-writing/e-posting.

analog

I'd say no, not at all. They're far from the same animal.... now some good speakers are also good writers, and vice-versa, but they're not at all correlated, I don't think.

In fact, I've known many a good writer who would panic just thinking about speaking in public. lol... I used to be one... there was a time when I was totally incapable of speaking to people like that. The thought of doing it would send me into an anxiety attack.

Now, I'm confident (cocky? lol) and can speak in front of people- I like doing it, in fact. I also fancy myself a halfway decent writer. lol

If you think about famous writers, the list I come up with in my head doesn't stand out as a group of really outgoing people. lol

spindles

I agree with analog - the two skills, while both language related are definitely not the same thing.

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Shauk

look at noam chomsky, he can write storms, but i went to a public speaking of his and about fell asleep.

myself, i'm also fairly typetastic, but you get me in a social environment where moving my lips instead of my fingers becomes my method of communication, then I think I tend to suck at it because my mind isn't as fast as my mouth.

ngdawg

I can write pretty well when I set my mind to it, always got A's in English and Creative Writing courses. Speak? I have a tongue that trips over itself and a voice that can cure insomnia.....I went to speech class in grammar school for mumbling and passed Spanish I for the same reason (slurring/mumbling made it seem I knew how to speak spanish!)

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stevie667

No.

I can be an excellent writer, but i cannot speak my mind at all. I am useless at talking.

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fresnelly

I went to hear Alan Lightman speak once. He's the author of one Einstein's Dreams, one of my favourite books. His delivery was utterly flat and without energy or animation. He is great and passionate writer, but a lousy public speaker.

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Craven Morehead

No, I can write much more eloquently than I can verbalize my thoughts. Writing allows me to edit my thoughts before they are final. Once they are spoken however, that's a different story.

Cynthetiq

Look at comedians and see how many writers it takes to create what is spoken and delivered.

Look at politicians and note how many speech writers they have.

It is not common for a good speaker to be a good writer but when the two are in one person it is an incredible thing to witness.

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warrrreagl

Well dang, Cynthetique. I didn't know you'd sat in on one of my lectures. I appreciate the compliment, really, but you should have introduced yourself or something...

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albania

I don’t know about being a good writer, but I can say that I am a very confident speaker. Writing is static while speech is much more fluid. They have many things in common but I think they differ enough that improving one will not help to appreciably improve the other.

I have no trouble speaking to crowds or to other people and they seem to enjoy it as well. In high school I used to love to get up in front of the class and wing it for a presentation. I’ve found that the only way to get better at rhetoric is by practicing. Converse and debate with as many people as you can, you’ll find yourself getting better in no time.
Some tips from personal experience:

If you want to tell an interesting story, practice it over and over again. Have it committed to memory; people who tell interesting stories have often told the same one hundreds of times. Another tip is to lie. The truth is often boring and tedious. If you really want to make people laugh or keep them riveted you have to lie.

If you want to be able to clearly and concisely explain yourself, then there’s only one solution. Know what you’re talking about. Understand the subject at hand as best as you can and at the very least better than the person who you’re conversing with.

If you want to convince people, well then you might want to bring along a gun next time you have a debate. When someone has already made up their mind about something it usually takes years to change it. On the other hand, convincing people of something they don’t already have an opinion on is easy. All you have to do is sound smart.

Things such as gaining respect, commanding affinity and defusing an argument have little to do with the speaking part of communication in my mind. They have to do with how you present yourself physically(body language), what sort of qualifications you have, and what position of authority you have in the group.

Willravel

There is not a necessary linke between those who are good writers and good speakers, but often writers can have a better narrative than most because of their skills. A great example would be Noam Chomsky. He is a brilliant writer and it carries over seamlessly to public speaking.

Swisivo

A few comments

I'm not surprised to find that most consider themselves better at writing than speaking. Have you ever considered that speaking is a more important skill overall, for the quality of life?

Moreover, it seems that there's always a better way to carry out any conversation, if it hasn't gone flawlessly already. What to say or not to say, and how to act would all hinge on good judgment that becomes ingrained with experience.

I agree that some people's brains are hardwired better for communication. It's genes/talent, call it whatever, every other person is just configured slightly differently from birth. And while that could separate people in potential, most never reach their maximum potential... so your overall skill level should be much more affected by your involvement and the work you put into it, than the hard wiring of the brain.

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roachboy

have you ever been to a poetry reading?
even one should be enough to show you that there's no necessary connection.

spekaing in public is a strange practice and there was for me no way to figure it out except to do it.
it is good to fail a few times so you can figure out that you wont die if you do. that removed much of the anxiety.

what you can do and how is situationally defined.
when i was getting used to lecturing, it took a while to figure out that irony and self-depricating jokes were noise in that context. people give you authority when you are standing in front of them, much in the way that people decide their bartender is a parent-figure or super-attractive because they mediate the drinking experience. many people like to be dominated. it is among their most tedious qualities. the "o for gods sake what are you listening to me for?" response doesnt register.

for public performances, you need a script even if you dont refer to it, i have found. for interpersonal performances--of the type done in that christopher buckley thing referenced in the op--i find that a couple of beers works just as well as a script.

people listening have little attention spans. tiny little attention spans. so you cant do anything like what you can do in written forms in terms of complexity. so you cant spread the elements of your argument or piece out too much or the limits of listening-attention will interfere and folk will decide there is no argument or structure. you have to tell them stuff directly and then seduce them into leaving the tiny little box of their customary attention spans. it isnt easy all the time, and it wont work with everyone at any time. its just like that.

audiences want to be entertained. you can fuck with them, but it has to be entertaining. this irritates the hell out of me. it's one reason i prefer sound performances to speaking--you can turn the outs up and force an audience to either commit or get out--but speaking is harder that way. because audiences want to be entertained, they tend it seems to adopt a spectator relation to almost anything you present. you should keep this in mind so that yu do not simply mount atrocity exhibitions thinking that you are going to shake people. blasé uber alles: its the smug bourgeois way.

the main thing is never panic. if you forget what you want to say, wait. the upside of audience passivity is that they give you control of the situation so use it. silence can be effective, but you have to learn how to use it. once you learn that, even if you head is full of nothing but scatter, you can use the interval required to find something coherent in there to your advantage.

i am kinda shy in 3-d, believe it or not. what i learned that edged me away from freaking out when my mind would sometimes go blank in public is that people do not see you as a human being--they see a mask--they see a character--they see what they want. speaking in public is low-wattage theater. if you speak in the first person, this "i" is a character, not you.

i learned the most in a grad-school colloquim dring which humilitating the speaker was a kind of bloodsport. speaking in public is fashioning and manipulating a mask. i dont know if this translates to anyone except me, but realizing that made a huge difference. live gigs can be fun. you just have to figure out how to let yourself have that fun.

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thingstodo

I'm considered a good speaker by those in my organization. I do a fair amount of this, both as a speaker and as a facilitator.

I do think that being able to organize thoughts into words, whether written or mental, supports what you say. Some people are good at memorizing and practicing to deliver while others do better from a conversational standpoint, using evidence to support a position they have regarding a subject. In the long run, I feel that most come across better if they are conversational because the audiance is more relaxed.

Most entertainers are able to write their own material and many do. Some use other's material and even more use a blend of both.

To me, a good analogy would be a race car driver. The more they know about the mechanics of their car, the more they can be involved in how the mechanics work on it to make it run they way they need it to run.

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Cynthetiq

I thought you just imagined them in your underwear?

seriously thanks for that, it's a good summation.

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roachboy

i tried this. i found that whether it works or not is a function of where you look. it is entirely possible that you'd be most curious about how x or y in the audience looked in underwear or less. this seemed not to enhance my composure. just saying.

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Swisivo

I like the feedback in this thread. Roachboy, I found it especially interesting that you directed my attention to the small attention spans and having to convince people to listen to you before you go ahead and say what you want to say ... the fashioning a mask bit is also good.

On the other hand, I'd like to stress that when I said speaking in the opening post, I didn't really mean public speaking. I was more referring to 1 on 1, small group conversations, and the tactics that help out. Such stuff as directing people to ideas but having them see these as their own; getting your point across without being misunderstood; keeping their attention and interest; coming across as likable, etc. All this requires a certain eloquence, good judgment for modulating your tone of voice, mood, and vocabulary to suit the person you're talking to, the ability to effectively describe settings, and to talk about various things in an interesting and an easily comprehensible order.

???-??

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shesus

I think that writing and speaking (on an informal level) can go hand-in-hand. I know that my writing is not great. It was always my worst subject in school. I'm also not a great storyteller or joke teller as some people have had to suffer through my attempts. I've killed many a good joke.

I find I have the same issues with writing and talking.

1) My mind moves to fast for my hands or mouth.

2) I lose words. I will be in mid-sentence and either lose the word I wanted to say or forget what I'm saying. I thought working on increasing my vocabulary would help, but it just gives me more words to forget.

3) I'm generally too the point, but ramble to get there. So, there's the constant hurry up you're talking/typing too much. This is sometimes good, but often times confusing because I will leave out important parts of my point.

That being said, I'm awesome at writing kids books and speaking to the students that I teach. I'm definitely in the right area. I don't know what that says about my verbal/linguistic intelligence, but I think my weakness is a strength for my job. I'm just too scatterbrained for my own good I guess.

As for public speaking, with enough practice and rehearsing I can do it well. I got an A in speech when I was in college. I liked my cheat note cards. I need those for life too I think.

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snowy

I am an English major. Two of the most important aspects of surviving a university-level English class are 1) being able to write well, and 2) being able to speak well. However, I see people all of the time in my classes who have mastered neither of these skills, and it bothers me considerably. The other conundrum is that somehow some of my fellow students have managed to become good writers, but horrible public speakers.

That is not my problem, however. I am an excellent public speaker and an excellent writer. *toot toot*

I've had the opportunity while here at university to see some interesting speakers--Gloria Steinem, Barbara Ehrenreich (Nickel and Dimed), Michael Cunningham (The Hours), and Karen Armstrong (Buddha, The Battle for God)--who are also writers. Given that public speaking is a huge part of what modern writers do, especially writers who address philosophical or political topics, it is no surprise that they were very good at it. I am just sad that I missed Naomi Wolf coming to campus a few months back. Boo.

I think that part of public speaking is the ability to organize one's thoughts in a coherent and cohesive manner, and to then express them in a way that one's audience understands. Some people let their nervousness get the best of them, and so lose their ability to communicate effectively. However, I think that if one is able to communicate well in the written medium, they are more likely to be able to translate that capability into speaking well.

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noodle

I'm a great stream-of-consciousness writer and a tremendous over-talker.
But I can write clearly, and frequently too concisely for some of my professors in grad school that used to get irritated with the shorter length of my papers, though when I tried to make them longer, they told me my point got lost.

I'm a horrid speaker. I turn red. Not just "red" but horribly over-carbon-monoxide-poisoned-she's-going-to-pass-out-or-explode-any-minute-cherry-red. My mouth goes dry. And I forget things and ramble. And give too many comparisons trying to make my point. It sucks. I think that verbal and auditory expressors and learners are so different that there's not much of a correlation for similarities until you hit the kinesthetic learners/expressors. Those are the ones that write their own speeches and command attention when giving them.

Like Mr. Commando Eagle Underpants.

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tecoyah

I find it is important to adjust both writing, and speaking to the audience in question. Communication fails when we speak over the head, just as it does when we fail to gain attention through seeming uninteresting. Judging the level of articulation is the tough part to me.

tenniels

I think in some ways the two skills are very much connected. I think if you're able to write well, you will have a better vocabulary and general knowledge of words and their meanings. On the other hand, you can have the biggest and best vocabulary and have zero delivery. I find in as many ways as reading, writing, and speaking are connected there are equal ways that the three are very different. I am a good reader and writer (I think) and not quite as good at public speaking, if only for I tend to get nervous sometimes. I think if I were not to have the reading and writing capabilities that I have, my speaking technique would be far worse.

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Fast Forward

On the other hand, "sucking" at one doesn't mean you're good at the other. Look at Geo. W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, any presidential White House spoksman and Queen Elisabeth II. None of them write their own speeches and none of them can deliver any speech very well either!

Not even the one up the tree, pulling their strings is very good.

Mith

I find I can write far more eloquently. Also, speaking depends on the audience as well. If I have an audience that possesses a similar vocabulary to myself then I find I have no trouble. However, if I have to lowest common denominator my thoughts then I find that I have trouble communicating.

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clavus

I disagree with most of you. Good writing and good speaking come from the same source - a feel for words. Good writing is a process that includes editing and rewriting, but without a deep well of words from which to draw, and feel for the way the words work together, the writer could never do his job. And when you hear a good writer speak, he speaks well.

Have you ever listened to Newt Gingrich or Bill Clinton speak off the cuff? Brilliant speakers, and excellent writers.

I spent an ugly year around lobbyists. Those people can speak and write very well.

I don't believe the natural skill with words is something that can be taught. If you have it, it can be honed with practice. If you don't have it, you'll never have it.

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