The Rule of 750 Words and More

I used to write a lot in my career. Marketing reports, analysis reports, then quarterly, half-year, and annual ones. The workflow was like this: a Chinese guy writing reports in English for the read of Korean management. It was a big manufacturer. Writing was not our profession, nor was reading. As far as they grabbed the market currents, we didn’t really care the reports should be written in this way or other. Looking back, I find my reports at that time were often too long and full of scattered points.

I saw this when I started to practice Toastmasters speeches last year. If I can borrow the first line of the book “Pride and Prejudice” — it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a person that used to write long articles, must be in want of speaking time. But the 5–7 minutes rule at Toastmasters speeches is strict. I was often knocked down by a wailing bell — whatever wonderful story I was telling, I was out. I am not a talkaholic. English is my second language, my speeches are full of eh, um, so, and you knows. But my biggest struggle as of today is speaking time. My first table-topics speech went over six minutes — the maximum was two and a half, and I still felt I didn’t get the point yet. I was often shocked by seeing the red light flare in the middle of the speech. I screamed in my mind, “I haven’t started yet!”

I realized that writing was the major problem — I write a full script for every speech. It may not be a common practice among experienced speakers but I like writing nonetheless. After one and a half years, over forty speeches at three Toastmasters clubs, my speaking confidence is building up. And to my surprise, I have also learned writing skills that I didn’t learn in my multiple writing years. Here are some tips for Toastmasters' speech that I feel extremely helpful in writing.

First, the rule of 750 words. For a 5–7 minutes speech, never have more than 750 words for the script, or you are at the brink of running overtime. When reading alone, it’s less than 5 minutes for 750 words. But for a speech novice, the fillers always burst out, the brain often goes blank. These stumbles will take a big chunk of the speaking time. That’s why the timing lights always show up so soon that you feel you haven’t started yet — the rest only goes worse then.

Knocked out by the timer for too many times, I started to cut off the words ruthlessly. I tried to find the simplest way possible to make the point. In the end, I found the lines only became clearer. Like somebody says, quote, think you get 100 bucks for every word you delete from your text.

Second, write like you talk. This is from Paul Graham, one of my favorite online writers. Until you hit the button “Publish”, writing is a lonely work. But speeches have you engaged with the audience from the first second. You don’t speak out a sentence unless it’s the way you would say it to an audience. Now I read it loud like I am speaking after I finish a writing piece. The more I prepare for speeches, the more I want to write something that sounds like I am speaking. The more it’s like speaking, the less I use long sentences and fancy words.

There are other rules for Toastmasters speeches that we can use to write better. But none of them has the impact as the rule of 750 words. I picked up one of my early speeches, “How have books changed my life”, and tried to rewrite the script. I remember I finished the script with 1270 words or so, a minimum fifteen-minute speech. I did try hard to cut it to 960 words. Asking for 10–12mins speech time, I still run out of time at the official speech. Applying this 750 words rule and others, I cut the words to under 750 and removed long sentences and impressive words. Yet the writing and the speech were like coming to new life.

P.S. I finished this draft at 868 words. Now it’s 736. I lost nothing but 100 or so words. Could be more.