Speechwriting is like: sculpture
I’m trying something new. This is the first installment (of number currently unknown) of a series where I introduce and review an analogy used to compare speechwriting to another activity. Ideally this will be an analogy – and activity – which people are familiar with.
Because I am imaginative, this series will be called “Speechwriting is like…”.
Today’s inaugural instalment looks at an analogy that I’ve carried around in my mind for several years, and am excited to examine in greater depth: sculpture.
The basis of the analogy is that both writing and sculpture start from the same point: the terror of the blank page (or unhewn block, in the case of the latter).
Most people regard the blank page as an absence or void. It is precisely the lack of characters on the page which strikes fear into a writer’s heart.
I prefer to look at it another way: the blank page is frightening because it contains all possible combinations of words and phrases. It is the Library of Babel. The infinite codex. One thousand monkeys sitting at one thousand typewriters for one thousand years, straining to produce a work the equal of Shakespeare. You get the idea.
The point is, starting to write something is not intimidating because of a scarcity of words or ideas. It is intimidating because of their hyper-abundance.
The sculptor, meanwhile, stands before the block of marble with pick and chisel in hand. Contained within that block is the possibility of making almost any type of shape imaginable. Her job, in this sense, is not to build: it is to pare back, to refine. To realise a vision through careful, curated destruction.
Every swing of the pick or careful movement of the chisel, just like every word and sentence, represents a series of decisions. A weighing up of what to choose and what to discard. Yes, there is construction. But, in a sense, everything is already there. What we must do is choose wisely. The core of writing, especially when trying to inhabit the voice of another person, is eliminating. To recognise and correct when a phrase lingers too long. When it isn’t quite communicating the essence of what the client wants you to say. Or when you sense that it won’t sound as convincing on the lips as on the page.
The study of writing, because of how many people do it and do it with care and commitment, is an industry of its own. I don’t claim that my sense of it is anything other than subjective. And I am sure that my idea of sculpting is woefully distant from the real thing. Still, it is an analogy which feels intuitive and deeply true.
Speechwriting is like sculpture. Both present the creator not with nothing, but with everything. Our task is to carefully hone out of that abundance a true form, discard the non-essential, and produce something which stands the test of time.