I bet you think I’m referring to some sort of poetry athletics. Not this time. ‘Verse jumping is when you move between universes. The speechwriting I do often asks me to immerse myself in someone else’s universe to get a feel of their nuances, their view of the world, their tendencies.
Because I work as a freelance speechwriter, I’m assigned a range of jobs from a range of sources. Love it!
Student competitions, 21st celebrations, keynotes, milestone events, launches – and so on. Whenever someone needs to stand up and say something to an audience, I’m called on to help. Happy to.
It could be a straightforward thing to just get the speech requirements from the client and respond with some text that you know works in most other similar situations.
Just template it.
I’ve done enough 21st Birthday Celebration speeches to know the structure. Just replace the names and insert a relevant mildly humorous story. Send the invoice.
But a top Speechwriter is more than that. They ghostwrite. They need to know the customer and their world. They need to know their universe – their loves, their hates, their style, their persona, their humour.
That’s why I’m looking forward to Mark Zuckerberg’s Metaverse. For each new client, I’ll be able to ask for an invite to their ‘verse and immerse myself into their world. I’ll be able to tune the speech to their style – even try it out on a few meta-colleagues in the client’s world. Feedback would be immediate. Redrafting or rework would be minimum.
That’s what I mean by ‘verse jumping.
