| name | speech-coach |
| description | Drafts and critiques speeches, talks, keynotes, lightning talks, demo-day pitches, all-hands updates, conference presentations, wedding toasts, and any spoken-delivery piece using Glenn Kramon's 12 wowing-the-crowd rules from Stanford GSB's Winning Writing. Use when the user is preparing a talk, presentation, keynote, panel opener, board presentation, all-hands, town hall, demo-day pitch, toast, eulogy, commencement address, or any piece that will be delivered aloud. Triggers on phrases like "I'm giving a talk," "preparing a speech," "keynote," "all-hands," "demo day pitch," "wedding toast," "panel opener," "TED-style," "deliver this aloud," "speaking at," "presentation script." |
Speech coach
Source: points/speech-rules.md (the 12 rules + the order-of-operations drafting flow + the Sparkline), points/delivery-rules.md (the three Vs, derailers, Q&A structures — for Mode 3 coaching), points/kramon-master.md (rhythm, jargon, warmth), points/banned-jargon.md (especially for spoken delivery — every banned phrase hits even harder when read aloud).
What this skill does
Given a topic + audience (or an existing draft), produce a talk shaped for the ear, not the page. The most common bad-talk failure mode is a memo read aloud — this skill catches that on sight and rebuilds the piece in spoken form.
The philosophy in one line
A speech is not an essay. The reader of an essay can reread a sentence; the listener of a speech cannot. So the closing line matters more than the opening, the main thought must be repeated, and every sentence has to parse on first hearing.
Mode 1 — Draft from scratch
If the user gives you a topic + audience, walk through Kramon's drafting order before writing a single body paragraph:
- Write the closing line first. One sentence. The line you want quoted. If you cannot write it, the user does not have a talk yet — ask them what they want the audience to remember tomorrow morning.
- Write the main thought. One sentence. Different from the closing — the argument, not the image. Said early, repeated once mid-talk.
- Pick ONE story. Real people, real names, one scene. If the user offers three stories, pick a lane — the other two are different talks.
- Pick the opener. Three archetypes work: self-deprecating story, show-of-hands question, single concrete image. Pick the one that earns the laugh or the raised hand faster for this audience. Never "Thank you for having me" — throat-clearing.
- Outline the arc. Opener → main thought → story → second beat or quote → restate main thought → closing line.
- Draft the body in short paragraphs, the way the user actually speaks. Contractions. Dropped subjects where natural. Variable sentence length.
- Cut by one third. Every talk runs long live. Pre-cut so it still fits.
- Read aloud at performance pace with a timer. Mark stumbles — those are listener confusion points; rewrite.
Length target: 20 minutes max for a keynote, 5–7 minutes for a lightning talk, 2–3 minutes for a toast or panel opener. Words per minute at speaking pace is ~120–140 for natural delivery — do the math both ways and don't trust either alone.
Mode 2 — Critique an existing draft
Mark the draft against the 12 rules. Quote the specific lines that fail and rewrite them inline. Flag any of these on sight:
- Opens with "Thank you for having me" / "I'm honored to be here" / "Let me start by saying" — throat-clearing. Rewrite the opener as self-deprecating humor, audience question, or concrete image.
- No identifiable main thought in one sentence within the first two minutes — the audience has no anchor. Ask the user what the main thought is; insert it as a standalone sentence early.
- More than one story — pick a lane. Stories that don't serve the main thought are digressions that cost the room.
- Statistics without a story attached — flip the order. Story first, then the stat that proves it. Stats alone are 12× less memorable than stories.
- Sentences over 25 words — rewrite. The ear cannot hold a 40-word sentence.
- Nested clauses, jargon, undefined acronyms — every one of these costs you the next sentence too. Plain word, plain sentence.
- Bullet-list slides (if the user shows slides) — every bullet slide is a sentence the user did not finish writing. Force prose or kill the slide.
- Quotes longer than two sentences — edit.
- Closes with "and with that, I'll take questions" / "thank you for your time" — not an ending. Rewrite the close as a callback to the opener, a single quote, or a specific ask.
- Apologies for being underprepared, nervous, rushed — never. Cut all of them.
- No repetition of the main thought — say it once early, once mid, once at the close. Choose deliberately.
- The end is weaker than the opener — flip the energy. The closing line is what they will quote.
- Three or more consecutive "what is" paragraphs — the Sparkline is flat. Dense analytical stretches with no peak of wonder, humor, or rhetorical question lose the room. Mark each paragraph is or could be; insert a peak where three is run together. (See the Sparkline section of
points/speech-rules.md.)
Mode 3 — Coaching the user through the read-aloud
If the user has the draft and is preparing to deliver, do not rewrite — coach the delivery. Ask:
- Have you read it aloud at performance pace? (If no, do that first. Time it. Cut to fit.)
- Have you memorized the first 30 seconds and the last 30 seconds word for word? (If no, do that next. The middle can improvise; the bookends cannot.)
- Where do you stumble? (Stumbles are not the user's fault — they are listener confusion points. Rewrite those sentences plainer.)
- What's the one slide / image that the audience will photograph? (If none, the talk needs a visual anchor.)
- What's your fallback if the projector dies? (If none, the user is not ready.)
- Run the delivery checklist from
points/delivery-rules.md: pace and volume one notch beyond comfortable, sentences ending low not high, fillers replaced with the tactical pause, feet planted, no self-commenting — the audience doesn't know about mistakes you don't announce.
- For the Q&A: rehearse the three most likely questions using answer-first structures (Problem/Solution/Result, What/So What/Now What, Point/Reason/Example) — and prepare a one-sentence honest answer to the question the user doesn't want asked.
Audience-size adjustments
| Audience | Posture | Pace | Special tactics |
|---|
| Under 25 | Conversational, can sit | Natural | Eye contact with individuals; pauses louder than projection |
| 25–100 | Stand, project | Slower than feels natural | Pause longer between paragraphs |
| 100–1,000 | Stand, full projection | Slower again | Show-of-hands question still works but stops landing past ~200 |
| 1,000+ | TED discipline | Memorized bookends, improvised middle | Front-row "polling" instead of show of hands; bigger gestures; volume up |
What never goes in a talk
- Slides full of text. If they're reading, they're not listening.
- A list of bullets read aloud — "I did not have time to write this in prose."
- Quotes longer than two sentences.
- Acronyms undefined on first use.
- A long thank-you / credits section at the top — land the opener first.
- Apologies for being underprepared. Open with the work.
- Ending on a process note. End on the closing line; then take questions.
The opening / closing archetype cheat-sheet
Use this when the user is stuck on the bookends.
Openings that work:
- Self-deprecating story (safest, almost always works)
- Show-of-hands question (when the topic is something the audience has lived)
- A single concrete image (when the topic is something most haven't lived)
Closings that work:
- Callback to the opener (bookends the talk; almost always works)
- A single quote (when someone said it better than the user can)
- A specific ask (for fundraisers, recruiting talks, anything with a call to action)
See points/speech-rules.md for worked examples of each.
When you finish
Hand back:
- The rewritten talk (or the new draft) in spoken form — short paragraphs, conversational rhythm.
- The closing line in bold at the top of the document, separated from the body, so the user can practice it cold.
- A 5-bullet delivery checklist for this specific talk: opener, main thought, story, closing line, biggest risk to watch for live.
- One flag: the single sentence in the talk you suspect will land hardest, and the single sentence you suspect will land softest. The user can decide what to do with each.
The test
Would one person in the audience repeat your closing line to someone else tomorrow morning? If yes, ship it. If no, the closing isn't done — rewrite it before practicing anything else.
Composes with
compression — if the draft is over time, run compression --mode target-count --target-words [120 × minutes] to cut to fit.style-tells --target jargon — every banned phrase hits twice as hard read aloud.vividness --mode scene-level — when the story is abstract; force the body signal + room + dialogue + moment.pick-a-lane — when the user has three stories and refuses to cut two. Run pick-a-lane first; come back to speech-coach after.humanize — speech is the one place humanize never gets skipped; spoken delivery requires contractions and dropped subjects to sound like a human.
