Naturally a royal wedding is going to be a worldwide media spectacle. Afterwards, usually all talk will be about the kiss or the ring. But at Harry and Meghan’s wedding everyone was talking about the now famous speech of American bishop, Michael Curry.
As a storyteller, what can you learn from this speech? We analysed the sermon and picked out 10 useful lessons for you.
1. Borrow your authority
Before you start writing, ask yourself why your audience should believe that you – as messenger – have a right to speak about a particular subject. Bishop Michael Curry started 1-0 behind in that regard, because in England he was a veritable unknown. In the clip below you can see how he cleverly resolves this by borrowing authority from Dr. Martin Luther King.
The title of Curry’s speech is borrowed from the Dr. King speech, ‘Love is the only way’ from 1957. A webvideo in which you borrow from the success of a celebrity or a scientist is also an example of borrowed authority. Not to put just any celebrity on the same pegging as Dr. King… but you get the point :-).
Source: BBC
2. Follow Aristotle
Of course, as a tried and tested public speaker Bishop Curry knows how to follow the rules of a good speech. He has an arresting title and a powerful central message. Meanwhile, he involves his audience in his story and uses humour to win sympathy.
He takes a logical structure into account from the beginning, through the middle, and right up to a splendid ending. And Ancient Greek influence is also visible, with its well-known ethos, pathos and logos.
Ethos is all about the authority of the speaker, pathos revolves around how you couple your argument to the emotions of your audience, and logos is about the arguments within your story.
3. The Power of Repetition
Love, love, love. Can there ever be enough love in the world? Should we not be kinder to each other? Love, that is what will help us all. Naturally, we know that you need to keep repeating a message if you are going to persuade someone of it.
But how often did you hear that word ‘love’ in the wedding speech? Well, I counted. At least four times a minute. That is 58 times in total. If that doesn’t show the power of repetition…
4. Be Dynamic
Bishop Curry wasn’t very well known to most of us, but he certainly has an enormous intuition for dynamism and drama. He used his voice and body language to the full. Talking loudly, softly, high, low, mumbling, whispering, coaxing, shouting…
And then he added pauses, mime and gesture to give his words more power still. In short, as a born speaker he used every tool at his disposal to hold the attention of his audience. With all respect, you could almost say that in this way he presented a caricature of himself.
You see that in a lot in explainer videos too: by letting a voice over record in an exuberant way, just like Curry, you can keep the attention of your viewer much more easily.
5. Involve the audience
No matter how well you deliver it, at the end of the day you are still giving a monologue. Good storytellers can bring this over as if it’s a dialogue. Once Bishop Curry had kicked off with his Dr. King quote he asked you, the listener: ‘when was the last time that you were in love?’
In doing so, he of course called up all sorts of warm feelings, but more importantly, he made sure that everyone was in the right mood for the rest of his story. He involves you in his story by asking questions. In allowing pauses afterwards he allowed time for people to answer the question for themselves.
So, do you have to talk for a considerable time? Then bring the listener into your story, for example by asking them a question. Or, as Curry did in another stroke of genius… In the clip below, you can see how he suddenly breaks from his fiery argument with ‘Er, oh, yeah, we gotta get you married.’ Dear listener, are you still there?
Source: BBC
6. Go Deep
Good. So, the core of Curry’s story is The Power of Love. To further support the message, there is time to deepen the proposition. Curry calls on God and the Bible (to bring a couple more authorities into the picture), as additional evidence of exactly why love is so powerful.
Where real love is, is God. A good couple of examples then, and these all add weight to his proposition. Have a think when you’re working on your next writing job: how can I give this story more depth?
7. Show All Dimensions
Next, Bishop Curry accelerates. He hits us round the ears with all the beautiful and varied dimensions that love possesses. The love that has brought his audience together today. Love as a movement.
The love that never loses its power, even in the darkest times (such as under slavery). Love that is so big, and strong, that it can change the world. And yet, at the same time, one that is so small that every one of us has it in us, whoever we are.
Through these examples the importance of love as the core of his speech grows. In this way you can actually find associations around any subject that you are undertaking, which can help make your story big and engaging: important enough to keep listening.
8. Share Your Vision
After 10 minutes of the speech you have got the message really… it is no longer about Harry and Meghan or the 600 guests in the chapel (who didn’t know what hit ‘em). Curry is talking about a vision. A vision of a more beautiful world in the future, where ‘love is the way’.
By continuously repeating this sentence, or in fact to stack ‘em up, he can be assured that his message will stick. Immediately after, he names the things that follow from ‘the way of love’, terms like unselfishness, equality and justice. In fact it’s a promise, like you would probably use if you were writing a script. And Curry wouldn’t be Curry if his promise didn’t end with Heaven on Earth.
A much heard tale perhaps, but definitely one which everyone understands equally well. Or, to put it differently: rather use a cliché that works, than something else that doesn’t. To put it very colloquially: make sure you tell ‘em something in a way that will stick.
9. Use Metaphors
14 minutes of speech… Naturally, Curry could have said in one sentence that we all need to be kinder to each other. But then no one would have been talking about his speech now, and the YouTube counter would have stopped ticking ages ago.
In an explainer video of 60 seconds it works like that. Ask yourself, what you can use that contributes to the power of your message? A metaphor for example. That’s why Curry was talking about the discovery of fire.
We could suddenly cook, warm ourselves, forge iron, and make cars and aeroplanes move. From the energy of fire he then switches back to the energy of love. And ultimately projects this universal power back on to Harry and Meghan, because that was of course, where it all started.
Source: BBC
10. Enthuse
What energy and fire Bishop Curry put into his speech. And that is perhaps the glue that sticks a good story together and gives it its power. You can apply the 9 points above, but if you don’t bring the necessary enthusiasm along with them, then the whole story will collapse like a bad plum pudding.
Bishop Curry is so enthusiastic about his message that as listener you cannot do anything but go along with him. Even if you don’t believe in God and you’re the biggest atheist that walks the Earth…
Curry had a million viewers hanging on his every word for fifteen minutes straight. The most important lesson that we can take from this is that if you have a passionate storytelling style, even stories about a new kind of dental drill, the most recent changes to tax legislation, or a packet of soya milk can be brought over in the most exciting way.
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You can rewatch the complete speech of Bishop Michael Curry here:
Source: BBC
