Speech script in the speaker's own voice: how to find the words the speaker already has

"The biggest challenge in communication today is getting the brand or the public figure to truly connect with the audience." The words are from Douglas Cardoso, CEO and founder of Digimax, a fully digital company from Maringá, in the Brazilian state of Paraná. They sum up the problem every speech script needs to solve, and also the reason Digimax called me: the public communication the agency serves was asking for emotion, and in a speech, emotion starts with the voice of the person speaking. With this work I open this series on speeches, talks and public communication that people understand and feel.

What a speech script that sounds like the speaker looks like

A well-written speech script disappears when the person steps on stage. The audience hears the administrator, the leader or the spokesperson and recognizes the way someone they know speaks. All the attention stays on what is being said.

People who have written speeches for a long time describe the craft in a similar way. In an April 2010 piece by Ragan Communications, speechwriter Hal Gordon says the writer needs to know three things: the speaker, the audience and the subject. Knowing the speaker, according to the article, includes knowing how this person builds sentences and what their cadence is in front of an audience. When that happens, the speech sounds like the person's own.

TED's official guide for TEDx event organizers points the same way. It asks for talks in natural, conversational language that reflects the way the person really speaks and conveys genuine, relatable emotions. The same guide warns against exaggeration and "fake emotion".

How to write a speech from what the speaker already knows and feels

When I start a speech script, I start by listening. My job is to understand what is already inside the person who will speak and find the words this person has not yet been able to gather. The experience, the convictions, the stories and the reason for being there already exist. What is missing is an order, a rhythm and the exact words, so the speech comes out genuine, in their own voice, and moves the audience.

This listening has a method. Joanne Callahan, a speechwriter at Con Edison in New York, told PR Daily in February 2021 that she starts every job with a question sheet, and the first question is always "who is the speaker?". The sheet covers the basics of any speech: who, what, when, where and why. The order matters. Whoever writes before getting to know the person ends up writing for themselves.

A person's voice lives in the details. Psychologist James Pennebaker, from the University of Texas at Austin, studies what words reveal about the people who use them. According to UT News, in an August 2011 article, he compares the words people use to fingerprints. In English, Pennebaker says, fewer than 500 function words, such as pronouns, articles and prepositions, account for more than half of everything we say, hear and read every day. The research is about English, and the lesson applies to any script: a person's style shows even in the small words, in how they say "we", "I" or "us", in the way they open and close an idea.

In practice, this changes what I write down in a briefing conversation. I note the expressions the person repeats, the word they choose when they get emotional, the example they give without thinking, the natural length of their sentences. This material comes back in the script. When the speaker recognizes in the text what they think, the script is on the right track.

Why the speaker's own voice helps the audience connect

A neuroscience study helps explain what happens when a speech works. In 2010, Greg Stephens, Lauren Silbert and Uri Hasson, from Princeton University, published an fMRI study in the journal PNAS. They recorded the brain activity of a person telling a real, unrehearsed story, and then that of 11 listeners hearing the recording. The brain activity of the listeners tracked that of the speaker.

The coupling disappeared when communication failed, in a test with a story told in Russian to listeners who did not speak the language. And the greater the anticipatory coupling, when the listener gets ahead of what is about to be said, the better the understanding of the story. The sample is small and the study measures comprehension, so here it serves as a clue: when speech is clear and true, the listener follows the speaker closely.

The Digimax case: speech scripts for public communication

Digimax is a fully digital company from Maringá, Brazil, with more than 15 years in business, working for the private and public sectors in four areas: Adtech, Business & Branding, Content & CRM and Web Development. The agency brought me in to meet the need for emotion that public communication was calling for. My job was to make what public administration does understandable to the population.

Digimax still calls on me to write, including as a speech ghostwriter. In every text, the task is the same: listen to the administrator or the spokesperson, understand what they want to say and how they feel about it, and give that raw material back organized into a speech that sounds like them. The Digimax team performs at the highest level and holds itself to the highest standards, and every version of the text goes through that review.

Douglas describes the result with an observation that, for me, is the best measure of a speech: "The public figure, the client, can tell that the speech had an effect." Watching the speech being delivered and the audience taking it in is the greatest reward of my work. The full story is on the Digimax case study page.

Where artificial intelligence fits into a speech script

AI tools can help organize ideas and research data. The official magazine of Toastmasters International published an article by David Tobenkin in April 2026 with direct advice: AI should not write your speech. According to the article, letting the tool write takes the speaker's insight and personal experiences out of the speech, and every AI-generated passage should be rewritten to sound closer to how the person thinks and speaks.

That rewriting is precisely the job of a speechwriter, because the audience can tell when the person is missing from the text. I wrote more about this risk in AI-written speeches.

What comes next in this series on speeches and public communication

In the next articles, I will open up each part of this craft. "Speech ghostwriter" explains how the work is done, the ethical care it requires and why the voice remains the speaker's. "Public communication in plain language" shows how to translate public administration for citizens, based on official guides. Then come an article on what makes a brand or public figure connect with the public, another on how to tell whether a speech had an effect, one on scripts for speakers and, to close, the partnership between agency and scriptwriter on high-standard teams.

Frequently asked questions about speech scripts

What is a speech script?

It is the structured text of the speech, with an opening, central ideas, stories and a closing, written to be spoken aloud. A good script reproduces the way the person on stage speaks, with their cadence and their words.

How do you write a speech that sounds natural?

Start with the person who will speak: listen to how they tell their own stories and write down the expressions they repeat. TED's guide for TEDx events asks for conversational language and genuine emotions, and Toastmasters advises rewriting any AI passage until it sounds like the speaker.

Why does the speaker's voice matter to the audience?

A Princeton study published in PNAS in 2010 showed that the brain of someone hearing a story tracks the brain of the person telling it, and that this coupling disappears when communication fails.

If you have a speech, a talk or a spokesperson statement coming up, see my work on keynote and speech scripts and talk to me. The Digimax case study shows how this work happens in public communication.