ur-grue Speech Writer
What This Skill Does
Writes a structured speech for an executive or spokesperson for a media event, conference, or press briefing, matched to the speaker's voice, the occasion's register, and the key messages they must deliver.
When To Use This Skill
- A senior leader is opening a press launch, conference, or industry event and needs a full written speech or speaking notes
- You are preparing remarks for a set-piece media moment (annual results, product launch, award acceptance) and need a first draft quickly
- The speaker is not a natural public communicator and needs a speech that is easy to deliver as well as effective
- You want to embed specific key messages in a speech that feels natural rather than engineered
What You Need To Provide
Required: The speaker's name and title; the occasion and audience; the key messages (two or three maximum — more than three dilutes a speech); the approximate length in minutes or words; the speaker's preferred register or communication style (formal, conversational, direct, academic).
Optional: An example of the speaker's previous public remarks or tone of voice; any specific story, anecdote, or personal reference the speaker wants included; whether the speech will be delivered from a full script, bullet-point notes, or a teleprompter; any topics or phrasing to avoid; whether Q&A follows and what questions are expected.
How the Assistant Approaches This
- Identifies the single primary purpose of the speech — inform, persuade, inspire, announce, or mark an occasion — and structures every element toward that purpose.
- Opens with the speaker's presence on stage, not with thanks. A speech that begins "Thank you for having me" before saying anything substantive wastes the opening seconds of maximum attention.
- Embeds key messages at natural points in the argument rather than listing them as bullet points. A key message lands because of what precedes it, not because it is bold.
- Writes for the ear, not the eye: short sentences, active voice, concrete images, repetition of key phrases to aid retention.
- Closes with the emotion or action the speaker wants the audience to carry away — a challenge, a commitment, a specific ask, or a memorable image.
Output Format
Full script (for a 5–10 minute speech: 600–1,200 words) unless speaking notes are specified. Speaking notes format: short bullet points, bolded key phrases, [PAUSE] stage directions. Full script format: continuous prose, short paragraphs, stage directions in brackets only where essential ([LOOK UP], [PAUSE]). First person singular. Tone and register matched to speaker's profile and occasion. No headers within the speech body. A brief delivery note at the start (tone, pacing, key moments) if the speaker is inexperienced.
Quality Criteria
- Speech does not open with thanks, logistics, or self-introduction unless essential to the occasion
- Key messages are embedded in the speech, not listed
- Sentences are short enough to deliver without breathlessness (under 25 words in most cases)
- Active voice throughout — no passive constructions unless deliberate
- Closing paragraph or sentence is the strongest moment in the speech, not a summary
- Register is consistent throughout and matches the stated speaker profile
- No sentence that reads naturally as a press release or policy document
Example
Input
Speaker: James Aldridge, Chief Executive, National Housing Federation (a trade body representing non-profit housing providers)
Occasion: Annual conference opening address. Audience: 600 housing professionals — chief executives, board members, government officials. Not televised but likely live-tweeted.
Length: 8 minutes (approximately 1,000 words)
Key messages:
- The affordable housing crisis is not a supply problem alone — it is a planning and investment problem that government must own
- The sector has delivered its part of the deal; it is now government's turn to act
- The Federation will publish a costed 10-year plan this week, and it is asking every member to back it publicly
Register: Authoritative, direct, not combative. Senior-to-senior register — addressing ministers and officials in the room, not performing to the crowd.
Avoid: Partisan language; attacking any named politician; statistics without sources.
Output
DRAFT SPEECH — James Aldridge, Chief Executive National Housing Federation Annual Conference [Occasion / Date] Delivery note: Measured pace. This speech addresses people in the room who have power to act — speak to them directly, not to the gallery. Pause after the three-question sequence in the second section.
There are 8.4 million people in England living in overcrowded, insecure, or unaffordable homes.
I want that number to sit in the room for a moment.
8.4 million people. That is more than the population of London. And it is a number that has not moved in the right direction in a decade — not because this sector has failed to build, and not because housing professionals have stopped trying. It has not moved because the system around us has been designed, whether by intention or neglect, to make it very difficult to solve.
Today I want to talk about what that system is actually failing to do. And I want to tell you what the Federation is proposing to do about it.
We are often told this is a supply problem. Build more homes, the argument goes, and the market will correct. I have heard that argument at this conference for fifteen years. It is not wrong that supply matters. But it is incomplete in a way that lets the most powerful actors in this system — government and institutional capital — off the hook.
The organisations in this room built 40,000 affordable homes last year. That is not a sector that has stopped delivering. That is a sector delivering against planning systems that take four years to approve a scheme, against a viability framework that was written for a different interest rate environment, and against an infrastructure levy that is consuming the margin that would otherwise fund the homes that people on moderate incomes can actually afford to rent.
Supply is not the problem. The terms on which supply is possible — that is the problem. And those terms are set by government.
So let me ask three questions that I think deserve answers this week — not because they are rhetorical, but because the officials and ministers in this room have the power to answer them.
Why does it take longer to get planning permission for affordable homes in England than it does in any other comparable European country?
Why is the affordable housing programme budget flat in real terms while build costs have risen 28% in three years?
And why does a sector that has delivered on every previous target it was set — and I mean every target — still have to make the case for investment as though it is a new and untested idea?
[PAUSE]
I am not here to set terms. I am here to make a proposal.
This week, the Federation is publishing a costed 10-year plan for affordable housing delivery in England. It sets out, year by year, what this sector can build and at what cost, and what the government investment required to unlock it would be. It is a document written with treasurers and finance directors, not press officers. Every figure in it is auditable.
And today I am asking everyone in this room — every chief executive, every board chair, every member organisation — to read that plan and to back it publicly by the end of this month.
Not in principle. Publicly. With your name on it.
Because what I have learned in fifteen years at the Federation is that government responds to organised, credible, publicly stated demand. It does not respond to sector-wide disappointment expressed in conference rooms. We have been in those conference rooms long enough.
The 8.4 million people I mentioned at the start of this speech are not in this room. They are living, right now, in conditions that we know how to solve. The question is not whether we know how. The question is whether the people with the power to act will decide that this is the moment to use it.
I believe they will. But I think they need to hear from us first.
Thank you.
Known Limitations
- A speech written by the assistant is a draft for the speaker's review and personalisation — any personal anecdote, specific memory, or first-person reference that is not in the input must be added by the speaker, who is the only person who knows whether it is true.
- The assistant cannot replicate a speaker's idiosyncratic cadence, verbal tics, or personal vocabulary without examples of their previous speeches or transcripts. Generic input produces a competent but generic speech.
- For speeches at legally significant moments (financial results announcements, regulatory hearings, formal statements of record), the text requires legal review before delivery. The assistant applies general communications standards, not legal disclosure rules.