Writing and speaking go hand in hand.
Many will say that they are very good speakers, and yet they feel that they are very bad writers. Many extremely good writers exhibit very poor speaking skills. For example, if you look at the C-SPAN book review, you’ll see that some of the best writers you could imagine aren’t very good speakers. And yet, sometimes you see a very good storyteller on the book review channel, who has written a very good book.
Before I started doing much writing, I was a very good speaker, and having dabbled in politics, I have given quite a few speeches in my life to audiences of all sizes, up to about 1000 people. And I’ve done a lot of TV interviews, one of which was seen by 60 million people. I always considered myself a very good speaker for some reason, maybe all the practice I got in my own business, but I never really considered myself a very good writer.
One day I realized that writing and speaking are very similar and if you write as if you are speaking to a group of people or an audience, what you are writing takes on a completely different form and meaning. And believe it or not, it’s even better received. For some reason, people like to be talked to or have a conversation with the writer. If you write like you’re having a conversation with them, they’re more likely to read what you’re writing.
That’s why writing and speaking go hand in hand, even if you often see people who are good at one or the other, but not both. A very good writer can become a very good speaker, or a very good speaker can become a very good writer. This is because the skills involved are communication methods and our language. I hope you understand this and think about it on a philosophical basis because I guarantee it will improve your writing or speaking or both at the same time.
