What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

Image by Mark Anderson for What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’ by Conor Cunneen

Lessons from the great humorist via a unique MARK TWAIN acronym

•“When I say I'll learn ['Teach' is not in the river vocabulary] a man the river, I mean it. And you can depend on it, I'll learn him or kill him.”

Quote and Image from Life on the Mississippi – Mark Twain

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Message preparation• Audience• Relate• Know your objective

• Titter• Wait (the Pause)• Anecdote• Involve• Narration and Stagecraft

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Message preparation • “Early in the evenings, we

scattered out among the towns and made them indicate the good and poor things in the new lectures…….. And so, when we finally stepped on to the great stage at the Music Hall we already had the verdict in our pocket.”

• Mark Twain - A Biography: Albert Bigelow Paine

Available at Amazon What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Audience

• “The country audience is the difficult audience; a passage which it will approve with a ripple will bring a crash in the city. A fair success in the country means a triumph in the city.”

• Mark Twain - A Biography: Albert Bigelow Paine

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’ Available at Amazon

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Relate

• It seems as if I must have been insane when I wrote that speech and saw no harm in it, no disrespect toward those men whom I reverenced so much. And what shame I brought upon you, after what you said introducing me! It burns me like fire to think of it. The whole matter is a dreadful subject—let me drop it here—at least on paper.

• Letter to William Dean HowellsAvailable at Amazon What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Know your Objective

• “I am demeaning myself. I am allowing myself to be a mere buffoon. It's ghastly. I can't endure it any longer."

• Mark Twain - A Biography: Albert Bigelow Paine

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’ is available at Amazon

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Message preparation• Audience• Relate• Know your objective

• Titter• Wait (the Pause)• Anecdote• Involve• Narration and Stagecraft

Available at Amazon

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Titter

• “Against the assault of laughter, nothing can stand."

• Mark Twain: The Chronicle of Young Satan

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’ Available at Amazon

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Wait (the Pause)

• “The right word may be effective but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause.”

• Mark Twain

Available at Amazon What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Anecdote

• “The characters were no creations of my own. I simply sketched them from life. I knew both those boys (Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer) so well that it was easy to write what they did and said.”

• Mark Twain

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’ Available at Amazon

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Involve

• I am but human, and when you, give me a reception like that I am obliged to wait a little while I get my voice. When you appeal to my head, I don't feel it; but when you appeal to my heart, I do feel it.”

• Mark Twain

Available at Amazon What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’

• Narration and Stagecraft

• “Mark Twain was the most consummate public performer I ever saw, and it was an incomparable pleasure to hear him.”

• William Dean Howells

What Mark Twain Learned Me ‘bout Public Speakin’ Available at Amazon