Pauses can make you a powerful storyteller

Quote of the Week

“It usually takes me more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech.” Mark Twain

Pauses can make you a powerful storyteller

As a classical singer my wife is very comfortable performing in front of large audiences and intimate soirées. Yet she used to be petrified to give a speech.

This was the reason we joined ToastMasters.

As a lifelong marketer, I’ve never had a problem talking in front of people. Yet it was in ToastMasters that I learned that I used the word “Right?” as a crutch (or filler) word.

We’ve all experienced this, when speakers use words such as “You know…”, “Umm..,” or “Aah..” as fillers, as they seek to gather our thoughts or search for the right word.

My wife on the other hand as we discovered was completely comfortable with silence or what we in the storytelling community call the “pause.”

Pauses are powerful. Great orators, presenters and storytellers use the pause for a variety of reasons. To grab their listeners’ attention or build anticipation are two of the common ones. Pauses can last for as little as a second or long enough to feel like an eternity of silence.

Here are three of ways to get started.

Transitions As you make transitions from one topic to another you can pause. Such a pause allows both your listeners and you to digest the point(s) you just made and be prepared for what comes next.

Question When you pose a question, whether rhetorical or not, to your audience, you should pause. This works great at openings as well as when you transition to a new point.

Dramatic pause Instead of a question, you can make a statement, usually a fact or statistic intended to grab the audience’s attention.

“More people are alive today than have ever died since the beginning of time” Pausing after such a statement lets you catch your breath and the audience to think about what it implies.

The best way to practice pauses is to record yourself speaking. Using a transcription tool such as Otter.ai, you can see how often you use filler words.

Now practice using a pause—essentially complete silence at each of those instances when you say “You know..,” or “Umm..” or in my case “Right?”

Another way to do this to watch or listen to your favorite talk—be it a eulogy, a fundraising pitch, a movie scene or a standup comic.

Note how often they pause—whether for a couple of seconds or sometimes as long as 10-15 seconds.

In the video below Marlon Brandon provides a masterclass in the use of pauses in his delivery of the Mark Anthony’s speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.

Video

Brando uses pauses long and short to set a varying cadence to his speech. Such variations ensures that he (& you) don’t bore your audience.

For a detailed analysis of how he does it, check out our blog post here.