Public Speaking Course:
Humor Placement
You are probably wondering where to put all the funny material you have
gathered into your presentation.
Most people in the audience will expect you to start off your presentation
with a story or joke. Because of this, you might want to postpone your story
until the audience has resigned itself to being put to sleep and then you can
surprise them your witty humor. A good rule to remember from your public
speaking course is "Don't be afraid to do the unexpected." Humor is
one of the best attention getting devices that can take your audience to the
peaks of intensity.
In order to start figuring out where to place your humorous material, you
first need to find out how long your presentation time slot will be. Once you
have this information, divide that time into equal segments. If the percentage
of humorous material is going to be low, you might make a funny comment every
six to eight minutes. If the percentage of humor is very high, you might be
making a funny comment every minute. Going through this process tells you
roughly how much humor or other attention
gaining devices you will need. Planning ahead and doing extensive research
for each presentation is taught in my public speaking course.
I'm assuming by now that all the humorous material you have selected is
totally relevant to your audience and the topic your speaking on. If it is not,
throw it out now and start searching for something to replace it with that is
relevant to your program. You must have fresh humor for every audience, not
canned humor, or canned speeches.
Next, you should be ready to place the humor in your program. Don't make the
mistake of forcing humor and other material to fit into a presentation, always
choose relevant humor. It makes no difference if one segment goes several
minutes longer than another or if you don't hit the funny bone exactly every six
to eight minutes. Just use that time length as a guideline. All you have to do
now is decide if you want humor in your opening and/or closing.
Finally, you will need to learn that the aspect of timing has to do with
'planned spontaneity.' When it comes to professional speeches, preparation will
be a big factor in how you will succeed. Prepared remarks that appear
spontaneous to the audience deserve a mention when talking about timing. During
the course of a presentation, windows of opportunity for witty remarks open and
close. They are usually related
to 'expected/unexpected' happenings during the presentation, or questions from
the audience. Let's say you are writing on the flipchart and your marker runs
out of ink. Your window of opportunity is now open. You might jump through the
window and say, 'I guess I've come to the dry part of my presentation' Window
closes. Everything is fine. You look like a quick wit and a pretty good NO
ZZZZZs presenter, all of this is part of what you will learn in my public
speaking course.
What if you waited until you searched out a new marker to say the same line?
The opportunity is already lost, the spontaneity is gone and so is the impact.
Most situations that could happen during a presentation can be anticipated.
If you are using a slide projector, the bulb might blow. You may be interrupted
by a loud noise. Your microphone might squeal, etc. Prepare comments in advance
so you can
recall them immediately when needed. If you let too much time pass between the
incident and your comment, you're better off foregoing the comment. It's too
late to make it funny now, so just move on in your program.
Questions (see Funny
Question and Answer Sessions article) from the audience can be treated the
same way. Dealing with awkward questions with humor should be practiced in your
public speaking course. If you've been presenting your material long enough, you
can probably anticipate most of the questions that will be asked. Prepare a
witty answer to each question and use it when the question arises.
Then go on and give your serious answer. Remember to be careful when using this
technique so your witty answer doesn't make the person asking the question feel
stupid.
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