In story speech-writing dilemma
Posted: 2005-07-29 08:20am
Basically I've got two speeches in the space of two chapters, the first is a lengthy piece of inspirational/battle preparing on the part of a lobster general addressing his senior commanders before an assault and I'm very happy with it.
The second one is a moose rebellion official addressing creatures at a piss up, and reminding everyone that the piss up came at a cost - basically the standard remember the dead etc etc line.
My quandary is that the two feel very similar, in one case, this could be good as it demonstrates the similarities of the leaders and thus allows a degree of empathy with the bad guys. On the other hand, writing the second speech has felt dull and tedious and it has felt like I'm more or less repeating what has gone before, even though the words and speech content is entirely different.
My current line of thinking is therefore to have the moose rebellion speech giver essentially just make up a load of crap and make the remember the dead speech inside a really awful joke which the audience fails to get (basically a joke about an attack by fiddler crabs showing that violins is not the answer).
Is the remember the dead speech before any event a tired cliche? Would a long speech about those who have died feel out of place in what is essentially the beginning of a piss up? Does anyone have any tips on speech writing and making one dramatic speech feel seperate from another one?
(I'd quote bits of them to show examples, but work email is pissing about and I can't get access to the texts)
The second one is a moose rebellion official addressing creatures at a piss up, and reminding everyone that the piss up came at a cost - basically the standard remember the dead etc etc line.
My quandary is that the two feel very similar, in one case, this could be good as it demonstrates the similarities of the leaders and thus allows a degree of empathy with the bad guys. On the other hand, writing the second speech has felt dull and tedious and it has felt like I'm more or less repeating what has gone before, even though the words and speech content is entirely different.
My current line of thinking is therefore to have the moose rebellion speech giver essentially just make up a load of crap and make the remember the dead speech inside a really awful joke which the audience fails to get (basically a joke about an attack by fiddler crabs showing that violins is not the answer).
Is the remember the dead speech before any event a tired cliche? Would a long speech about those who have died feel out of place in what is essentially the beginning of a piss up? Does anyone have any tips on speech writing and making one dramatic speech feel seperate from another one?
(I'd quote bits of them to show examples, but work email is pissing about and I can't get access to the texts)