How to find the five beats of a talk in your draft

A method for locating the five beats inside the deep version you have already written, so your structure comes from your own material.

This lesson gives a method for finding the five beats of a talk inside the deep version you have already written. Writers often struggle to see structure in their own material because it sits too close. The method locates the beats in what already exists, so the structure grows from your real material.

The search starts with the turn, because it is the easiest beat to find. The turn is the most irreversible moment in the story, and it divides the talk into a first half and a second half that points towards the ending. The other beats are found in relation to it. The hook is the earliest moment that holds an unanswered question. The stakes sit between the hook and the turn, and they belong to the world or the audience. The idea is the throughline. The vision describes what becomes possible once the idea is true, and it often appears quietly near the end of the deep version.

The result is a five-line skeleton, one short line per beat, written to be true and left unpolished. The deep version stays the quarry, and the skeleton is the map of where to cut.

Key ideas.

The five beats of a talk can usually be found in the deep version a speaker has already written, starting with the turn, the most irreversible moment in the story.
A talk's hook is the earliest moment in the material that contains an unanswered question for the listener.
The stakes in a talk describe what is at risk for the world or for the audience if things stay as they are.
A five-line skeleton, one line per beat, maps where to cut the deep version of a talk into its final shape.

Questions.

How do I find the structure in my speech draft?

Start by finding the turn, the moment in your draft where something changed. It is the easiest beat to spot, and it splits the material into what leads up to the change and what follows it. Then look for the hook, the stakes, the idea and the vision in relation to the turn, and write one short line for each beat.

What are stakes in a talk?

Stakes are what is at risk if things stay as they are. In a talk, they describe the world's risk or the audience's risk, which gives the room something it can feel. You usually find the stakes in the stretch of material between the hook and the turn. Once you find them, write them as one short line in your five-line skeleton.

Why does the vision come at the end of a talk?

The vision answers what becomes possible once the turn has happened and the idea is true, so it belongs after the idea. Speakers often skip it because the idea feels like an ending. The vision describes what the world looks like once the idea holds. It often sits quietly in the last third of the deep version, ready to move to the end of the talk.

Lesson 3.4 of From Story to Stage, a free written course by Aaron C. Leaman, published by Brighter Future. The terms it uses are defined in the glossary.