A speech script prompt tackles the most painful part of preparing to speak: the ideas are clear in your head, yet on paper they read like an essay, they run over time when spoken, there is nowhere to breathe, and five minutes in the audience still cannot name the point. The prompt below hands the AI the occasion, the audience, the core point and the time limit first, then has it size the word count for speaking speed and split the sentences for the ear, so you can copy it, fill in the variables and get a draft you can rehearse from directly.
The hard part is not the writing, it is the minutes at the podium
A text written for the eye and a script written for the ear differ in three places. First, length: fifteen hundred words that look modest on the page take about seven minutes to say, and if the slot is five minutes you speed up as you go and rush the ending. Second, sentences: a long written sentence reads smoothly but cannot be said in one breath, and listeners cannot follow it either. Third, the landing: readers can scroll back, listeners cannot rewind, so if the first thirty seconds do not say what the talk is about and why it matters to them, later quality rarely wins their attention back. That is why this prompt pins down the time limit and the audience from the start instead of cutting after the fact.
The prompt, ready to copy
You are a speaking coach who has revised many speeches. Based on the information below, write a speech script I can deliver as it stands.
Occasion and audience: {{occasion and audience}}
Core point and material: {{core point and material}}
Length of the speech: {{speech length}}
Tone and style: {{tone and style}}
Output rules:
1. Size the script by time first: spoken delivery runs at roughly 130 words per minute in English, so keep the total within ten percent of that pace. Put one line at the top stating the expected duration and word count, then write the script.
2. Within the first thirty seconds, the audience must know what this talk is about and why it concerns them: open with a concrete scene, a question or a surprising fact, not with pleasantries, and keep the self-introduction to one sentence.
3. Give the body at most three points. Each point states its conclusion first, then supports it with one example, story or figure, and the points need transitions between them rather than reading like a list. Do not invent figures, cases or personal experiences that are not in the material; where support is missing, mark it as insufficient material and say exactly what is missing.
4. Write the whole script as spoken language: prefer short sentences, one idea per sentence, split long sentences, and swap written wording for words people actually say. One idea per paragraph, with a blank line between paragraphs so the speaker can breathe and find the place.
5. Close by restating the core point in one sentence, then give the audience one clear next step or one line worth taking away; put the thanks in the final sentence instead of letting a bare thank-you replace the ending.
6. After the script, add a cue version: keep only the first sentence and the keywords of each paragraph, in order, so a glance before going on stage recalls the whole paragraph.
Do not add writing notes before the script, and do not explain why you wrote it this way.How to fill the four variables
- {{occasion and audience}}: write the occasion, your role and who is listening together. For example: a quarterly company meeting, thirty colleagues, I lead the project and most of them are hearing about it for the first time. If you only write that you are giving a speech, the AI can only produce a generic script that fits anyone.
- {{core point and material}}: start with the one sentence you most want the audience to remember, then pile the usable material behind it: figures, examples, your own experience, scenes the audience knows. When the material is thin, gather more first instead of expecting the AI to make an empty point persuasive; what it adds is usually invented.
- {{speech length}}: pin it to a number of minutes, for example 5 minutes, not roughly a few minutes. The length is the hard constraint of this prompt; the word count and the number of points are derived from it. Slots also get cut on the day, so in rehearsal prepare a version that still lands if the third point is dropped.
- {{tone and style}}: give a reference the AI can aim at, for example natural, like sharing experience with colleagues, not like an award acceptance speech; for a formal ceremony, state plainly that it should be solemn with no internet slang. Formal or lively on their own are too vague to steer by.
Once you get the script, read it aloud before editing
Do not proofread silently; read it aloud and time it. Silent reading is faster than speaking, so only your voice tells you whether it runs over, and the places where you run out of breath or have to search for the sentence are exactly the long sentences that need splitting. On the second pass, check the facts: every figure, name and example in the script must trace back to the material you supplied, because a polished case the AI added on its own is the most dangerous thing on stage, collapsing at the first follow-up question. On the third pass, look at the opening and the close: does the first thirty seconds state the relevance to this audience, and does the ending land on one definite line? If the talk also has slides, do not paste the script onto the screen; use the PPT outline prompt to split the three points into slide titles, keep only keywords on screen and leave the detail to your voice.
When it sounds wrong read aloud, pull it back with these follow-ups
- It reads like an essay and will not come out of your mouth: ask for a full rewrite into spoken language, every long sentence split into short ones of no more than twenty words, and only the new script as output, with no explanation of the changes.
- It runs more than a minute over: ask it to cut the point with the weakest support and remove one secondary example from each remaining point, bringing the word count back inside the time limit instead of relying on speaking faster.
- The opening is flat and the ending drifts: ask it to rewrite only the opening and the ending, opening on the most concrete scene in the material and closing on one line the audience can repeat, with the body left untouched.
