Why Are Good Writers Bad Speakers?

A certain minister who was an excellent writer gave a speech somewhere. It was one of his first speeches as a minister after his appointment by the President. Another writer who heard the speech complained that he wasn’t impressed by the minister’s performance. “It was as if he had never spoken in public before,” he told us.

“Well,” I reasoned, “he had never been subjected to an occupation where he had to speak regularly in public.”

Good writers get to be good because they write all the time. Which means that they are practised. Good speakers become orators because they speak frequently. In other words, they are practised. Accordingly, it is incredibly difficult to find an imam or pastor who is not eloquent. Why? Because they speak all the time. At least once a week. The imams during Jumu’a prayers on Friday and the pastors on Sunday.

Not long ago, a friend told me this: “honestly, I prefer your writing to your speaking.” In other words, I prefer to read you than to hear you. Translation: “you are a terrible speaker!”

People think that one ability seamlessly transfers to another. It doesn’t work that way. While both are ways to communicate, the two are different skills. It is the same way around. Some great orators can’t write a decent essay.

Ask any neuroscientist and they will tell you that the brain grows new cells to accommodate new skills (neurogenesis). Thereafter, the more you practice, the more myelination. Myelination simply means the process of making brain signals travel faster for a particular skill.

Another minister in Nigeria, Dr Ali Isa Pantami, impressed the nation when he appeared in the Senate to be cleared as a minister of the federal government.

But I wasn’t surprised. The guy is a scholar and a preacher! Which is a devastating combination. He knows. He expresses the knowledge. Someone who has something to say and says it all the time is my definition of an orator.

You wouldn’t be surprised when Messi, Ronaldo or Salah plays well in a match. He is expected to play well. So that is not news. What is news is when he has a bad day and doesn’t play well.

So why are good writers bad speakers? If you have read this far, you must have figured it out by now: it is because they don’t speak!

I know some good writers who are good speakers. Mahmud Jega is one of them because he is practised. He was a lecturer. He likes to share stories and he gets invitations to give talks.

Steven King is another example. He is a great American novelist who has sold millions of his books. But I wasn’t impressed by his earlier appearances on TV. But not surprisingly, he is now a better speaker (at least to me) because he puts in appearances in shows like The Late Night Show of Steven Colbert.

Since I realized this, I’ve increased my speaking gigs and have accepted most of the invitations I received to give talks or lectures. It helped. What about the friend who said I was a terrible speaker? Before writing this article, I gave him a call. Here is what he said: “Sincerely, I think you have improved. You’re balancing both.”

That means that my hypothesis was true, the experiments were effective and my claim was sound.

Of course, others may argue that some individuals are naturals. They point out some people who were born orators or natural writers. But that observation is superfluous and needless. Because there’s nothing to learn from a natural other than the fact that he is a natural. But for those of us in the general population, we must practice to get better at either writing or speaking. Even great leaders who left behind oft-quoted speeches had to practice. Abraham Lincoln practised. So did his compatriot, Martin Luther King Jr.

Therefore, if you want to be a good writer, write every day. If you want to be a good speaker, speak frequently in public. But if you want to be a good writer who speaks well, do both.

PS: An even better way is to learn the techniques of how to do both and then put that into practice. In other words, put knowledge into practice.