Table Topics Ideas: Storytelling

We have a fairly empty roster for our Toastmasters meeting tonight, so I've decided to do a meeting devoted to table topics using storytelling games.

If you haven't heard of Table Topics, it's an impromptu speaking competition that we use in Toastmasters meetings to improve our speaking skills. We deliver short (1-2 minute) speeches after being given a prompt just before speaking. It's a great way to work on your "elevator pitch" and it helps you learn how to develop your speaking style.

For the storytelling games, here's what I've thought of doing:

Hero-Villain-Tool

We'll have the group throw out some possible heroes and villains. Maybe a school girl could be a hero and a giant carnivorous plant could be the villain, though just about anything could be personified. For instance, we could have a book be a hero and an oil rig be the villain. Along with heroes and villains, we'll create some possible tools through which our hero must overcome the villain. Perhaps the tool is a lightning bolt or maybe it's laughter. The person leading the game (the Table Topics Master) will jumble up the heroes, villains, and tools. When a speaker steps to the stage, they will be given a hero, a villain, and a tool and then they have to create the story to go along with it.

Update (2 March 2016): This one worked out great! I made a table for the heroes, villains, and tools and then had the audience throw out one of each per person. I then selected combinations of hero, villain, and tool at random. We had the Dalai Lama fighting Kanye West's music with an axe, we had a 6 year-old girl fight Donald Trump with a pen, and we also had Spider Man fight the god Loki using a grenade. It was awesome!
Embellishment

This one will be a little difficult, but could prove to be rather fun. The first speaker will come up to speak. The Table Topics Master will slowly tell a story about what they did over some period time today, making it as bland as possible (e.g. I woke up... I brushed my teeth... I walked my dog... etc.). While they add each little bit of information about their day, the speaker will take their words and embellish them. So maybe the Table Topics Master says "First, I woke up and got out of bed." Maybe the speaker could then embellish and say something like, "It was the crack of dawn, the sun's rays came ripping through my room and struck me from my slumber. I was thrown from my bed by a will I am sure was not my own..." 

Like I said, that might be difficult for some people, but I think it would be pretty fun. After each speaker goes, it's then their turn to just say a small list of things they've done during the day while the new speaker embellishes.


The Rappin' Ritter

An old friend of mine recently passed away. His name was Ryan Ritter. He was very good at rapping. When we were younger, it was common fair for him to start rapping at parties. One thing he loved to do was to start a rap and then have people throw out words or ideas to add in to his rap as he was going. In honor of his passing, I've decided to add a game where the speaker will start a story and then during the story a random list of words will be thrown out that they have to add in to the story while they are speaking. This is a pretty common game for lots of improv groups to get their juices flowing and will surely be good for Toastmasters as well.

Update (2 March 2016): This one worked really well, but it ended up taking up a good bit of our meeting. We decided to allow the stories to be a bit longer (most were 3-5 minutes) to get all of the words in. We set it up so that each speaker would have one audience member feeding them 5 nouns at random and then another audience member giving them 5 verbs at random. For instance, I ended up telling a story about a little girl who was skipping through a forest and petting a father badger and his baby badgers before a Super Star Destroyer almost destroyed the forest and she had to use a tank to launch giant sai at the ship to blow off its door so that the pressure forced it to crash in the region beyond the forest, but it started a fire that she and the forest creatures had to put out by shuffling side by side carrying buckets of water to the blaze. It was pretty hilarious!

Personification

The personification of non-human objects can make for some fun storytelling. This one should be pretty straight forward: the speaker is given an object and they must personify that object and tell us a story about it. Objects could include candles, basketballs, rings, notebooks, a planet, tables, caterpillars, fossils at the museum, a pair of rain boots, silverware in a drawer, car tires, bells, musical instruments, flags, electrical outlets, rockets, stars, volcanoes, etc.


Voices

Using voices for characters can be a very fun way to make stories more interesting. In this game, we'll have each speaker tell a story using their own voice for narration as well as a character voice that they have to create based on a prompt from the Table Topics Master. The prompts for the voices could include:

-A military drill sergeant who has lost their voice but is still trying to yell

-An intoxicated person 

-An opera singer who feels the need to sing everything they say

-An alien in a human body who is trying to pass as human but fails to do so

-The oldest living person on Earth

-A child of age 6

-A stereotypical "surfer dude" from the 1980s

-Someone who is hiccoughing 

-Someone whose mouth is full of food while they try to talk

See You Speak Toastmasters - Balance

Tonight's meeting of See You Speak Toastmasters will focus on the theme of "Balance". I'll be talking about using exercises to find physical balance as well as using meditation to find mental balance, but, most importantly for public speaking, I'll also be talking about finding balance in our speaking.

For instance, some filler words (like 'ah' and 'um') will not destroy your message, but too many of them most certainly will. Also, variations in intonation and pitch in your voice, gives your speech a balanced dynamic. Just the same goes for using variations in the tempo (or timing) of your delivery. There's a lot of balance to be found in our speaking.

For tonight's meeting, I'll share this quote from a great speaker:

“What is joy without sorrow? 

What is success without failure? 

What is a win without a loss? 

What is health without illness? 

You have to experience each if you are to appreciate the other. There is always going to be suffering. 

It’s how you look at your suffering, how you deal with it, 

That will define you.” 

― Mark Twain

"The Greatest Speech Ever Made"

Charlie Chaplin delivering what some people call "The Greatest Speech Ever Made"

If the above image looks familiar to you, then you might be one of the tens of millions of people who've watched the version of Charlie Chaplin's speech from The Great Dictator which was edited by The Lakey Sisters and posted to Youtube in 2011 (that or perhaps you've actually seen the film. In which case, you're awesome!). 

This video was titled "The Greatest Speech Ever Made" and alone has garnered almost 15 million views (many others have since copied and reposted it, driving up the views even higher). 

If you haven't seen the video or haven't even heard this movie speech before, you can check out the link above or watch the video right here:

Definitely an awesome speech. As I mention above, the speech was written and delivered as part of Chaplin's 1940 film, The Great Dictator. This film was produced as a political satire of the war machine and political tyrants, specifically of Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler. 

Amazingly, the message of the film, and especially of this speech, still hold true today. We are still plagued by fear and jealousy, we still break the backs of the poor and working class to support the aristocracy, we still have the capability to work together to solve our global issues and yet we go our separate ways and we focus solely on our own little problems. 

Our globe is still fraught with people who want to rule others and tell others what to think. People are still "barricaded by hate", and we still see our neighbors withering in pain and hunger while we turn our heads. Yet, as Chaplin said, "the good Earth is rich" and "the way of life could be free and beautiful". We could learn to embrace our technology while still building upon our morality and our understanding of each other and our place in the cosmos. We could progress forward while still protecting the rest of the biosphere. We could live in a world beyond "machine men, with machine minds, and machine hearts".

I don't know if Charlie Chaplin's speech from The Great Dictator is the greatest speech ever made, but it's definitely an incredible testament to Chaplin's capability and thoughtfulness as an actor, a writer, and a human being. 

It's saddening to know that our species is not yet healed of our delusions of power and wealth. To think that we still haven't found a way to unite and surpass our fears of 'otherness' is to realize that we are still, in many ways, children. Chaplin's speech is an inspiration and a remembrance of our need for hope and, even more so, our need to work together to achieve the beautiful future that many of us know is possible.

For those who are interested, here's the script from that speech:

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone, if possible: Jew, Gentile; black man, white. 

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness, not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. 

In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men, cries out for universal brotherhood, for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say: do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! Don’t give yourselves to brutes, men who despise you, enslave you, who regiment your lives, tell you what to do, what to think, and what to feel. Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men, machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate, the unloved and the unnatural. Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!

In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man”, not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power, the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then in the name of democracy let us use that power, let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world, a decent world that will give men a chance to work, that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will! 

Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world, to do away with national barriers, to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! In the name of democracy, let us all unite!

Toastmasters: Video Game Voice-Overs and Public Speaking

At a recent Toastmasters Leadership Institute training meeting, I attended a workshop presented by Brooke Chestnut that dealt with the topic of attracting millennials to Toastmasters. 

Millennials, as you may know, are people of the generation who were born roughly between the early 1980s and the early 2000s (a group for which I am technically a member). Our generation has become a powerhouse of creativity and entrepreneurship, although we're also known as a boomerang generation since many of us tend to put off traditional rites of adulthood until later in life. 

Actually, our generation has unfortunately mostly come to be known as a generation of children who feel undeservingly entitled (if you don't believe me, try telling one of the children in America who has gone straight to college after high school that they actually have to read books and do homework to earn good grades and see how they react).

I enjoyed Brooke Chestnut's training session. There were times when it felt a little insulting (I am a millennial after all), but the message was clear: millennials are an important cohort of people who can be benefitted by the improvements in public speaking and leadership that come through Toastmasters membership. During the workshop, we talked about a lot of the thing that are of common interest among those of us in our teens to early thirties. These are things like social media, technology, and video games. 

Video games specifically I thought were an interesting topic to bring up. I've been playing video games my whole life, and I know how important they can be to many in my generation. One thing that I thought about during the workshop was how many great voiceovers have been done for modern video games. These days, video game productions can be massive undertakings and many high-caliber actors and speakers have started taking on voiceover roles. For instance, here's a video with five awesome voiceover parts from some common video games (the video says Top 5, but I don't necessarily agree with that ranking):

The games and voice actors from this video are, in order:

Mass Effect (voiced by George Szilagyi)

Civilization V (voiced by William Morgan Sheppard)

Fallout 3 (voiced by Ron Perlman)

Killzone (voiced by Brian Cox)

Gears of War 2 (voiced by Charles Cioffi)

Due to the nature of video games, many of the great speeches and monologues come before or during some kind of battle. Just as real leaders need to find ways to motivate their "troops" before a serious engagement, it's entertaining to have a great speaker buildup a battle before you enter into it within the digital realm of a video game. To empower the gamer, the voiceover actor needs to use their speaking skills to make the character feel real and dynamic. That's why video games are a growing source of great speaking examples.

Here is a video with Carver's end speech (voiced by Ricardo Chavira) from Dead Space 3:

Here's another voiceover, this time by Jen Taylor at the end of Halo: Reach. It's nice to conclude a game with something more than just the credits:

These video game voiceovers offer some great examples of the power of the speech. With video games continually growing in the scale of their production and their use in society, I imagine that we'll see many more great speeches from video games in the future. For myself, I'll be paying closer attention to the voice overs in the video games that I play, to listen for great writing and great speaking when it pops up. By knowing the ways in which speaking appeals to others, we Toastmasters are better able to share our approach of improvement through practice with a wider audience. I think video game voiceovers may offer some of the great speeches that people will look back on in the near future.

I'll leave you with one more video. Here's a video that someone put together showing Charlie Chaplain's wonderful speech from The Great Dictator set to various video game sequences:

Quotes for Table Topics

I'm a member of See You Speak Toastmasters, a local public speaking group.  If you haven't heard of Toastmaster, you should definitely check it out.  Toastmasters is an international organization focused on building better public speakers, and, through that, our members also become better leaders as well.  Every Toastmasters club is a little different; ours is an informal, small club where we have a lot of fun working on our speaking skills together.  One of my favorite parts of Toastmasters is an impromptu public speaking game that we play called Table Topics.

Table Topics are short speeches that members and guests give during the meeting so that they can work on their off-the-cuff speaking.  I think of this game as the bread-and-butter of the Toastmasters speaking program.  We give longer prepared speeches (usually in the range of 5-12 minutes) that help us to work on our speechcrafting, but Table Topics gives us a chance to practice our speaking skills in the best way: unprepared.  Replying to questions or prompts without having had the time to prepare helps us to become better extemporaneous speakers.

I'm taking on the role of Table Topics Master tonight for one of our meetings.  I've decided to use the theme of "interpreting quotes".  I'm going to pick a few quotes and then have our members and guests interpret what those quotes mean to them.

Here's the list of quotes (from speech and writing) that I'll be selecting from for our Table Topics tonight:

"The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering."
-Bruce Lee

"All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up."
-Pablo Picasso

"The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves."
-Victor Hugo

"I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
-Michael Jordan

"Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right."
-Henry Ford

"All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost; the old that is strong does not wither, deep roots are not reached by the frost."
-J.R.R. Tolkien

"Everything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear."
-George Addair

"We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained."
-Marie Curie

"If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money."
-Abigail Van Buren

"The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
-Isaac Asimov

"It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years."
-Abraham Lincoln


We give our members and guests 1-2 minutes to answer the question or prompt for a table topics speech.  What would you say about these quotes in 1-2 minutes?

We follow our round of Table Topics at our meetings with evaluations of how we did during the meeting.  We evaluate the prepared speeches, we evaluate the timing and use of grammar for our speakers, and we have someone called the Quizmaster who's job it is to pay attention during the meeting and then evaluate the club to see if we were all paying attention.  

I highly recommend Toastmasters.  Joining Toastmasters is one of the greatest things I've done for myself in recent years.  It's improved my speaking skills but also helped me to realize that I may have it in myself to become an orator.