Public speaking starters, one move per page
The twenty-four moves that carry a terrified beginner to the end of their first talk: the fear and what it does, the first minute, the opener, practice out loud, simple slides, voice and pauses, the blank-out, and the Q&A you can't prepare.
A diagram, the classic mistake, and one thing to go try. That's a page.
Public speaking starters, one move per page
The twenty-four moves that carry a terrified beginner to the end of their first talk: the fear and what it does, the first minute, the opener, practice out loud, simple slides, voice and pauses, the blank-out, and the Q&A you can't prepare.
Set in Space Grotesk, Inter and JetBrains Mono (SIL Open Font License).
Facts checked against Toastmasters International educational materials (toastmasters.org), the National Institute of Mental Health, Social Anxiety Disorder: More Than Just Shyness (nimh.nih.gov), and peer-reviewed studies reachable via PubMed (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov). Toastmasters International is not affiliated with and does not endorse this book.
General information only, not medical advice. If fear of speaking is disrupting work, school or daily life for months, that is treatable, and a doctor or mental health professional is the right door. See nimh.nih.gov.
Your purchase is for personal use only. You do not have redistribution rights: please do not share, resell, or republish this book or its pages.
© 2026 Steve Hodgkiss. All rights reserved. Personal use only; no redistribution rights.
Edition 1.0 · stevehodgkiss.net
Contents
The fear
The fear is normal, where attention should point, the symptoms a body actually produces, and where ordinary nerves end and a treatable condition begins.
- 01The fear is normal
- 02The two arrows
Feeling some nervousness before giving a speech is natural and even beneficial, but too much nervousness can be detrimental. From Toastmasters International, 10 Tips for Public Speaking (toastmasters.org).
The fear is normal
Let's say the toast is in three weeks and you've opened the document four times. The shaking hands are already here and nobody's even looking at you.
Toastmasters says it plainly: some nervousness before a speech is natural, even beneficial. The same adrenaline that shakes your hands sharpens you, and nervous energy can be turned into enthusiasm. The mistake is treating the feeling as verdict, deciding you can't speak while the feeling is still just a feeling.
Nerves are energy with the wrong label.
Tonight, say the first two sentences of your talk out loud, badly, on purpose. Let it be rough. That's the fear losing the first round.
Self-focus increases awareness of your own anxiety response and increases the threat value of social situations, maintaining social anxiety. From a randomized controlled study of attention during virtual reality exposure to public speaking, PubMed 34970163.
The two arrows
Let's say you're mid-sentence and you catch yourself wondering how your voice sounds. The sentence you were saying is gone.
There are two places attention can point: inward at how you're doing, or outward at whether the message is landing. Research on speaking fear is blunt about the inward arrow: watching your own symptoms makes the situation feel more threatening. You cannot monitor your hands and talk to a listener at the same time; the inward arrow always wins the attention.
Attention is an arrow. Point it at the room.
In your next rehearsal, say one full sentence to a specific object in the room, a chair, a mug. Notice the inward arrow go quiet while you do it.
Know your material: know more about it than you include in your speech, and use conversational language so you won't easily forget what to say. From Toastmasters International, 10 Tips for Public Speaking.
Know your opener
Let's say you plan to memorise the whole talk, every word, to feel safe. One trip on one word and the whole house falls.
Memorise only the doorway: the first two lines, word-perfect, and the last line too. For everything between, know more than you include, as Toastmasters puts it, and keep the words conversational so they can't be forgotten, only re-said. A word-for-word script has a single point of failure: memory.
Memorise the doorway, not the house.
Take your talk and mark two things in bold: the first two sentences and the final sentence. Recite just those until they're automatic. The middle can wander; the doorway can't.
Practice. Practice. Practice! Rehearse out loud with all the equipment you plan on using, and revise as necessary. From Toastmasters International, 10 Tips for Public Speaking.
Practise out loud
Let's say you've read the talk six times and it feels familiar. On the day, your mouth has never said any of it.
Rehearse out loud, with everything you'll use, exactly as Toastmasters puts it. Speaking is a physical skill: the mouth, the breath and the ears all need the reps, and silent reading trains none of them. Familiar to the eye is not familiar to the mouth, and only the mouth performs.
If your mouth hasn't said it, you haven't learnt it.
Take one page of your talk and read it silently. Then say it out loud once. Notice how different the second one felt. That gap is what practice is for.
Work to control filler words; practice, pause and breathe. From Toastmasters International, 10 Tips for Public Speaking.
The pause you're avoiding
Let's say the silence after your best line terrifies you, so um arrives to fill it, and the line you set up is gone.
Toastmasters pairs the two moves: control filler words, and practice, pause and breathe. A deliberate pause after a key point lets it land; the audience hears the silence as weight. Fillers are the sound of fleeing a silence that was working.
Silence, used on purpose, sounds like confidence.
Rehearse your strongest line, then hold three full seconds of silence before the next sentence. Count them. It will feel like ten. It reads as one.