THIS IS MISSION-CRITICAL WORK PERFORMED RELIABLY ON DEADLINE.
1. Fee, payment method and acceptance of terms offered by Larry Evans for writing and delivering to you a Eulogy Speech.
You must pay my $500 fee to engage my services in drafting, editing, rendering a final draft, and coaching you about giving your remembrance speech at the funeral or memorial service. You pay my fee by paying the Square Invoice I send you by email before I start writing your speech. I will not commence work unless and until I have been paid.
We mutually understand and agree that when you pay my fee, you accept the terms that appear on this page.
2. What you must do
I am available for consultation by text message and telephone at 512-940-0298.
You will need to set aside two to several hours of time to provide me memories, stories, and factual information about your loved one and the forthcoming memorial service in his or her honor.
Once I have delivered to you a first draft of your speech by email, you must make yourself reasonably available to me to go over the draft speech. I cannot be held to the deadline stated below if you are unable to consult with me in a timely manner on the first draft.
My aim is to get your memories flowing candidly, and to capture them as they occur to you.
To accomplish this, I have developed a questionnaire (currently 54 questions) in the form of a conversation between you, your loved one, and me.
This will require some imagination on your part to complete since you will be the voice of your loved one in this conversation along with being yourself.
We know each other through the experiences we share together, and I developed this approach for gathering information about your loved one to help put you in the frame of mind to recall memories of your relationship together. That’s where the best stories emerge.
You answer my questions as if we are having a conversation by recording your voice using the record buttons on the ”Remembering Your Loved One” page or by typing your responses in the spaces provided.
If you would feel more comfortable having me interview you over a recorded phone call, I am happy do that as well – by appointment only — with the understanding that there might be a greater chance of you not remembering something during the call that could be an important part of the speech. I will ask you the same questions I ask on the “Remembering Your Loved One” page, only you will not have as much time on the call as you would have while answering the questions using the recording feature on the webpage. Please take advantage of recording your voice on the page if you can, since you will be able to take more time in recalling your memories, and perhaps think of that one detail that might be central to the theme of your speech. I encourage you to try — how I say what I say in writing on the page is pretty much how I speak in conversation.
I recommend recording your voice on the page since most of us speak faster than we type, and thus we can capture memories as they occur to you, even if the memory you speak of might not relate to the question asked (often those are the best ones in my experience). The recording controls are self-explanatory, summarized below:
You simply press the Record button under a question and begin speaking for as long as you wish – there is no maximum time limit.
You may pause the recording if you need to take a time out by pressing the Pause button.
When you have finished your recording, press the Stop button, then press the Save button to submit each recording.
Please remember to press the Save button for each recording you make, otherwise the recording will not be saved and I will have no record of it.
The ”Remembering Your Loved One” page is quite long. Any text you enter will not be saved until you press the Submit button at the bottom of the page. You will also need to type your answers to some pertinent questions regarding factual information about your loved one. These are required fields, so please enter information. Please type your answers carefully; I will look to them for correct spellings of names and for correct dates.
When you have completed the recording and typing on ”Remembering Your Loved One” please press the “Submit” button.
Some of my questions are self-explanatory, and others will preface the question being asked with me telling you a story that will indicate to you what the question asks about.
I suggest that you – perhaps in consultation with others who knew your loved one well – read my stories and the questions and allow yourself time to think about and talk together about what I am asking before you begin answering the questions.
You will end up making a series of recordings that I will transcribe into written text that serves as my primary source of information about your loved one. I will also listen to the recordings to help determine what stories or experiences might be emotionally difficult for you to speak of and treat that part of the speech accordingly. I will not retain copies of your recordings. I will make these recordings available to you for seven days after I deliver the final draft of the speech to you, and will delete them forever after that time period.
2. The scope of the task
I will write your speech based entirely on the stories and information about your loved one that you provide to me.
I will deliver a first draft of your speech within 24-48 hours of my receipt of your answers to my questionnaire, whether rendered through the webpage or through a recorded telephone interview, and I will schedule a telephone appointment with you to go over the draft speech. I will do a one-time comprehensive edit, if necessary, prior to delivering the final draft to you on deadline. I will use my best efforts to do last minute minor tweaks and adjustments to your speech to help provide continuity in the memorial service presentation.
You must make yourself reasonably available to me to go over the draft speech. I cannot be held to the deadline stated below if you are unable to consult with me in a timely manner on the first draft.
Part of the speechwriting process involves me reciting your speech to find places where the speech might make your audience react to what you are saying. I will place cues within the body of the speech at these places for you to pause speaking for a moment to allow for these anticipated reactions, whether laughter, perhaps crying, or to allow your words time to sink in with the audience. I will give you an estimated run time of the speech when recited at a normal pace.
3. Delivery conditions
I will deliver the draft and final draft of the speech via email attachment to you as a portable document file (Adobe pdf format).
My standard deadline to deliver the final draft of your speech is 72 hours after I have received your answers to my questionnaire whether rendered through the webpage or through a recorded telephone interview. If your deadline must be shorter, and depending on my schedule at the time, I may be able to work within a shorter deadline, but I cannot guarantee this. It never hurts to ask.
Note: This 72 hour standard deadline for the final draft should fall at least 24 hours before the starting time of the memorial service in order to give you some time to get familiar with and rehearse your speech with confidence.
You should expect to receive a first draft of your speech at least 24 hours before the final draft deadline is scheduled to pass.
4. Copyright
We mutually understand that this speech is a work “made for hire” and that the copyright to the words shall belong to you exclusively. You may use these words for any purpose you choose beyond giving a remembrance speech at a memorial service, including printing it in a program or publishing any or all of it as an obituary, synchronizing it with video programming, or any other use you might choose.
If I should use someone else’s words, including my own, within this speech, I will indicate that in the speech with proper attribution, and if the quote is given to me by you, I will use my best efforts to double-check that the person the quote is attributed to is actually the person who said the quote. I avoid plagiarism – presenting others’ words as my own – the way we (used to) avoid the Plague.
5. Coaching
I will consult with you over the phone to the best of my ability and experience in the performing arts to help you give the remembrance speech at the memorial service.
The first bit of advice is to recognize that the people who come to your loved one’s service are those who knew and loved that person enough to come to say good-bye. They share in common at least a little hole in their hearts, someone now missing from their lives. They likely will be sad, grieving, and at the same time might be quite animated as they talk and tell stories to each other that remember their friend or family member.
Please rehearse giving the speech several times so that you become familiar with it, and perhaps in the process memorize where in the speech you might be moved emotionally. There is nothing wrong or embarrassing about breaking down in tears while delivering this kind of speech. Don’t try and hurry too fast to recover; chances are that your audience will be crying with you.
You are giving a Remembrance Speech, a eulogy. Speak clearly and distinctly and perhaps a little slowly — avoid being an auctioneer; your words will have less impact if you speak too fast. I can teach you a warm-up exercise that will help keep you from becoming tongue-tied.
Memorial services, whether a traditional funeral service, a graveside service, or a celebration of life service, carry a certain amount of decorum. Please dress appropriately for the occasion.
When it is your time at the podium, make sure you have water placed where you can grab a sip during your speech without causing distraction. You will probably need it. Also, please don’t forget to have tissues handy in case you need them.
Always remember to breathe. Take a few deep breaths before you are on to help relax. You will be speaking to human beings, not hideous monsters.
If your mind can keep your mouth from laughing at something you imagine, imagine you will be speaking to a large group of attentive dogs (This is not meant to insult audience members; this is just a performer’s tip for dealing with stage fright).
I build breathing space into the cadence of my words to allow you to breathe, and I will note within the body of the text places where you might need to pause speaking to allow for laughter or other audience reactions, or to allow the words you are speaking to sink in to the audience.
I don’t know what to call these anticipated pauses other than “comic timing” — when an audience is laughing or otherwise reacting, the words you are speaking might not be heard over the laughter or reaction. So pause for a moment until you can be heard.
I suggest that you arrive at the event early to help coordinate where your speech will happen during the program. This will give you some time to get used to the setting. Make sure everything you need – the mic, the lights that will shine on you, the Teleprompter (if available), and anything else that might throw you off if it doesn’t work – is actually working.
Do some self-promotion. The whole purpose of your speech is to give the audience connection with the stories you will be telling them. Try to introduce yourself to folks as they arrive – they will listen closer to what you will have to say if they’ve spoken to you briefly before you go on. Establishing this rapport is more than half of giving a great, moving speech, and it helps immensely in dealing with any fear or nervousness you might feel just before you begin speaking.
If you experience these feelings, take a deep breath, a sip of water if needed, and start speaking – you will find that those feelings disappear, turning into the energy you give to the words you are speaking. That’s how performing works.
If the memorial service facility has a Teleprompter, take advantage of it. This device projects and scrolls the text of the speech on a screen that you can see but is inobtrusive to the audience. There should be someone at the facility who can help you with it. If the device needs a file format other than pdf, I will do my best to provide the speech to you in that format if I can.
If you will be reading a printed copy of the speech or from a device on the podium, remember to make eye contact with audience members. Your short-term reading memory can usually hold a sentence or two while you speak. Don’t just stand there and read the speech with your eyes down.
These are a few of the bits of advice I give to performing artists.
If you need more advice in this area, please request it.
6. Governing Law
These terms shall be subject exclusively to the applicable governing laws of the State of Texas.