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 your Legacy Farewell Remembrance Speech.
You must pay my $500 fee to engage my services in drafting, editing, and rendering a final draft of a remembrance speech to be given at your funeral or memorial service. You pay my fee by paying the Square Invoice I send you by email before I start writing this 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 your memories, stories, and factual information about yourself and your plans for a memorial service to be held in your 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.
We know each other through the experiences we share together, and I developed this approach for gathering information about you help put you in the frame of mind to recall memories you may wish to share. 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 ”Your Memories” 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 “Your Memories” 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 ”Your Memories” 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 you. 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 ”Your Memories” 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 read my stories and the questions and allow yourself time to think 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 you. I will also listen to the recordings to help determine what stories or experiences might be emotionally difficult for you to recount 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 that you provide to me.
I will deliver a first draft of your speech within 7-14 days 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. I will re-edit as necessary to give you a speech that will represent you well to your loved ones.
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 the audience react to what you are saying. I will place cues within the body of the speech at these places for the person(s) delivering the speech 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.
You may choose to have more than one of your loved ones give your speech as a shared honor. That is completely up to you, or as they say, it’s your funeral.
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 14 days 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.
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 them in a program or publishing any or all of the speech as an obituary, synchronizing it with video programming, or for 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 your loved ones give your farewell remembrance speech at your memorial service.
The first bit of advice is to recognize that the people who come to your service will be those who knew and loved you enough to come to say good-bye. They will 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 about you.
The person(s) you designate should rehearse giving your speech several times so that they become familiar with it, and perhaps in the process memorize where in the speech they might be moved emotionally. There is nothing wrong or embarrassing about breaking down in tears while delivering this kind of speech. They should not try and hurry too fast to recover; chances are that the audience will be crying with them.
They will be giving a Remembrance Speech, a eulogy. They should speak clearly and distinctly and perhaps a little slowly — avoid being an auctioneer; your words through them will have less impact if they speak too fast. Here is a warm-up exercise that will help keep them from becoming tongue-tied:
“Oh! Here’s a to-do to die today, at a minute or two to two;
a thing distinctly hard to say, but harder still to do.
We’ll beat a tattoo, at twenty to two
a rat-tat-tat- tat-tat-tat- tat-tat-tattoo
and the dragon will come when he hears the drum
at a minute or two to two today, at a minute or two to two.”
— from the 1902 Comic Opera “Merrie England” by Edward German and Basil Hood
Memorial services, whether a traditional funeral service, a graveside service, or a celebration of life service, carry a certain amount of decorum unless you tell them otherwise. Remind them to dress appropriately for your occasion.
When it is their time at the podium, tell them to make sure they have water placed where they can grab a sip while giving your speech without causing distraction. They will probably need it. Also, tell them not to forget to have tissues handy.
They should always remember to breathe. Take a few deep breaths before they go on to help relax. They will be speaking to human beings, not hideous monsters (unless that’s who you expect will show up to your service).
If their mind can keep their mouth from laughing at something they imagine, they should imagine they 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 the speaker to breathe, and I will note within the body of the text places where they might need to pause speaking to allow for laughter or other audience reactions, or to allow the words — your words — that they will speak on your behalf 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 they are speaking might not be heard over the laughter or reaction. So they should pause for a moment until they can be heard.
I suggest that that they arrive at the event early to help coordinate where the speech will happen during the program. This will give them some time to get used to the setting. Make sure everything they need – the mic, the lights that will shine on you, the Teleprompter (if available), and anything else that might throw them off if it doesn’t work – is actually working.
They should do some promotion. The whole purpose of the speech is to give the audience connection with the stories they will be telling them. They should try to meet folks as they arrive at the service – audiences will listen closer to the speech if they’ve spoken to the speaker briefly before he or she begins the speech. Establishing this rapport is more than half of giving a great, moving speech, and it will help immensely in dealing with any fear or nervousness they might feel just before they begin speaking.
If they experience these feelings, they should take a deep breath, a sip of water if needed, and start speaking – they will find that those feelings disappear, turning into the energy they give to your words during the speech. That’s how performing works.
If the memorial service facility has a Teleprompter, they should 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 them with it.
If they will be reading a printed copy of the speech or from a device on the podium, advise them to remember to make eye contact with audience members. Human short-term reading memory can usually hold a sentence or two while we 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. Return to Engage Larry Evans to write a Eulogy