Think back to a time when you were held enraptured by a story—whether on a camping trip, or at work, watching a stand up comic or at the movies. What was it that made it such a memorable experience? Sure it was the story itself but even more importantly it was how it was told, particularly all the silences or pauses in the narration.
Most of us are uncomfortable with silence or a pause in the midst of a presentation or talk we are giving. Yet we constantly use filler words such as “You know…, Umm, Aah, Right?” as we seek to gather our thoughts or search for the right word. What if you were silent, just quiet at these moments? If the very thought of doing that makes you uncomfortable, you are not alone!
The most powerful orators, presenters and storytellers use the pause for a variety of reasons. To grab their listeners’ attention or build anticipation are two of the common ones. Pauses can last for as little as a second or long enough to feel like an eternity of silence. Before we look at when and why you’d use a pause, let’s take a look at a master practitioner. In the video below, Marlon Brandon delivers the famous speech from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Whilst this entire scene is a masterclass is speechmaking, let’s stop and take stock of where and how Brando speaking as Mark Anthony uses pauses in his speech.
| Talk Time | Dialogue | Pause |
| 3 secs [0:02-0:05] | Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; | 12 secs |
| 2 secs [0:13-0:15] | I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him. | 1 sec |
| 7 secs [0:57-1:04] | He hath brought many captives home to Rome Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill: Did this in Caesar seem ambitious? | 3 secs |
| 14 secs [1:21-1:35] | You all did see that on the Lupercal I thrice presented him a kingly crown, Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition? Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; And, sure, he is an honorable man. | 4 secs |
Brando uses pauses long and short to set a varying cadence to his speech. Such a cadence ensures you don’t bore your audience. At the very beginning he uses a pause that’s 4 times as long as his first sentence. This is intended to get the audience to settle down and focus. Then after saying Brutus is an honorable man, (for the third time) in a 14 sec dialog, he pauses for 4 secs, to let his message (was Caesar really ambitious and is Brutus truly honorable?). What other purposes does he use pauses for?
And it’s not just in the movies (after all they are actors and can do retakes) but in everyday life that we encounter the power of using a pause. No one does this better or more consistently than former president Barack Obama.
Here’s a snippet from his speech at the University of Illinois in 2018. He is talking about the end of the first US President George Washington’s tenure. A story whose ending we know and some of us may even know the details. Yet he creates tension, anticipation and holds his audience with strategically placed pauses. See what you can make of it.
Practicing Pauses
The best way to get comfortable using a pause when you speak is to practice it. Here are three of ways to get started.
Transitions This is the easiest to incorporate – as you make transitions from one topic to another you can pause. Such a pause allows both your listeners and you to digest the point(s) you just made and be prepared for what comes next.
Question When you pose a question, whether rhetorical or not, to your audience, you can should pause. At the very least take a beat before you set to answer the question you’ve asked. This works great at openings as well as when you transition to a new point.
Dramatic pause Instead of a question, you can make a statement, usually a fact or statistic intended to grab the audience’s attention. “More people are alive today than have ever died since the beginning of time” or “There are three times as many phones as are people living in Israel,” are examples of such statement of facts. Pausing after such a statement lets you catch your breath and the audience to think about what it implies.
So the next time you are getting ready to give a presentation or speech, plan and practice your pauses just as you’d your slides or script!
