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On occasion, tournaments will deviate from asking standard extemporaneous speaking questions and will do experimental rounds that challenge extempers to think differently about global events. One of these experimental rounds involves narrative questions, which put the extempers in the position of a world leader or other notable figure and ask them how they would decide a significant issue if they were in that person’s shoes. Since extempers rarely practice narrative questions or encounter them during the year, they are sometimes tripped up when they find themselves in narrative rounds and I have seen a few normally distinguished extempers give less than stellar speeches in these rounds. This strategy piece will break down what a narrative question is and provide tips on answering them.
What is a Narrative Question?
A narrative question typically starts with three words: “If you were….” The statement that follows usually invokes a world leader, business figure, bureaucrat, pop culture icon, or other relevant personality and then asks you what you would do about a certain situation if you were that person. Examples of narrative questions are:
- If you were Osama bin Laden, where would you be hiding?
- If you were Angela Merkel, would you favor kicking Greece out of the eurozone?
- If you were Kim Jong-un, how would you handle North Korea’s relationship with the United States?
- If you were Rand Paul, would you run for the presidency in 2016?
- If you were Janet Yellen, would you raise interest rates by the end of 2014?
For each of these questions, you have to consider a certain issue from the position of the personality involved. If you were Osama bin Laden, where do you think would have been the best place to hide (clearly Pakistan would be out of the question)? Similarly, if you were Rand Paul, would you think your political prospects were good enough to run for the presidency in 2016 at the expense of your U.S. Senate seat (since Kentucky law bars candidates from running for two offices simultaneously)?
Narrative questions can be a lot of fun because you have to really understand how the person you are speaking about thinks. Clearly, Kim Jong-un is a very ruthless and somewhat irrational leader, so proposing solutions about how to handle the United States that sound logical and non-conniving would be somewhat unrealistic. One of the complaints coaches of female extempers have about narrative questions is that they usually invoke male personalities. This tends to be true, if part because some of the more controversial and recognized leaders that can be used for narrative questions tend to be men (e.g. Kim Jong-un, the former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Barack Obama, etc.). I do not think this puts female extempers at an inherent disadvantage in a round, but the critique should make question writers aware that they should try to incorporate female leaders and those in a position of power in these rounds.
Tips for Answering Narrative Questions
The first piece of advice when addressing a narrative question is that you want to explain within the first thirty seconds who your person is (e.g. their credentials). Your audience may not be aware that Janet Yellen is the new Federal Reserve chairwoman and they may not know who Angela Merkel or Kim Jong-un is. Never assume that your audience knows the figure you have drawn, even if it is someone that gets consistent news coverage like Senator Rand Paul. Your introduction should also include a significance statement, something we have covered in an earlier piece at Extemp Central, and that significance statement should tell the audience why the person you are talking about is so important for the issue the question brings up. In other words, why does it matter what Kim Jong-un does in terms of handling relations with the United States? What is at stake? Similarly, why does Angela Merkel have such a strong say in whether Greece stays in the eurozone or not? By giving a clear significance statement, which should be the last part of your introduction before you go into your signposting of your question, answer, and points, you can help the audience understand why the issue you are talking about is significant and why the world leader you are discussing is so important. The framework of your speech should still be the same in that you want to state the question, have an answer, and your points of analysis with sources.
I always encourage speakers in narrative question rounds to assume the personality of the person they are talking about. A narrative question is the only time that I tell extempers to use the word “I.” After all, the question says “If you were.” So, this speech should see you “morph” into the person that it is asking you to portray. This does not give you a green light to do a speech with an accent or act goofy, but you should answer the question with an “I would do…” and keep that “I” message going throughout the speech. Some coaches prefer that their students just answer a narrative question from the third person perspective, but that ruins some of the fun and experimentation of the round and most judges prefer that you include more personality with these types of questions. Depending on the figure that you draw, you can crack some interesting sarcastic jokes about the individual as well. For example, when Kim Jong-Il was alive it was fun to make side comments about shooting a perfect golf score, being born on a magic mountain, or liking James Bond movies. Those who talk about Hillary Clinton may make comments about the scandals that engulfed the Clinton administration of the 1990s and how Hillary felt about those issues/how they will not affect her future administration if she runs and wins the presidency in 2016. You should start to use “I” after you have gone through your introduction and set the stage for your speech in the introduction (AGD, background, and significance statement). The first use of “I” should come when you give your answer to the question.
When answering narrative questions, you should make sure that your answer is plausible and realistic. Saying that if you were Kim Jong-un you would reunify the Korean Peninsula under South Korea leadership is probably not really something that the real Kim Jong-un would do. In the same vein, saying that Vladimir Putin would quickly withdraw Russian forces from Crimea does not make a lot of sense right now either. Answering narrative questions effectively requires that you know at least some background on the individual you are talking about. What motivates them? What is their mood and ideology? How do they react to certain situations and why? You should take these ideas into consideration when crafting your speech. For example, Angela Merkel is a staunch supporter of the European Union (EU) and is reluctant to kick out a member of the EU for fear of what it would do the common currency. She favors the use of austerity measures by indebted countries over deficit spending strategies designed to facilitate faster economic growth and this has influenced the way the EU has treated Italy, Cyprus, Spain, Greece, and other nations that were negatively affected by the crisis. The more you know about the person you are talking about the better off you are going to be because you can say why someone is behaving the way they are in a crisis or given situation. A speech on Kim Jong-un might see the speaker throw in something like “I remember when my father outwitted American negotiators in 1994 about my country’s nuclear program and I hope to play a similar game of nuclear diplomacy in the future” or something of that sort. So, make sure that your answer to the question is something that is plausible and that you consider why your figure would answer your question a certain way.
To cite your sources, you can do it the old fashioned way of “According to” or something like that or you can get creative and say “The Washington Post was highly critical of me on March 5th when it wrote” or “I think The Wall Street Journal has the right idea on March 6th…” Narrative questions still exist within the familiar extemporaneous speaking structure, but you can play with that structure more in rounds that use these questions than rounds that have typical yes/no, why/how questions.
Lastly, make sure you have fun and let the audience see that you are having fun when you are addressing narrative questions. It’s okay to smile, crack appropriate jokes (sarcastic humor works best in these speeches), and show your personality. Extemporaneous speaking is an analytical event, but the narrative question allows you to take your analysis and place it around a global figure who has a specific outlook on the world. Do not be afraid of looking stupid in these rounds. All speakers in the round should try to have fun, but I can guarantee you that less than half of the round will do so. Those who hold back will be penalized in rank and someone who really embraces the challenge and spirit of the round is more likely to get the first place rank.