How can I use silent pauses when I speak?

Stephen King describes the paragraph as the basic unit of writing — the place where coherence begins and words get the chance to become more than just words. That is exactly how the silent pause works on stage.

Pauses are a natural part of our communication, both spoken and written. Just as full stops, commas, dashes, colons and semicolons contribute to the rhythm of a text, there are different kinds of pauses in speech. They work in different ways and have different purposes and effects.

You would do well to practise developing them, let them exist, and train if you tend — as so many do — to fill pauses with assorted sounds or find it hard to stay in silence. I want to give them some telling names.

The thinking pause

The thinking pause is the pause where you search for a good phrasing or try to remember the next thing you want to say. Traditionally, the speaker turns towards the projector screen or the black TV on the wall for no meaningful reason, fills the silence with a drawn-out “uhhhhh”, finds the word and turns back to the audience.

That is not to be recommended.

In the best of worlds you do not turn your gaze to the screen. Looking down at your feet does not help much either. A natural thinking pause can occur when we look diagonally upwards, to the right or left. When we manage to do that on stage without filling the silence with anything but our thoughts, the pause can have a much better effect.

By looking up rather than down at the floor, we stay more in contact with the audience. We become transparent in our process. We are honestly trying to find the best words for what we want to say and letting the audience follow us in it. That can have a very positive effect on trust.

If you want to take the thinking pause a step further, you can even hold eye contact with someone in the audience while searching for the words. It takes confidence, since in a way you are showing the vulnerability of not knowing exactly what to say. But the effect is often that the transparency creates more trust. It is easiest to try when someone has asked you a specific question.

The emphasis pause

I use the emphasis pause when I want to underline the last thing I said. The pause is preceded by placing emphasis on the words in some way — raising or lowering the volume, or increasing or decreasing the pace. To reinforce the weight of the last sentence or word, I then let a pause arise.

What follows the emphasis pause is often connected to what I just said. The pause lets me continue and go deeper without rushing past.

The reflection pause

The reflection pause comes after rhetorical or concrete questions, or after something you want the audience to digest for a couple of seconds before you continue.

Ask the question. Let it be. Trust that people are thinking even when no one answers out loud.

The transition pause

The transition pause is, just as it sounds, a pause before you move into a new part of the talk or a new chapter of the presentation. If you learn the different parts of the rhetorical structure, you will also find natural places where it is needed: when the introduction moves into presenting yourself, or when that moves into the background.

These are the best moments, if needed, to step back, glance at your notes and take a sip of water.

A small trick, if you notice you need time to recover, is to put a little more into the end of your last sentence or to ask a question. That way you buy yourself time for a pause without apologising for it.

As I said, the silent pause is the place where coherence begins and words get the chance to become more than just words. Use it.