Читать книгу The Art of Story-Telling, with nearly half a hundred stories - Julia Darrow Cowles - Страница 9

CHAPTER III
How to Choose Stories for Telling

Table of Contents

There are certain subtle qualities which a story must possess in order to give pleasure through its telling, which are not necessary in the story which is to be read. These qualities are of form rather than of substance. They are those qualities which permit of the personality of the speaker entering into the narrative to such an extent that the story becomes a recounting of something known to her. No matter how remote in point of time or place, the story must be of a character which can be personally set forth. I do not mean by this that the one who tells the story should be thrown into the foreground, or that there should be any use of the pronoun “I”; but simply that the teller of the story should be able to set it forth with all the earnestness and intimacy of a personal narrative, and the story itself must therefore possess the form which makes this possible.

A story of this character may be so told to a roomful of small children that it will hold them breathless with interest even at the close of a hard day’s work, and when the dismissal bell is ringing, as the writer has inadvertently proved.

To some, the story that is adapted in substance and in form for telling, makes instant appeal. Its possibilities are intuitively recognized. To others, only a critical examination and analysis will show whether the story is one to which children will listen with delight. Of course, after all is said and done, the true test of the story lies in telling it.

What, then, are the essential requirements in the form of the story?

The story must begin in an interesting way. The first sentence, or at most the first paragraph, should locate the story and introduce its hero. To be sure the “location” may be that delightfully indefinite past from which so many of childhood’s stories emanate—the “Once upon a time” of the fairy tale or of the “little small Rid Hin”; or it may be “many years ago”; or “in ancient times,” as in the story of “Why the Cat and Dog Are Enemies”; or simply “once”—“There was once a shepherd boy who called ‘Wolf,’” or “The Sun and the Wind once had a quarrel.”

Of course the time may, on the other hand, be very definite—“’Twas the night before Christmas”—but in either case the story starts out positively, the place or time is assigned, the subject of the story is introduced. Then you will see the children, their expectation aroused, settle themselves for the delightful developments which are to be unfolded, for the denouement which is sure to follow, and their eager faces are all the incentive needed to arouse the story-teller to her best endeavor.

The story, properly introduced, should move forward clearly, somewhat concisely, toward a well-defined end or climax. The form should be mainly narrative or conversational, with vivid touches of description never prolonged. There should be life, action, dramatic action, but very little of explanation. The incidents of the story should be so arranged as to be self-explanatory in their sequence.

For small children, repetition has a special charm—repetition such as is to be found in “The Three Bears,” or “The Cock and the Mouse.”

For older children there may be introduced a little more of the descriptive form, but it is well to beware of adding much of either description or explanation. Even “grown-ups” enjoy the straightforward narrative that delights the child, and the introduction of detail soon grows irksome and uninteresting, even to the most conscientious listener. And no child is a “conscientious listener.” He listens for love of the story. If it does not interest him he stops listening and does something else.

The story must reach a climax and stop there. Many a good story has been spoiled by its ending. Story-tellers sometimes remind one of a man holding the handles of an electric battery. The current is so strong that he cannot let go. The story-teller must know when and how to “let go.” Let us suppose that, in telling Hans Christian Anderson’s story of “The Nightingale,” the story-teller—after the delightful denouement of the supposedly dead Emperor’s greeting to his attendants, where he “to their astonishment said ‘Good morning!’”—were to add an explanation of the effect of the nightingale’s song in restoring the Emperor to health! It would be like offering a glass of “plain soda” from which all the effervescence had departed.

Bring the story to its self-wrought denouement and—let go. Do not apologize for the ending, do not explain it, do not tack on a moral—just “let go,” and you will leave all the tingle and exhilaration of the magnetic current still in the veins of your listeners.

So much for the structural form of the story. Next let us consider its

Point of Contact

Has the story something which is in common with the life and experience of the listeners? Has it a familiar groundwork? Does it deal with familiar objects or actions? In other words, is it “understandable” from the child’s point of view? Not that all the characters nor all the adjustments of the story need to be those which the child already knows by experience, but there must be some common ground from which a start may be made. Then the story may lead on into wonderful regions of fancy or into remote times and places which only the imagination can trace. For instance, of what value or interest would the story of “Toads and Diamonds” be to a child who never had seen a toad and who had no knowledge of what a diamond was like? And does not the boy’s understanding of “How Thor Went Fishing” lie in the fact that he has fished?

Little children love to be told stories of the life which they know by daily contact; stories of the home and of the home industries, of school, of children, of pets and animals. They live in “a daily fellowship with nature and all creatures.” Fairy tales and stories of animals are doubly delightful when the fairies and the animals do the things which children do. This does not imply that the story be commonplace, for the normal activities of children are far removed from the commonplace, and the story, having its point of contact established, should, through its imaginative or its moral influence, carry the child into quite unexplored regions of beauty and truth.

This leads us to another determining factor—the determining factor—in choosing a story.

Is It Worth Telling?

The structural form of a story may be changed; with more difficulty a point of contact may be established by a bit of suggestive explanation, but if the story content is not good, no amount of “doctoring” will make it worth the telling.

Suppose we apply these tests: Is the effect of the story helpful? Does it strengthen the imagination? Does it teach a right principle of action? Does it inspire a love for the beautiful and the true? Does it inspire reverence for the Creator and appreciation of the works of His hand? Does it exemplify sane and happy living? Does it teach neighborly kindness? Will its telling make a child better and happier? If the story calls for an affirmative answer to any of these questions, if, in other words, its teaching is simple, pure, and true, then it is by all means worthy of telling.

It is not necessary that the story should make no mention of selfishness, of craftiness, of evil temper, or of disobedience to laws moral or physical; but no story in which evil is rewarded or in which the wrongdoer triumphs should ever be told to children, for in its essence such a story is not true, its teaching is not true; it is not in accord with God’s eternal laws. Children assimilate long before they analyze.

At first glance it may seem easy to decide as to the moral influence of a story, but there are differences of opinion even here, and some writers condemn unsparingly that old acquaintance of our childhood, Jack, of Bean-stalk fame, and set him down as an arrant thief and murderer whose crimes brought him riches and comfort in his old age. And the tale of Cinderella, while it can be said to cast no stain upon the character of its heroine, is condemned as leaving an impression, upon the impressionable mind of childhood, that all step-mothers are hard and cruel and unjust. As the Mother Goose stories are dealt with at greater length in a later chapter, I will make no comment now upon these criticisms. But they are worthy of due consideration, and go to show that it is not always as easy as it may at first appear, to judge the exact influence of a story, and some of our old acquaintances which have been accepted simply because they are old acquaintances, may really need to be given the “cut direct.”

This much is safe to say: If you have any doubts about the influence of a story being wholly good, leave it untold. There are so many good stories, so many whose teaching is wholly and positively helpful, that there is no need of hesitating over one which presents a doubt.

There is one more qualification which should be required of the story told to children. It should be written in

Good Literary Form

Since one of the objects of story-telling is to cultivate a taste for good literature, the story chosen should not only be tellable in its form and true in its essence, but it should be artistic in its workmanship. It should be written in pure, simple English, fitted to the thought expressed. But, it may be objected, few story-tellers ever give a story in the exact language in which it is written. This is true, for if the story is learned word for word, the narrator is very apt to give a recitation, rather than to tell a story. At the same time the true story-teller will learn her story so thoroughly, will become so at home in every essential detail, that the spirit and style of the writer will be assimilated and so bound up with the story itself that the literary qualities will be retained and their essence imparted to the orally reproduced story. So, only, can appreciation and love for the beauty of literary forms be imparted to the children by means of the verbal story. Herein lies the art of the story-teller.