HOW TO TELL A STORY
Someone has wittily said that only those in their anecdotage should tell stories. De Quincey wanted all story-tellers to be submerged in a horse-pond, or treated in the same manner as mad dogs. But story-telling has its legitimate and appropriate use, and if certain rules are observed may give added charm to conversation and public speaking.
It requires a fine discrimination to know when to tell a story, and when not to tell one though it is urging itself to be expressed. Few men have the rare gift of choosing the right story for the particular occasion. Many men have no difficulty in telling stories that are insufferably long, pointless, and uninteresting.
We have all been victims of a certain type of public speaker who begins by saying, "Now I don't want to bore you with a long story, but this is so good, etc.," or "An incident occurred at the American Consulate in Shanghai, which reminds me of an awfully good story, etc." When a speaker prefaces his remarks with some such sentences as these, we know we are in for an uncomfortable time.
As far as possible a story should be new, clever, short, simple, inoffensive, and appropriate. As such stories are scarce, it is advisable to set them down, when found, in a special note-book for convenient reference. It is said that Chauncey M. Depew, one of the most gifted of after-dinner speakers, was for many years in the habit of keeping a set of scrap-books in which were preserved stories and other interesting data clipped from newspapers and magazines. These were so classified that he could on short notice refresh his mind with ample material upon almost any general subject.
Anyone who essays to tell a story should have it clearly in mind. It is fatal for a speaker to hesitate midway in a story, apologize for not knowing it better, avow that it was much more humorous when told to him, and in other ways to announce his shortcomings. If he cannot tell a story fluently and interestingly, he should first practice it on his own family—provided they will tolerate it.
Some stories should be committed to memory, especially where the point of humor depends upon exact phraseology. In such case, it requires some training and experience to disguise the memorized effort. A story like the following, for obvious reasons, should be thoroughly memorized:
The longest sermon on record occupied three hours and a half. But the shortest sermon was that of a preacher who spoke for one minute on the text: "Man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward." He said:
"I shall divide my discourse into three heads: (1) Man's ingress into the world; (2) His progress through the world; (3) His egress out of the world.