Aside from all question of voice, enunciation, ease of manner—which, though important, are more or less matters of personal habit or physical endowment—there are two absolute essentials to successful story-telling: a thorough knowledge of the story, and forgetfulness of self.
The best story may be spoiled by the manner of telling. A good story told by a master of the art will be a source of delight, while the same story told by a self-conscious, poorly prepared novice will be annoyingly tiresome.
The first step in the preparation, then, must be a thorough assimilation of the story. This does not involve memorizing, but the substance of the story must be made your own. Formulate in your own mind its plan or outline. What is its climax? What are the essential facts leading to this climax? How do they follow, in order to bring about the final surprise or culmination?
Having this outline well fixed in mind, begin to fill in details. Note the bits of wit or of wisdom which strengthen the story; the apt phrases or happy turns of expression which exactly fit the thought. Memorize these, and these only. Think the story over, again and again, until it becomes a personal possession—something which you know. Then begin formulating it. You can do this mentally, inaudibly at first, following the general mode of expression of the written story, so that you will tell it in a manner which conforms to the literary style of the author. This is not difficult, for if you have selected a well-written story, the style in which it is written will be in keeping with its character and will seem the natural mode of expression. This assimilation of style as well as of substance takes the place of literal memorizing. It allows full liberty in the telling, while memorizing only cramps and hampers.
Repeat the story mentally until you not only know its substance as a personal experience, but until you are so familiar with its literary style that you could scarcely tell that particular story in any other form. This assimilation of style as well as of substance takes time, but the ability to learn a story readily will come with practice. After you have mastered the method of learning, you will be able to acquire new stories with little difficulty.
You are now ready to tell the story orally; not at once to an audience—at least not until you have gained sufficient experience to know to just what extent you can depend upon yourself—but to an imaginary assembly. A doll makes a very good “practice auditor,” and is not inclined to encourage you overmuch by her responsiveness. If your imagination is good, a sofa pillow or a chair will do as well. You will probably make your first audible effort at an opportune moment when you are left quite alone in the house, and the first opening door will bring the rehearsal to a definite close. But in time, if you persevere, the family will become used to it. As for yourself, however, you will probably find that an amused audience of one, even though unseen, is more conducive to self-consciousness than an interested audience of one hundred.
A teacher presenting a story to her own class of pupils will not, of course, have so many difficulties to overcome. She and the children are on a familiar footing; she talks to them every day; she knows the number and responsiveness of her audience, the size of the room, the carrying power of her own voice. She is scarcely conscious that these factors enter into the success of story-telling. But when a story-teller addresses an unknown audience, these factors assume unexpected importance.
I have in mind an early experience when a story hour was arranged at one of the branch libraries of a large city. I knew that the “fifty-seven varieties” of childhood were accustomed to assemble there and that the room was not large, but I was not prepared to find two hundred children compressed within little more than two hundred square feet of space. My natural voice proved wholly inadequate. I began, but saw at once that the children at the farther end of the room could not hear, and I stopped. Taking a more central position, I found an entirely new voice—one so much higher pitched that I am sure I should never have recognized it as my own, elsewhere—and I told the stories. The new voice carried, and under the conditions sounded wholly normal. The children grew quiet, and for nearly an hour we traveled together through fairy-land, across western prairies, along the streets of Hamelin town, into the Empire of Japan, and among the Korean folk. How we did enjoy it!
The incident taught me two things at least: one, the value of having an intimate knowledge of the stories to be told, so that no unexpectedness of conditions could cause them to take flight; the other, the necessity of being able to adapt oneself to unexpected conditions.
The need of adapting the story, or the mode of telling, to the requirements of the immediate occasion, can only be learned by watching your audience.