The Art of Story-Telling

by Marie L. Shedlock

When she began, I felt somewhat hopeless, because of the complete failure of method. She seemed to have all the faults most damaging to the success of a speaker. Her voice was harsh, her gestures awkward, her manner was restless and melodramatic; but as she went on, I soon began to discount all these faults and, in truth, I soon forgot about them, for so absorbed was she in her story, so saturated with her subject, that she quickly communicated her own interest to her audience, and the children were absolutely spellbound.

The other illustration is connected with a memorable peep behind the stage, when the late M. Coquelin had invited me to see him in the green-room between the first and second Acts of “L'Abbé Constantin,” one of the plays given during his last season in London, the year before his death. The last time I had met M. Coquelin was at a dinner-party, where I had been dazzled by the brilliant conversation of this great artist in the rôle of a man of the world. But on this occasion, I met the simple, kindly priest, so absorbed in his rôle that he inspired me with the wish to offer a donation for his poor, and on taking leave to ask for his blessing for myself. Whilst talking to him, I had felt puzzled: it was only when I had left him that I realised what had happened—namely, that he was too thoroughly saturated with his subject to be able to drop his rôle during the interval, in order to assume the more ordinary one of host and man of the world.

Now, it is this spirit I would wish to inculcate into the would-be story-tellers. If they would apply themselves in this manner to their work, it would bring about a revolution in the art of presentation, that is, in the art of teaching. The difficulty of the practical application of this theory is the constant plea, on the part of the teachers, that there is not the time to work for such a standard in an art which is so apparently simple that the work expended on it would never be appreciated.

My answer to this objection is that, though the counsel of perfection would be to devote a great deal of time to the story, so as to prepare the atmosphere quite as much as the mere action of the little drama (just as photographers use time exposure to obtain sky effects, as well as the more definite objects in the picture), yet it is not so much a question of time as concentration on the subject which is one of the chief factors in the preparation of the story.

So many story-tellers are satisfied with cheap results, and most audiences are not critical enough to encourage a high standard.[11] The method of “showing the machinery” has more immediate results, and it is easy to become discouraged over the drudgery which is not necessary to secure the approbation of the largest number. But, since I am dealing with the essentials of really good story-telling, I may be pardoned for suggesting the highest standard and the means for reaching it.

Therefore I maintain that capacity for work, and even drudgery, is among the essentials of story work. Personally I know of nothing more interesting than to watch the story grow gradually from mere outline into a dramatic whole. It is the same pleasure, I imagine, which is felt over the gradual development of a beautiful design on a loom. I do not mean machine-made work, which has to be done under adverse conditions, in a certain time, and is similar to thousands of other pieces of work; but that work upon which we can bestow unlimited time and concentrated thought.

The special joy in the slowly-prepared story comes in the exciting moment when the persons, or even the inanimate objects, become alive and move as of themselves.

I remember spending two or three discouraging weeks with Andersen's story of the “Adventures of a Beetle.” I passed through times of great depression, because all the little creatures—beetles, earwigs, frogs, etc.—behaved in such a conventional, stilted way (instead of displaying the strong individuality which Andersen had bestowed upon them) that I began to despair of presenting a live company at all.

But one day the Beetle, so to speak, “took the stage,” and at once there was life and animation among the minor characters. Then the main work was done, and there remained only the comparatively easy task of guiding the movement of the little drama, suggesting side issues and polishing the details, always keeping a careful eye on the Beetle, that he might “gang his ain gait” and preserve to the full his own individuality.

There is a tendency in preparing stories to begin with detail work (often a gesture or side issue which one has remembered from hearing a story told), but if this is done before the contemplative period, only scrappy, jerky and ineffective results are obtained, on which one cannot count for dramatic effects. This kind of preparation reminds one of a young peasant woman who was taken to see a performance of Wilhelm Tell, and when questioned as to the plot, could only sum it up by saying, “I know some fruit was shot at.”[12]