Third-person narration

“ But novelists of another class prefer to admit frankly to the reader that the narrator who stands apart from all the characters and writes about them in the third person is the author himself. They give a personal tone to the narrative; they assert their own peculiarities of taste and judgment, and never let you forget that they, and they alone, are telling the story. The reader has to see it through their eyes. ”

“ We have much to learn from the stage manager and the moving picture man. Their problems are identical with those of the story teller in that they must strip a story plot bare of details, unnecessary description and the opinions of the author. They must give an audience the naked story. This is all the audience wants. So it is with children. [235] They demand story scenes, story pictures and nothing else.
The third and last step in story adaptation, is to prepare our story pictures for presentation to the children. ”

“ Thus the writer may escape the inherent limitation of first person narration, that the story is told by a character of definite powers and knowledge, and retain the chief advantage of that mode of narration, the more or less single viewpoint, corresponding with a reader's own outlook on life and its happenings. ”

“ Our narrative will be improved by adapting it to an imaginary audience in case we do not know exactly who our readers will be. In your high school work you know your readers and can select your facts accordingly.
To summarize: a narration should possess unity, that is, it should say all that should be said about the subject and not more than needs to be said. The length of the theme, the character of the audience to which it is addressed, and the purpose for which it is written, determine what facts are necessary and how many to choose in order to give unity. ”

“ The ideal position for the story-teller is to be seated opposite the center of the semicircle of listeners, facing them. The extreme nearness of the group, when the teller seeks the fingers of the listeners to add force to the telling, seems an infringement upon the child's personal rights. A strong personality will make the story go home without too great nearness and will want to give the children a little room so that their thoughts may meet hers out in the story. ”

“ A caution which directly concerns the art of story telling itself, must be added here. There is a definite distinction between the arts of narration and dramatization which must never be overlooked. Do not, yourself, half tell and half act the story; and do not let the children do it. It is done in very good schools, sometimes, because an enthusiasm for realistic and lively presentation momentarily obscures the faculty of discrimination. ”

“ And so he proceeded, with a constant alternation of narrative and dramatisation which was enough to make one dizzy.
The trouble in such work is, plainly, a lack of discriminating analysis. Telling a story necessarily implies non-identification of the teller with the event; he relates what occurs or occurred, outside of his circle of consciousness. Acting a play necessarily implies identification of the actor with the event; he presents to you a picture of the thing, in himself. It is a difference wide and clear, and the least failure to recognise it confuses the audience and injures both arts. ”

“ Sleeping Beauty naturally outlines itself into the ten main incidents we have noted before. If the story has been presented according to the standards given here, the children will see the story in those main incidents. In the dramatization they might work together narration of the story and the dramatic game, Dornröschen. A wide circle of children might be the chorus while the players take their places in the center of the circle. The narrator, one of the circle, stands apart from it as he narrates. ”

“ Thus the form in which we receive a story from some old woman, or nurse, depends in a certain measure upon the ways and habits of the population which has preserved the tale. At the same time, the ingenuity and the memory of the narrator are important factors in producing the dramatic or moral tenor appreciated by the listener. ”

“ We break down instead of building up the powers of concentration of our children.
Planning a group of stories for one story hour is quite as much a matter to be studied as is the selection of each individual story in the group and preparing this story for telling. The story combination selected by the story teller must have the qualities of cohesion, unity of theme, and related interests to make the story hour valuable in the child’s life. On the other hand, the unity of theme in the separate stories chosen must be emphasized by contrasting story treatment of this central theme. ”

“ The incident is used to show that each [38] child wants to feel that the story is being told to him, and emphasizes the need of telling stories with a personal directness of appeal.
I have said that the story and the children should be the only things of which the story-teller takes note. A consciousness of one’s own self as the actor upon the boards, spoils all. ”

“ Again, novices err frequently through introducing a multiplicity of narrators, either writing a patchwork story in which all take a hand, or placing narration within narration as in the "Arabian Nights." The method of allowing a number of persons consecutively to carry on the plot is very attractive, since it offers a way of introducing a personally interested narrator without making him preternaturally wise ”

“ The listening child must be interested in the life of the story, not in the story-teller; and therefore gesture, tone, or sentiment that is individual variation and addition to the story itself, detracts from the story, is foreign to its thought, and occupies a wrong place of prominence. It is possible to tell a story, however, just as the author tells it, and yet give it naturally by realizing it imaginatively and by using the voice and the body artistically, as means of expression. ”

“ The parent who tells a continued story to his children, which they illustrate together by crude drawings, is engaged in an operation which is fully as much a game as a story, and which often results in the children acting out the story after it has been told or adding chapters to it of their own composition. So keenly do they visualize the characters of such a story that upon being suddenly called upon to relate what happened in their favorite hero’s life after some particular incident they will often reminisce as vividly as if they were telling their own histories. ”

“ Everything in the novel is now dramatically rendered, whether it is a page of dialogue or a page of description, because even in the page of description nobody is addressing us, nobody is reporting his impression to the reader. The impression is enacting itself in the endless series of images that play over the outspread expanse of the man's mind and memory. When the story passes from these to the scenes of dialogue—from the silent drama of Strether's meditation to the spoken drama of the men and women—there is thus no break in the method. ”

“ Many a story, from the large panoramic chronicle to the small and single impression, postulates the story-teller, the picture-maker, and by that method gives its best. Speak [186] ing in person or reported obliquely, the narrator serves his turn. But where there is no positive reason for him there is a reason, equally positive, for a different method, one that assigns the point of view to the reader himself. An undramatic subject, we find, can be treated dramatically, so that the different method is at hand. ”

“ The first story in a group is an apperceptive one; it secures the child's spontaneous attention because, through its plot, it touches his own life in some way. It brings him into close and intimate touch with the interest theme of the program because it speaks of things that he knows, and other things that he can do. The second story in each group makes an appeal to the child's reasoning powers; having secured his attention through the apperceptive story, the story-teller now takes the child a-field, mentally, and secures his voluntary attention. ”

“ If you have ever listened to a little girl of five artlessly proceeding to tell a story, such as Little Black Sambo, which she had gathered from looking at a neighbor's book, but which she had not yet mastered sufficiently to grasp its central theme, reiterating the particular incidents with the enthusiasm and joy and narrative tone of the story-teller, you realized how the child likes to talk. ”

“ Narrators, while preserving the original plot and characters of a Tale, vary it, and make it graphic by introducing objects known and familiar to their audience. These inconsistencies do not interfere with belief or offend the taste of a people with whom even the impossible is not a bar to faith; rather, the inconsistency sharpens their enjoyment of the story. ”

“ It was like a breeze from their native island, where they had heard it from the lips of the village story-teller and seen it pictured on the market carts, and the fact that she knew something that had fascinated them gained their sympathy and coöperation. Those who have even a limited knowledge of child life know that before the babe can read he delights in listening to a nursery tale, and that even after he journeys into bookland he is more interested in the story told him than in the one he reads for himself. Why? Because the voice and personality of the speaker make it alive and vital. ”

“ Telling the Story
This is truly the stage of creation. No matter how familiar you made yourself with the story in the privacy of your studio, you will now find happening something surprising. The story will come to your own ears and stand revealed to your imagination with the joy of discovery. The truth is, it was made to be shared with another, and you hadn’t it at all until you gave it away. What spontaneity rewards you! How you find yourself rising [34] to the occasion—your own latent capabilities, the expanding possibilities in the story, the response of your audience! ”

“ We lead the child from one story interest to another with slight attention to the influence which the story group will have upon the minds of the children. We tell, perhaps, a home story, then a nature story, and last of all a holiday story in one story hour, and in doing this we so quickly transfer the child’s attention from one theme to a distinctly different one that there is no cohesion [246] in our story building. ”

“ Therefore let the guiding rule of the narrator be, “I must describe pictures so that others will see them, and think, not of me, but of the scenes to which I lead them.” And he must do it in his individual way. If gesture comes naturally, it belongs in the tale. If it is studied and artificial, it destroys the effect and value. Some of the greatest story-tellers of the past used no gesture, while others used body, head, and hands with wonderful effect. They were persons of strong individuality and did things in an individual way. Let the present-day story-teller profit by their example. ”

“ Before beginning he will get the listening attention by invitation of posture and direct face to face look, or by the magnetic force of the story now animating his whole person. Some story-tellers then begin to address themselves to someone near by whom they feel to be the most responsive listener, or whom they wish to interest, then address a wider and wider circle until they are reaching everyone. Others project the story into the ears of someone in the middle of the group, making this the radiating point from which to grasp all. ”

“ The second quality that the story teller should have in mind in selecting stories for child dramatizing is simplicity of dialogue. The story actors should converse, if not in childlike manner, at least in a simple, easy-to-understand [147] vocabulary that will add to a child’s store of words but will not tax him too much in reproduction. Here, again, we must turn to folk tales and fables for simple, straightforward, rich dialogue. ”

“ During the story-telling one must ask, "In all this what is the part the child has to play?" In the telling the teacher has aimed to give what there is in the tale. The child's part is to receive what there is in the tale, the emotion, the imagination, the truth, and the form embodied in the tale. The content of feeling, of portrayal, of truth, and of language he receives, he will in some way transmit before the school day is ended, even if in forms obscure and hidden. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This use of the timely, the appropriate, story is worthy of consideration by teachers far beyond the primary grades.
Stories may be used as an aid to language work. The diffident, self-conscious child who cannot be induced to talk upon the ordinary topics of school work, can be aroused into forgetfulness of self and made to respond with growing animation to questions regarding a story that has awakened his interest. A “point of contact” may be established with even the dullest child if his interests are studied and the right story chosen for telling. ”

“ As soon as some students of story-telling attempt dramatic suggestion they lose the listener and lapse into playing rather than telling. Even when dialogue or monologue demands a degree of impersonation the story-teller must keep in mind that it is for the purpose of telling the story to the listener. ”