One of the pleasantest ways for a group of friends to spend an hour or two together is for each one to tell a favorite story. Some time soon your teacher will let you spend a recitation hour or two in this way. You see you must choose short stories if each is to have a chance. Still, each story should be more than an anecdote. The following rules may help you to do well:

1. Select a story that you yourself like. Perhaps you will choose from the following list:

An incident from Aldrich's Story of a Bad Boy; a Greek myth or an incident in the life of a Greek hero; a story you have heard one of your grandparents tell; a Robin Hood or King Arthur story; a story you liked when you were a little child, for example, The Three Bears, The Cat and the Parrot, Red Ridinghood, or a fairy story; one of Kipling's or Ernest Thompson Seton's animal stories; some recent story of heroism.

2. Know the events of your story perfectly, so that you can think of your hearers and the way you are telling it.

3. Practice telling it beforehand. You may tell it to yourself, to some member of your family, or to some other friend.

4. Have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The very short introduction should show the situation at the opening of the story. The short conclusion should make the situation at the end very clear. The body should give the events that bring about the change.

5. Make the story move rapidly. Do not put in a single detail that is not necessary to make vivid the events or the spirit of the story.

6. Do not be afraid to use any especially good words or phrases that are in the original story.

7. Use short sentences, and make a brief pause after each.

Exercise 29. Inventing The Body Of A Story

The American Magazine recently had a short-story contest. The following passages are the first and last paragraph of one of the prize stories. Show that the first one is a good introduction, and the second one a good conclusion.

"Mr. R., his wife, and eight children were living in Iowa, five miles from the city of Grinnell, on as pretty a farm as one would wish to see. After a very hot day, the three littlest folks being fast asleep in bed, the older members of the family sat upon the porch in the early evening, longing for a cooling breeze. The air had been hot and lifeless all day and sunset brought little relief, though gathering clouds gave promise of a cooling shower."

"It is almost unbelievable that a cyclone that had scattered their cozy home along the prairie for a mile or more, and had not spared enough to make a respectable henhouse, had left every one of that large family alive and whole, except for a few minor bruises."1

1 Used through the courtesy of the Phillips Publishing Company.

Write the body of the story. Imagine a series of events that might have happened between the two situations. You might tell (1) of the approach of a storm, (2) the plan for escape, (3) the crash when the storm struck, (4) the experiences of the different members of the family during the storm, (5) the scene after the storm had passed, (6) the gathering together of the family.

Get a vivid picture of the scenes yourself. Give only striking details. Make the story move rapidly. Choose words that will make others see what you have imagined. As you write, think of the audience to whom you are to read your story.

When you have made the story as interesting as you can, examine again what you have written to see if it is in good form.

The class may decide who has the most interesting story, and perhaps your teacher will tell which story is the most nearly correct in matters of form.