As mentioned last week, Mark Twain used
lecture tours to promote his books and supplement his income. These tours took
him around the country and even around the world. But nobody would have paid
him to speak if he hadn’t known how to tell a story.
The advice in this week’s blog post is taken from a short piece
appropriately named “How to Tell a Story.” In it, Twain distinguishes between what
he calls comic and witty stories (and which we would call jokes) and the humorous
story, which he labels as uniquely American. As you read, don’t forget his penchant for
irony. For example, he says that the humorous story strings “incongruities and
absurdities together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way,” but in fact
nothing is purposeless—it all works together to create the effect he wants.
Mark Twain’s deadpan approach may not work for many writers, but the pause
has a more universal application. Enjoy these selections and take from them
what you can.
The humorous story may be spun out to
great length, and may wander around as much as it pleases, and arrive nowhere
in particular; but the comic and witty stories must be brief and end with a
point. The humorous story bubbles gently along, the others burst.
The humorous story is told gravely; the
teller does his best to conceal the fact that he even dimly suspects that there
is anything funny about it . . . .
Very often, of course, the rambling and
disjointed humorous story finishes with a nub, point, snapper, or whatever you
like to call it. Then the listener must be alert, for in many cases the teller
will divert attention from that nub by dropping it in a carefully casual and
indifferent way, with the pretense that he does not know it is a nub.
Artemus Ward used that trick a good
deal; then when the belated audience presently caught the joke he would look up
with innocent surprise, as if wondering what they had found to laugh at.
* * *
To string incongruities and absurdities
together in a wandering and sometimes purposeless way, and seem innocently
unaware that they are absurdities, is the basis of the American art, if my
position is correct. Another feature is the slurring of the point. A third is
the dropping of a studied remark apparently without knowing it, as if one were
thinking aloud. The fourth and last is the pause.
* * *
The pause is an exceedingly important
feature in any kind of story, and a frequently recurring feature, too. It is a
dainty thing, and delicate, and also uncertain and treacherous; for it must be
exactly the right length—no more and no less—or it fails of its purpose and
makes trouble. If the pause is too short the impressive point is passed, and
the audience have had time to divine that a surprise is intended—and then you
can’t surprise them, of course.
Next week we will hear from Ralph Waldo Emerson, who also used lecture
tours to promote his books.
__________
The picture at the head of this post was taken by A.F. Bradley in 1907.
It is in the public domain because of
its age.
No comments:
Post a Comment