Storyneeds...everybody needs a story
Find stories to improve your life & work
  • HOME
  • About
  • Introducing
    • Mussolini's Gran Sasso Rescue
    • The War is Over Please Come Out
    • The Heroic Impostor
    • Hack Heaven
    • The Hitler Diaries
    • Lincoln's Dream
    • Modigliani's Heads
    • Giorgio Perlasca
    • Rider on the Storm
    • Mountain Hero
    • Resusci Anne and L'Inconnue
    • The Bucket Rider
    • Cupid and Psyche
    • Pygmalion and Galatea
    • Arachne
    • Charlemagne and the Ring
    • Theseus and the Minotaur
    • Ramses III by Herodotus
    • The Ronald Opus Case
    • Operation Mincemeat
    • Agent Zig Zag
    • The Elephant and the Blind Men
    • The Little Hunchback
    • The D-Day Crosswords
    • Burke and Hare
    • France Investigates Airport Gaffe
    • Orange County Woman Swims to the Soviet Union
    • the Christmas Truce
    • The Man Who Lost His Path
    • Shattered Glass
    • Correcting The Record
    • Jimmy's World
    • Pearls Before Breakfast
    • Rider on the Storm
    • Zimbardo Stanford Experiment
  • Picture Blog

It's not the Story, it's the Storyteller

7/30/2014

0 Comments

 
It's not the Story, it's the Storyteller


Told After Supper by Jerome K. Jerome is one of those books I dip into every now and again. Jerome's writing is deceptively effortless and his comic timing is immaculate.

Jerome's skill derives from his ability to put us in the protagonist's shoes and enable us to quickly visualise what he sees. His words make us feel we are the hapless raconteur, and we share his embarrassment. By varying the length of his sentences, and by clever syntax, we are given suspense, and an idea of the main character's ramblings.

Jerome is a cheeky virtuoso, a master storyteller who plays with us, the reader, while telling us he's doing so.
Look at this brief excerpt, in which he describes his alcohol-fueled efforts at telling a ghost story to fellow guests on Christmas eve. It's simply superb. And superbly simple.

"I started relating a most interesting anecdote, but was somewhat
surprised to observe, as I went on, that nobody was paying the
slightest attention to me whatever. I thought this rather rude of
them at first, until it dawned upon me that I was talking to myself
all the time, instead of out aloud, so that, of course, they did
not know that I was telling them a tale at all, and were probably
puzzled to understand the meaning of my animated expression and
eloquent gestures. It was a most curious mistake for any one to
make. I never knew such a thing happen to me before."


Alberico Collina

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Categories

    All
    A Different Dictionary
    Animals
    Art
    Creativity
    Crime
    Fables
    Faith
    Love
    Myths
    Nasrudin
    News-based
    Others-55-word-stories
    Others-short-stories
    Poetry
    Quotations
    Reviews
    Scribblings
    Speeches
    Supernatural
    War
    Writing-advice

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    August 2022
    February 2022
    June 2020
    March 2020
    May 2019
    February 2019
    September 2018
    September 2017
    July 2017
    May 2017
    March 2017
    November 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    July 2015
    April 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    February 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.