Let me urge, then, take your story
seriously.
Next, "take your time." This suggestion
needs explaining, perhaps. It does
not mean license to dawdle. Nothing is
much more annoying in a speaker than too
great deliberateness, or than hesitation of
speech. But it means a quiet realization of
the fact that the floor is yours, everybody
wants to hear you, there is time enough
for every point and shade of meaning and
no one will think the story too long. This
mental attitude must underlie proper control
of speed. Never hurry. A business-like
leisure is the true attitude of the storyteller.
And the result is best attained by
concentrating one's attention on the episodes
of the story. Pass lightly, and comparatively
swiftly, over the portions between
actual episodes, but take all the time you
need for the elaboration of those. And
above all, do not FEEL hurried.
The next suggestion is eminently plain
and practical, if not an all too obvious one.
It is this: if all your preparation and
confidence fails you at the crucial moment, and
memory plays the part of traitor in some
particular, if, in short, you blunder on a
detail of the story, NEVER ADMIT IT. If it was
an unimportant detail which you misstated,
pass right on, accepting whatever you said,
and continuing with it; if you have been so
unfortunate as to omit a fact which was a
necessary link in the chain, put it in, later,
as skillfully as you can, and with as
deceptive an appearance of its being in the
intended order; but never take the children
behind the scenes, and let them hear
the creaking of your mental machinery.
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