Free How To Tell A Story And Other Essays by Mark Twain Page A

perplexity.  At length he said:
    “It is true, sir, just as you have said.”  Then after a pause he added,
    “But he TOLD me IT WAS HIS LEG!  !  !  !  !”
    Here the narrator bursts into explosion after explosion of thunderous
     horse-laughter, repeating that nub from time to time through his gaspings
     and shriekings and suffocatings.
    It takes only a minute and a half to tell that in its comic-story form;
    and isn't worth the telling, after all.  Put into the humorous-story form
     it takes ten minutes, and is about the funniest thing I have ever
     listened to--as James Whitcomb Riley tells it.
    He tells it in the character of a dull-witted old farmer who has just
     heard it for the first time, thinks it is unspeakably funny, and is
     trying to repeat it to a neighbor.  But he can't remember it; so he gets
     all mixed up and wanders helplessly round and round, putting in tedious
     details that don't belong in the tale and only retard it; taking them out
     conscientiously and putting in others that are just as useless; making
     minor mistakes now and then and stopping to correct them and explain how
     he came to make them; remembering things which he forgot to put in in
     their proper place and going back to put them in there; stopping his
     narrative a good while in order to try to recall the name of the soldier
     that was hurt, and finally remembering that the soldier's name was not
     mentioned, and remarking placidly that the name is of no real importance,
    anyway--better, of course, if one knew it, but not essential, after all--
    and so on, and so on, and so on.
    The teller is innocent and happy and pleased with himself, and has to
     stop every little while to hold himself in and keep from laughing
     outright; and does hold in, but his body quakes in a jelly-like way with
     interior chuckles; and at the end of the ten minutes the audience have
     laughed until they are exhausted, and the tears are running down their
     faces.
    The simplicity and innocence and sincerity and unconsciousness of the old
     farmer are perfectly simulated, and the result is a performance which is
     thoroughly charming and delicious.  This is art and fine and beautiful,
    and only a master can compass it; but a machine could tell the other
     story.
    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.
    Artemus Ward dealt in numbers three and four a good deal.  He would begin
     to tell with great animation something which he seemed to think was
     wonderful; then lose confidence, and after an apparently absent-minded
     pause add an incongruous remark in a soliloquizing way; and that was the
     remark intended to explode the mine--and it did.
    For instance, he would say eagerly, excitedly, “I once knew a man in New
     Zealand who hadn't a tooth in his head”--here his animation would die
     out; a silent, reflective pause would follow, then he would say dreamily,
    and as if to himself, “and yet that man could beat a drum better than any
     man I ever saw.”
    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
     [and if too long] the audience have had time to divine that a surprise is
     intended--and then you can't surprise them, of course.
    On the platform I used to tell a negro ghost story that had a pause in
     front of the snapper on the end, and that pause was the most important