For the Story Teller: Chapter 4 - Using Suspense to Develop Concentration

For the Story Teller: Story Telling and Stories to Tell, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey is part of the HackerNoon Books series. You can jump to any chapter in this book here. Chapter IV: USING SUSPENSE TO DEVELOP CONCENTRATION

BECAUSE we have discovered that a story is able to do much for a child; make him feel comfortable and at home in a new environment because it brings to his mind so compellingly the well-known and loved surroundings of some former environment, stimulate his senses to added activity, and secure his involuntary attention, we are going one step farther.

We will make a fresh discovery. We will find a story quality that will develop sustained attention in children; will give them the power to concentrate. Not only will our story open with such a clarion note of interest that it will compel involuntary attention but after this overture, this crash of interest, the perfect child’s story will swing into a different sort of construction that will hold the attention secured by its previous yellow headlines of interest.

One story quality more than any other develops this sustained interest on the part of the children who are listening to it—the quality of suspense.

What is suspense?

It is so necessary a story quality that it seems to explain itself. Suspense means, making the children wait for the rest of the story. It means that the different scenes, the events that go to make up the story, are told in the order of their relative interest appeal to the child mind. The child listens, attends involuntarily as the story proceeds because he wants to know what is coming next. Each scene of the story is unfinished for him; he must wait for a fulfillment of what he expects, looks for, longs for in the story. One sentence, one paragraph makes him curious to hear the following one. The story structure is like a child’s stringing of beads. Upon a white thread of interest the colored glass balls which go to make up the whole circlet of the story plot are strung, as a child would pick them out, each inadequate and incomplete without its component—one bead slipped down to make a place for the next one.

Suspense is the story quality that stimulates curiosity and in this way develops concentrated thinking on the part of the child.

Certain old folk stories have the quality of suspense developed to a high degree and through their accumulative, building on character of construction compel every child’s attention. It is wise to look for this quality in selecting stories to tell to the very young child whose ability to attend for any length of time is undeveloped. Through the involuntary, sustained interest he develops, through listening to the story he becomes able to fix his attention upon other human affairs. An old nursery tale of New England, reported by Clifton Johnson, illustrates with unusual vividness the use of suspense in sustaining a story interest that holds the attention of any child up to the last word of the story.

A fox was digging behind a stump, and he found a bumble-bee. The fox put the bumble-bee in a bag and he traveled.

The first house he came to he went in, and he said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

But as soon as the fox was out of sight, the woman just took a little peep into the bag and out flew the bumble-bee, and the rooster caught him and ate him up.

After a while the fox came back. He took up his bag and he saw that the bumble-bee was gone, and he said to the woman:

“Where is my bumble-bee?”

And the woman said:

“I just untied the bag, and the bumble-bee flew out, and the rooster ate him up.”

“Very well,” said the fox, “I must have the rooster, then.”

So he caught the rooster and put him in his bag, and traveled.

And the next house he came to he went in, and said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

But as soon as the fox was out of sight, the woman just took a little peep into the bag, and the rooster flew out, and the pig caught him and ate him up.

After a while the fox came back, and he took up his bag and he saw that the rooster was not in it, and he said to the woman: “Where is my rooster?”

And the woman said:

“I just untied the bag, and the rooster flew out, and the pig ate him.”

“Very well,” said the fox, “I must have the pig, then.”

So he caught the pig and put him in his bag, and traveled.

And the next house he came to he went in, and he said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

But as soon as the fox was out of sight, the woman just took a little peep into the bag, and the pig jumped out, and the ox ate him.

After a while the fox came back. He took up his bag and he saw that the pig was gone, and he said to the woman:

“Where is my pig?”

And the woman said:

“I just untied the bag, and the pig jumped out, and the ox ate him.”

“Very well,” said the fox, “I must have the ox, then.”

So he caught the ox and put him in his bag, and traveled.

And the next house he came to he went in, and he said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

But as soon as the fox was out of sight, the woman just took a little peep into the bag, and the ox got out, and the woman’s little boy chased him away off over the fields.

After a while the fox came back. He took up his bag, and he saw that the ox was gone, and he said to the woman:

“Where is my ox?”

And the woman said:

“I just untied the string, and the ox got out, and my little boy chased him away off over the fields.”

“Very well,” said the fox, “I must have the little boy, then.”

So he caught the little boy and he put him in his bag, and he traveled.

And the next house he came to he went in, and he said to the mistress of the house:

“May I leave my bag here while I go to Squintum’s?”

“Yes,” said the woman.

“Then be careful not to open the bag,” said the fox.

The woman was making cake, and her children were around her asking for some.

“Oh, mother, give me a piece,” said one; and, “Oh, mother, give me a piece,” said the others.

And the smell of the cake came to the little boy who was weeping and crying in the bag, and he heard the children asking for cake and he said: “Oh, mammy, give me a piece.”

Then the woman opened the bag and took the little boy out, and she put the house-dog in the bag in the little boy’s place. And the little boy stopped crying and had some cake with the others.

After a while the fox came back. He took up his bag and he saw that it was tied fast, and he put it over his back and traveled far into the deep woods. Then he sat down and untied the bag, and if the little boy had been there in the bag things would have gone badly with him.

But the little boy was safe in the woman’s house, and when the fox untied the bag the house-dog jumped out and ate him all up.

The point of interest for children in this story lies in their wonder as to what is going to happen next. It begins with a note of the unusual.

“How strange for a fox to put a bumble bee in a bag,” the children say. “Will the next sentence tell us why he did it?”

Then a number of questions present themselves to the child mind.

“Will the woman untie the bag?”

“Will the person at this house do the same thing?”

“Is it possible that every woman will open the bag?”

Another series of questions confronts the child.

“What manner of beast will the fox take at this house and put in his bag?”

And so the suspense is sustained until the children’s curiosity is satisfied at the end of the story. Not alone has the story been a bit of mental gymnastics for the child, it has given him added mental power in the listening. Above and behind the mental process of waiting to see what unusual and unexpected scene of the story drama will be presented to him next, he has been exercising his will in concentrating upon the process of waiting. His power of sustained attention has been strengthened materially and ineffaceably.

For the very young child, the suspensive element in story telling must be very simple. It will consist often in repetition, the pleasureable recurrence in the story of certain sounds that the child likes and is willing to wait for—sort of half way houses on the story road they are, where his mind wheels may stop and rest awhile—sign posts that lead the way to the end of the road. Sometimes this story suspense for the little folks is brought about through a jingle introduced into the story and repeated with certain changes as in the old folk tale of “The Cat and the Mouse.”

Again suspense is brought about by means of a change of intonation on the part of the story teller. She adapts her voice to the needs of the story as in “The Three Bears” to the inexpressible delight of the children. This is a primitive sort of suspense quality to be found in the most elemental stories for children but it has its important place in the discipline of the child mind. The little child’s first attempts to attend have a butterfly quality.

His mind flies from one stimulus to another with no very long stop anywhere. This is as it should be, for the world of sensations in which the child is plunged as an ego is a varied, crowded world and there is temptation offered him to sip each flower, smell each new odor, touch everything and see everything with which he comes in contact. But a suspensive story holds him to one related set of images for a brief space and through this concentration, however simple it may be, he is developing the power of willed attention.

As children grow older, the suspense quality for which we must look in their stories will not consist in repetition of sounds, jingles and phrases, but in their sequence of events leading toward some unknown climax. This is a more difficult and subtle form of suspense to secure. Here, the beads are strung upon their thread, not in groups of white interspersed with occasional red ones, but rather in the order of the rainbow in bands of color that complement and complete each other. Any description of this more highly developed suspensive story would be absolutely inadequate, for the quality has to be felt by the story teller first and then felt for by her.

An adapted version of the story of the first meeting of John Ridd and Lorna Doone taken from the novel, “Lorna Doone,” gives an illuminating exemplification of the kind of suspense that holds a child breathless, waiting for the unknown something that is to follow. The story teller should endeavor to discover and introduce some suspense, either elemental, as in the case of the folk tale, or of the more elusive quality, illustrated in this story, into all her stories.

Almost everybody knows how pleasant and soft the fall of land is round about Plover’s Barrows Farm. There are trees and bright green grass and orchards full of contentment, and you can scarce espy the brook, although you hear it everywhere. But it is there, where the valley bends and the stream goes along with it, and pretty meadows slope their breast, and the sun spreads on the water. And nearly all the land until you come to Nicholas Snow’s belonged to the Ridd farm—to little John Ridd’s father.

John’s mother had long been ailing and not well able to eat much. Now John chanced to remember that once at the time of the holidays he had brought his dear mother from Tiverton a jar of pickled loaches; and she had said that in all her life she had never tasted anything fit to be compared with them.

So, one St. Valentine’s Day, in the forenoon, without saying a word to any one, John started away to get some loaches for his mother just to make her eat a bit.

It was a bitter cold day, but John doffed his shoes and hose and put them in a bag about his neck, and left his little coat at home that he might walk better. When he had traveled two miles or so he found a good stream flowing softly into the body of the brook. The water was freezing, and John’s toes were aching, and he drew up on the bank and rubbed them well with a sprout of young sting-nettle, and having skipped about a little was inclined to eat a bit. As he ate, his spirits rose, so he put the bag round his neck again and buckled his breeches far up from the knee, and crossing the brook, went stoutly up under the branches which hung so dark on the Bagworthy River.

The day was falling fast behind the brown of the hilltops, and the trees seemed giants ready to beat the boy. And every moment as the sky was clearing up for a white frost, the cold of the water underfoot on the fells got worse and worse, until John was fit to cry with it. And so, in a sorry plight, he came to an opening in the bushes where a great black pool lay in front, whitened at the sides with foam froth.

The boy shuddered, and drew back, not at the pool itself, but at the whirling manner and wisping of white threads upon it in circles, round and round; and the center, black as jet. He did not stop to look much for fear, though, but crawled along over the fork of rocks where the water had scooped the stone out, and shunning the ledge from whence it rose like the mane of a white horse into the broad black pool, softly he let his feet slip into the dip and rush of the torrent.

But John had reckoned without his host, for the green waves came down like great bottles upon him, and his legs were gone from under him in a minute. He was borne up upon a rock, and he won a footing, but there was no choice left except to climb somehow up that hill of water or else be washed down into the pool and whirl around until it drowned him, for there was no chance of going back by the way he had come down. So John started carefully, step by step, stopping to hold on by the cliff when he found a resting place, and pant a while. But the greatest danger came when he saw no jeopardy, but ran up a patch of black ooze weed which stuck out in a boastful manner not far from the summit. Here he fell, and was like to have broken his knee cap, but his elbow caught in a hole in the rock and so he managed to start again.

But the little boy was in a most dreadful fright now, and at last the rush of water drove him back again into the middle. Then he made up his mind to die at last; only it did seem such a pity after fighting so long, to give in. The light was coming upon him, and again he fought toward it, when suddenly he felt fresh air, and fell into it headlong.

When John came to himself, his hands were full of young grass and mold, and a little girl was kneeling at his side and rubbing his forehead tenderly.

“I am so glad,” she whispered softly, as John opened his eyes and looked at her. “Now you will try to be better, won’t you?”

The little boy had never heard so sweet a sound as came from between her red lips while she knelt and gazed at him; nor had he ever seen anything so beautiful as the large dark eyes, full of pity and wonder. His eyes wandered down the black shower of her hair; and where it fell on the turf, among it, like an early star, was the first primrose of the season.

“What is your name?” she said, “and how did you come here? Oh, how your feet are bleeding! I must tie them up for you. And no shoes or stockings! Is your mother very poor, boy?”

“No,” said John, a little vexed. “We are rich enough to buy all this great meadow if we choose. Here are my shoes and stockings.”

“Why, they are quite as wet as your feet. Oh, please let me manage them. I will do it very softly.”

“Oh, I don’t mind that,” said John, “but how you are looking at me. I never saw any one like you before. My name is John Ridd. What is your name?”

“Lorna Doone,” she answered in a low voice as if afraid of it, and hanging her head so he could see only her forehead and eyelashes; “if you please, my name is Lorna Doone, and I thought you must have known it,” and her blushes turned to tears and her tears to long, low sobs.

“Don’t cry,” said John, “whatever you do. I will give you all my fish, Lorna, and catch some more for my mother; only don’t be angry with me.”

Young and harmless as she was, her name alone made guilt of her; yet there was John, a yeoman’s son, and there was she, a little lady born. Though her hair had fallen down, and some of her frock was touched with wet, behold, her dress was pretty enough for the queen of all the angels. All from her waist to her neck was white, plaited in close like a curtain, and the dark soft tresses of her hair, and the shadowy light of her eyes made it seem yet whiter.

“John,” she said, “why did you ever come here? Do you know what the robbers would do to us if they found you here with me?”

“Beat us, I dare say,” said John, “or me at least. They could never beat you.”

“No, they would kill us both, and bury us here by the water because you have found your way up here. Now please go; oh, please go!”

“I never saw any one like you, Lorna, and I must come back again to-morrow, and so must you. I will bring you such lots of things—there are apples still—and I caught a thrush—and I will bring you the loveliest dog—”

“Hush!”

A shout came down the valley, and Lorna’s face was full of terror.

“Do you see that hole?” she cried.

It was a niche in the rock which skirted the meadow. In the fading twilight John could just see it.

“Look! Look!” She could hardly speak from terror. “There is a way out from the top of it; they would kill me if I told of it. Oh, here they come; I can see them!”

The little maid turned white as the snow which hung on the rocks above her, and she looked at the water and then at John. She began to sob aloud, but John drew her behind the bushes and close down to the water. Crouching in that hollow nest they saw a dozen fierce men come down on the other side of the water.

“Queen! Queen!” they were shouting here and there, and now and then. “Where is our little queen gone?”

“They always call me ‘queen,’ and I shall have to be their queen by and by,” Lorna whispered. “Oh, they are crossing, and they are sure to see us.”

“I must get down into the water,” said John, “and you must go to sleep.”

She saw in a moment how to do it, and there was no time to lose.

“Now mind you, never come again,” she whispered over her shoulder as she crept away, “only I shall come sometimes.”

John crept into the water and lay down with his head between two blocks of stone, and all this time the robbers were shouting so that all the rocks round the valley rang. The boy was desperate between fear and wretchedness till he caught sight of the little maid, but he knew that for her sake he must be brave and hide himself.

Lorna was lying beneath a rock not far away, feigning to be fast asleep. Presently one of the robbers came upon her, and he stopped and gazed awhile at her fairness and innocence. Then he caught her up in his arms and kissed her.

“Here our queen is! Here’s the captain’s daughter,” he shouted, “fast asleep.”

He set her dainty little form upon his great square shoulder, and her narrow feet in one broad hand; and so he marched away with the purple velvet of her skirt ruffling his long black beard, and the silken length of her hair fetched out, like a cloud of the wind behind her.

John crept into a bush for warmth, and then, as daylight sank beneath the forget-me-not of stars, he knew that it was time to get away, and he managed to crawl from the bank to the niche in the cliff that Lorna had shown him. How he climbed up, and crossed the clearing, and found his way home across the Bagworthy forest was more than he could remember afterward, because of his weariness.

All the supper was in, and the men sitting at the white table with Annie and Lizzie near by—and all were eager to begin, save only the mother. John was of a mind to stay out in the dark by the woodstack, being so late, but the way his mother was looking out of the doorway got the better of him, so he went inside and ate his supper, and held his tongue as to where he had been all day and evening. But if he had been of a mind he could have told them many things.

ILLUSTRATING STORY SUSPENSE WHICH APPEALS TO YOUNGEST CHILDREN

The big, yellow Sun smiled down upon them and the Singing Brook hummed pretty little tunes for them to listen to. They were two little boys at play with a whole, long beautiful day ahead.

They looked almost exactly alike, did these two little boys. Bobby wore a wide-brimmed sun hat with a blue band around it, and Dicky wore a wide-brimmed sun hat with a red band around it. Bobby wore a brown linen sailor suit with blue anchors on the collar and Dicky wore a brown linen sailor suit with red anchors on the collar. Bobby had a beautiful toy ship to play with, and Dicky had a beautiful ship, too. As for the ships, they looked just exactly alike. Each beautiful toy ship was painted white and green, and each had a big white sail as wide and pretty as a dove’s wing, and each had a strong little rudder painted red.

Bobby and Dicky had made a make-believe wharf in the Singing Brook of sticks and stones and nice black mud. There, anchored at the wharf, lay the two beautiful toy boats, their white sails flapping and fat with wind. When their strings were loosed from the wharf, the Whispering Wind would carry the two little boats way, way down the Singing Brook to another little make-believe wharf made of sticks and stones and nice black mud that Bobby and Dicky had made farther on.

So the Sun smiled down more happily and the Singing Brook sang a merrier tune than the last one and Bobby and Dicky began to play.

“I am going to load my boat with little green apples, Dicky,” said Bobby. “Perhaps the Old Chipmunk who lives at the foot of the Pine Tree will go aboard and unload them.”

Bobby began gathering small green apples as fast as he could and putting them on the deck of his little ship, but Dicky sat on the bank of the Singing Brook, doing nothing and only watching.

“When are you going to load your ship, Dicky?” Bobby asked as he put in the last apples.

“In a minute,” Dicky answered, but before the minute had gone, Bobby’s ship, its white sail flying, had started down the Singing Brook to the other wharf. Dicky jumped up and loosed his boat from its moorings, but it was very far behind Bobby’s all the way. The two little boys hurried softly between the willow trees that stood along the edge of the Singing Brook.

As they came to the other make-believe wharf they saw the Old Chipmunk creep out of his house at the foot of the Pine Tree and go out on the wharf to wait for the little ship to come in. When it came, he unloaded all the cargo of apples and carried them over to his cellar. But when Dicky’s ship came in, so late and so empty, the Old Chipmunk did nothing but smell of it. Then he sat on the end of the make-believe wharf in the sunshine and basked and did not even look at Dicky’s ship again.

“I have thought of something very nice to do, now,” said Bobby as the two little boys carried their ships back again. “We will play that the flowers are children and we will give them a ride in our ships.”

“Yes, we will!” agreed Dicky.

So Bobby picked many little flower children; clovers in pink bonnets and buttercups in wide yellow hats and daisies in gold bonnets with white strings, and he put them all carefully aboard his ship. But Dicky only stood by in the grass and watched.

“When are you going to fill your boat with flowers, Dicky?” Bobby asked as he helped the last flower child aboard.

“In a minute,” Dicky answered, but just then down the Singing Brook came the Whispering Wind. It filled the little white sails and away sailed the two little ships, the flower children aboard Bobby’s fluttering and dancing with the joy of having a boat ride.

The two little boys raced along the bank to watch and they saw a wonderful thing happen. All the way down the Singing Brook, pretty passengers joined the flower children on board Bobby’s ship. A gold butterfly fluttered down to the deck with his yellow and black wings, kissing the clovers beneath their pink bonnets.

A shiny black bumble bee tumbled down to the deck with his gold, gossamer wings and began to drone summer stories to the buttercups. A silver dragon fly darted down to the ship with his rainbow tinted wings to mend the white strings of the daisies’ caps which had been torn by the frolicsome Whispering Wind. When Bobby’s ship reached the other wharf it looked like an excursion boat, but, ah, Dicky’s ship was quite empty. There had been no flower children on board to call the butterflies, the bumble bees and the dragon flies.

“I know the nicest play of all, now,” said Bobby after he had helped the flower children from his ship and put their feet in the Singing Brook that they might wade there all the rest of the day and keep cool and fresh and sweet.

“We will take our ships back, Dicky, and have a race.”

“Oh, that will be nice!” Dicky answered, so the two little boys carried the two ships back and launched them, side by side, in the Singing Brook.

“One—two—” began Bobby, but before he said three he heard their mother’s voice floating over the fields and as far as their playground.

“Bobby, Dicky, come home,” their mother called. “Come home, boys, dinner is ready.”

“I’m coming, mother,” Bobby called back, putting his hand to his mouth to make a horn. Then he turned to Dicky who still bent low over the bank of the Singing Brook and still held in his hand the string that was tied to the rudder of his ship.

“In a minute,” Dicky answered. Bobby ran off over the fields, and soon he was out of sight. He knew that there were fat white potatoes and yellow chicken meat and red cherry dumplings for dinner. Now they were hot, but they would be cold if he did not hurry.

Down by the Singing Brook Dicky waited to launch his ship once more. The Whispering Wind filled the sail a third time, and away sailed the beautiful little toy ship, so pretty with its green and white paint, and its rudder that was painted red. Dicky ran along beside it, to see how fast it sailed. Faster and faster sailed Dicky’s ship. It did not stop when it came to the Pine Tree where the Old Chipmunk was busy in his cellar sorting out his apples. It did not stop when it came to the Wading Pool where all the flower children stood, keeping cool and fresh and sweet. On and on sailed the little ship, for the Whispering Wind was taking it a long, long way off to the place where the Singing Brook loses itself in the River and the River goes on down to the Sea.

“Come back. Oh, do come back!” called Dicky to the little ship, but the ship only sailed the faster.

“Please come back!” cried Dicky as his beautiful ship sailed out of sight.

In a minute, the Whispering Wind called back.

But the little ship never came back.

So Dicky went slowly across the field and home to dinner, but when he reached home what do you think had happened?

The fat, white potatoes, the yellow chicken meat and the red cherry dumplings were cold.