How to tell a scary "jump tale"

Scary stories are a perennial favorite with kids, and when told well can be a great addition to a campfire storytelling session or sleepover. One style of scary story is the “jump tale,” a story designed to make the audience leap in surprise. Sometimes the jump finishes the story, sometimes the story continues after the jump. The Golden Arm and Johnny’s Liver are a couple of examples of this style of story. Here are a few tips for telling jump tales:

1. Be careful telling jump tales to very young children. Nothing puts a damper on a storytelling session faster than child who has been scared into a crying jag. If you notice a child who may be too scared by the jump, you may need to tone the story down and make the jump less dramatic.

2. Use this style of story sparingly, one or possibly two per storytelling session. If you rely heavily on jump tales, you risk boring the audience.

3. Don’t tell the audience in advance that you are telling a jump tale. If you let them know, they’ll be ready and won’t be surprised.

4. Build the suspense in the story before you get to the jump. Draw the listeners in as if you were reeling in a fish.

5. Just before the jump, slow down. Get quiet. The listeners will lean in to hear you.

6. Right before the jump, pause for a couple of beats, and then make the jump quick and loud.

7. Some jump tales require you to reach suddenly for one of the listeners at the jump. You may need to move closer to that listener for the full effect. Be sure it’s a listener who will enjoy being the center of attention for a moment. (I prefer not to do this kind of jump tale.)

8. Usually the audience laughs in relief after the jump. Allow a few seconds for this laughter. If the story continues, pick up the telling again after these few seconds. If you wait too long, the audience will start talking to each other about how funny it was that they jumped and they’ll lose the thread of the story.

9. Have fun!

Create A Storytelling And Reading Aloud Ritual In Your Classroom

Adults often tell me about teachers they had in elementary school who read aloud in the classroom. They looked forward to those read-aloud times, to the quiet space in which the class lived together within a story. Years later, this is a treasured memory. Teachers today can create the same special atmosphere in the classroom. Here are a few tips on how to do this:

1. Establish a specific time for the storytelling or reading aloud. Are the students bouncing off the wall in the last fifteen minutes of school on Friday afternoon? Maybe this is the time to calm everybody down with a story. Or try Monday morning, as the perfect way to begin the week.

2. Establish a place for the story experience. Will the children stay at their desks or sit on the floor close to you? Many teachers create a reading and listening corner in the classroom, with carpet squares or cushions for the listeners and a rocking chair for the reader or teller. Be consistent about where the students will listen.

3. Take into account the kinesthetic learners, who need to move a little bit in order to listen. Consider allowing the children to draw while listening. If you are telling stories, think about places within the story where you can incorporate participation in the form of repetitive gestures or phrases or both.

4. Allow the children to listen in a relaxed manner, as long as they are not bothering the other students. I often have the children sit “criss-cross applesauce,” (cross-legged) if they are on the floor, so the listeners behind them can see. At the same time, if there’s space, I don’t mind if they lie down. If they are at their desks, they may be more comfortable with their heads down.

5. Look at this special time as a treat for everyone, including you. As you tell or read stories, the children are using their imaginations as well as learning valuable literacy skills. They are expanding their vocabulary, visualizing settings and characters, sequencing and predicting events in the story.

6. Have fun!

Tips for Telling Funny-Scary Campfire Stories

Night has fallen. The campfire flickers and pops, coals glow, listeners creep closer to the fire and the storyteller. It’s time for scary stories. But wait…some of the listeners are too small for the stories of la llorona or hookman. It’s time for a funny-scary campfire story, just enough for shivers, not enough for nightmares. As many of you know, I’m best known for telling The Ghost With the One Black Eye, and many other classic funny-scary campfire stories. Here are a few tips for effective campfire storytelling for the youngest listeners.

1. Notice the body language of the listeners as you introduce the story. Suggest that the smallest children sit with an older sibling or adult. Some small children like very scary stories, but it’s kinder to the adults who have to be with the child later on to tell gentler stories to young children.

2. Let the listeners know right away that this will be a funny-scary story, not a scary-scary story.

3. Choose a story with a joke ending. You can find a few of these in Alvin Schwartz’ Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark series, in Simon Bronner’s American Children’s Folklore, or ask a ten-year-old who has been to camp.

4. Err on the side of goofy characters, not scary, for young listeners. Build in a hand movement or repetitive phrase so the audience can join in.

5. Sometimes even a funny story can scare a small child. Reassure the individual child that it will all be fine in the end.

6. For a little shiver, pause just before the punchline. This builds suspense and creates an even bigger laugh at the funny ending.

7. Don’t be surprised if children say “That wasn’t scary!” at the end. This is most likely not a true critique, just an observation--and sometimes a way a slightly scared child has of finding courage.

Once the little ones have gone off to bed, and you’re sure that those who are still around the fire can handle it, if you have time and inclination, then tell the truly scary stories.

Storytelling tip #7

Really, it's more of a life tip, but here goes:

Hydrate.

Drink plenty of water before you perform and even during if necessary. If you find yourself clearing your throat, take a sip of water. I build in places in some stories where the characters drink water. Water is better than anything else for your voice. Yes, lemon tea tastes good, and honey feels nice on your throat, nothing wrong with that, but the absolute best is water. That's what a speech pathologist told me many years ago.

I don't subscribe to the theory that you have to drink 8-10 glasses of water every day. It turns out that's one of those myths that we parrot without knowing the underlying reasons it was given in the first place.

For your voice, though, do drink lots of water. It may well mean that you have to rush to the bathroom frequently, but it will help you sustain your voice through multiple performances.

I drink tap water, bottled if I'm offered it or if I'm in a place where the water tastes bad or is suspect. I never drink from a school water fountain (a bubbler, pronounced "bubblah," where I grew up), opting for filling my glass from a sink. Think about it--all those kids putting their mouths directly on the spigot!

All this blather about water has made me thirsty. I'm off to the kitchen for a glass of H2O.

Storytelling Tip #6

Hmm, let's see, what was I telling the high school kids in the workshop this morning?

Be aware when you are creating physical noise in your performances.

I heard Heather Forest use the term "physical noise" in one of the very first storytelling workshops I ever went to. At the time, I belonged to a small storytelling guild. One of the storytellers in the guild did a kind of dance step when he told, not as a part of the story. It was his nervous tic. It was physical noise. Some storytellers, often teachers or professors, pace as they tell. That's a kind of physical noise. When I work with kids, they sometimes play with their buttons or hair while they're telling. It has nothing at all to do with their stories. I've seen storytellers and actors make a sort of pawing or grabbing gesture, usually because they don't know that they can let their arms relax. Physical noise.

I'm not exempt from this advice: I sometimes find myself pushing my sleeves up or down while telling a story--I speak sternly to myself about it (there are other annoying tics I have, but I'd rather not draw attention to them, ahem).

When I listen to a story, I get distracted by these extraneous movements.

About pacing back and forth: when I watch stand-up comics on TV, I notice this habit. I find it unnecessary. The audience can see the comic perfectly well, and the comic can easily just turn his or her head to take in the room (though stage lights make it almost impossible to see the audience, more on that later). Drives me crackers.

Do any of you have an opinion about this?

Hey, whatever happened to Storytelling Tips?

I promise, they'll be back soon. They just stepped outside for a breath of fresh air. From the beginning they thought it was ridiculous that I said I was going to introduce a new tip every Tuesday. Sigh.

Storytelling tip #5

I heard this one from Donald Davis at a workshop many years ago. It has proved invaluable in my work.

Begin by talking about your story.

By talking about a story instead of actually telling it, you'll take the pressure off of having to get it right. As you talk about it, you start to refine your knowledge of the story and how it fits into your repertoire.

I often say to my sister, "Hey, I'm thinking about telling a new story I just found. Can I tell you about it?" As I tell her, it starts to take shape and I see the pictures more clearly in my mind. Often by the time I've finished telling about it, I've shifted into telling it. Also, since I'm just rambling, I don't mind if she has suggestions or questions.

This works for all kinds of stories, from personal stories to folktales to literary stories.

Storytelling Tip #2

It occurs to me that after that first tip, there is no order of precedence for the rest. I'm calling this Tip #2, but most likely it's not more important than Tip #34 will be.

Here it is: Know your story inside and out.

Goes without saying, right? Maybe, but I hear storytellers sometimes who have not done this step.

Try to imagine every character, every setting, every action completely. When you do this, you will be able to answer any question that comes up about the story. What color shoelaces does the heroine have? How old is the big brother? How does the cat cross the room? You don't need to put these in the story--in fact, if you did, the listeners may keel over from boredom--but you do need to know them. When you imagine the story that deeply, your choices about what images you use will be clearer. Hmm, is that true? Sometimes I make these pronouncements and only later do I wonder if it works for everybody.

I'm a visual learner. I see the pictures of the story in my head, almost like a movie. I translate those pictures through my heart and bring them out in my words, voice, body and face. More on that later.

Storytelling Tip #1

There's one big rule in storytelling:

Only tell stories you love.

Sorry, didn't mean to shout, but it's very important. If you don't love the stories you tell, your audience won't love them either. If your audience doesn't love the story, they will let you know in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, depending on how old they are.

It seems obvious, doesn't it? However, I've had experiences where I've tried to fit a story I only sort of liked into a program. It doesn't work.

Once I was performing in a library and the librarian asked if I would tell The Wide-Mouth Frog. I know this story, but it wasn't in my repertoire and it isn't one I love. Still, I wanted to please the librarian, so I told it. It was flat. Boring. Excruciating. It's a good story, just not good for me.

Sometimes storytellers try to shoehorn a story they don't love into a program because it fits a theme or is from a specific country. It rarely works out.

This is one of the few times I'll exhort you not to do something.When you tell stories you don't love, and you do a mediocre job, it reflects badly on your skills as a storyteller, on other storytellers ("Oh, we had a storyteller once. She wasn't very good. We don't hire storytellers anymore") and on the art of storytelling. Please, don't do it.