2.  Use great care to compel interest and anticipation through an effective beginning.

3.  Plan to have the body of the story reasonably brief, and to make the main truth stand out in a climax.  Eliminate all complications or irrelevant matter that does not aid in leading up to the climax.  Elaborate and stress all features that help in making the impression to be attained in the climax.

4.  Make the ending such as to leave in the mind a feeling that the story was satisfactory and complete.

Telling the story.—­The effective story must be told.  It cannot be read without losing something of spontaneity and attractiveness.  It cannot even be committed to memory and repeated; for here also is lacking something of the living glow and appeal that come from having the words spring fresh and warm from the mind that is actually thinking and feeling them.  Most story-tellers find that it pays to work out carefully and commit to memory the opening and closing sentences of a story; the phrasing is so important here that it should not be left to chance.  But the body of the story is better given extemporaneously even if the wording is not as perfect as it could be made by reading or reciting the matter.

Before trying to tell a story before his class, the teacher should rehearse it several times.  Nothing but practice will give the ease, certainty, and spontaneity necessary to good story-telling.  Even professional story-tellers realize that they do not tell a new story well until they have told it a number of times.  Perhaps this is in part because one never enjoys telling a story until he is sure he can tell it well, and so get a response from his listeners.  And one never tells a story really well unless he himself enjoys both the story and its telling.  One never brings the full effectiveness of a story to bear on his hearers unless he himself enters fully into its appreciation, and moves himself while stirring the emotions of those who listen.

The right atmosphere required.—­Second in importance only to preparing himself for the telling of the story is the preparing of the class to listen.  The right atmosphere of thought, attitude and feeling should be created for the story before it is begun.  A primary teacher was about to begin a story whose purpose was to show how God cares for the birds by giving them feathers to keep them warm, wings for swift flying, and cozy nests for their homes, when suddenly a little bird flew in through the classroom window and was killed before the class by dashing against the wall.  Of course the right atmosphere for her story was then impossible, and she wisely left it for another time.

The approach to the story can be made by some question or suggestion relating to the pupils’ own experience, by a sentence or two of explanation, or by an illustration dealing with matters familiar to the class.  But whatever device is used, the introduction should prepare the minds of the class to receive the story by turning their thought in the direction which the story is to take.  It is also important that any new terms or unfamiliar situations which are to be used in the story, and which might not be understood by the class, shall be cleared up before the story is begun.