One has,
so, the framework of the story. The next process is the filling in.
There must be many ways of going about this filling in. Doubtless many of
my readers, in the days when it was their pet ambition to make a good
recitation in school, evolved personally effective ways of doing it; for
it is, after all, the same thing as preparing a bit of history or a
recitation in literature. But for the consideration of those who find it
hard to gain mastery of fact without mastery of its stated form, I give my
own way. I have always used the childlike plan of talking it out.
Sometimes inaudibly, sometimes in loud and penetrating tones which arouse
the sympathetic curiosity of my family, I tell it over and over, to an
imaginary hearer. That hearer is as present to me, always has been, as
Stevenson's "friend of the children" who takes the part of the enemy in
their solitary games of war. His criticism (though he is a most composite
double-sexed creature who should not have a designating personal pronoun)
is all-revealing. For talking it out instantly brings to light the weak
spots in one's recollection. "What was it the little crocodile said?"
"Just how did the little pig get into his house?" "What was that link in
the chain of circumstances which brought the wily fox to confusion?" The
slightest cloud of uncertainty becomes obvious in a moment.
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