Story-Telling Secrets

...So I gave up my story-telling and, indeed, for years was regarded as rather dull in what was then termed "composition...

...These archaic volumes are, I hope, happily consigned to a literary limbo, but the memory remains with some of us to mark the advance of the Catholic juvenile in wisdom and grace as well as charm...

...I have brought to this seemingly simple work the literary experience of many years...

...I can truthfully say that I have given to my juvenile readers the best that is in me...

...That prefatory remark took all the elan from my flights of fancy, for what was the use of telling things that were frankly, openly, confessedly, almost shamelessly not true...

...Trained and often consecrated November 10, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 15 teachers have become story-tellers, realizing the need of Catholic fiction to resist the poisoned flood of light literature that is arousing wise national alarm, fiction that is true to nature and nature's God, and rich with the warmth, the glow, the beauty of that Mother Church from whose stores the artists and poets of all ages have had to borrow even while they denied her sway...

...My oldest son, a lively boy of eleven, was to make his First Communion and I looked about me for some "spiritual reading" that might supplement his more serious instruction, something in a cheerful vein that I could read to him at bedtime when boys are supposed to be in a receptive mood...

...I think my young readers may have been, in some subtle way, conscious of this sincerity, so warm and sweet and altogether charming have I found their response to my efforts...

...But I have never taken this viewpoint...

...I can still recall with mingled emotions of pain and pleasure, my own first efforts in that line when, as a very small convent girl, I was able to hold an audience of still smaller listeners quite breathless with interest in my narrations, until a dear practical-minded teacher told me I must always preface my stories by the statement that they were not true...

...They found "nothing objectionable" in them...

...Later on I resumed the business more successfully and I was engaged in other literary work when, by a kind ruling of Providence, I was led into the Catholic juvenile field...

...Single letters, combined letters from schools and classes, letters from young writers evidently struggling with the first difficulties of chirog-raphy, letters assuring me of most devoted and unmerited affection and hoping that I may "never die" but live on to write stories "forever," letters from India, the Philippines, Alaska and the length and breadth of our land tell me of dear little readers, whom I shall never see on earth, but who remember me, they assure me, before their far-away altars and in their innocent prayers...

...And though to the Catholic story-tellers, in their less serious work, the legendary is an alluring region—a "fairy ground of faith" which seems almost their fitting bailiwick, I think that even for us this priestly counsel is wise...

...The college, the camp, the ball field, all the glad and glorious activities of boy life have found narrators, many of them priests who, backed by all the dignity of their sacred office, still can be boys with their boys...

...Of that warmth, that glow, that beauty, the child's story should have its rightful share, so to that ever-growing number of Catholic writers who are making of juvenile literature a labor of love for the Master's beloved little ones, I would speak a most hearty—and fervent—Godspeed...

...Her remarks on the craft as given in this article are reinforced by a lengthy array of stories and volumes notable among which is Josephine-Marie.—The Editors...

...But enough of my "story-telling secrets" which I have been asked to tell...

...In simpler times, this blending of truth and fancy had no perils, but to the eager questioning minds of our day that reach on all sides with blatant challenge to the Faith we hold, the truth should stand out clear and defined to our children, with no veiling of fancy...

...Even the dear Irish fairies we all know and love, were sternly forbidden "holy ground...

...My juvenile correspondence has been most varied and extensive...

...SOME of us "old-timers" may remember the story-books handed out to us by our mothers and grandmothers, tales of preternaturally perfect girls (and even boys) devoid of all the spirit of exuberant youth...

...I have considered plot, detail, diction and, when necessary for accuracy in description, I have made painstaking research...

...Not finding just what I wished, I decided to steal time from my other work and write him a story whose higher lessons could be interspersed with the escapades and thrills necessary to hold boyish interest...

...And as I think the atmosphere of a Catholic story, like that of a Catholic school, is too permeating to be unfelt, I have been surprised at the friendly spirit with which non-Catholic parents have accepted my little books for their children...

...Well—perhaps not, but, as I was reassured on this point by a friendly bishop, "You do not begin your stories with the sign of the Cross, but nevertheless it is there...

...To the casual reader, juvenile writing may seem light and easy work, and, of course, it can be made so by writers who feel that it is unnecessary to expend any great effort on stories for children, that almost any simple thing will do...

...Yet, while faithfully upholding this sacred standard, we should not lightly lessen its dignity...

...It is cheering for an old writer to know that the field of her endeavor is echoing with younger and stronger voices, more virile tones...

...And the girls are not less fortunate...

...Avoid the legendary," was the terse advice given by a Paulist father to a class of teachers under his supervision...

...I obeyed, of course, as in those far-off days all little convent girls did, but it was a real trial, a clipping of sprouting wings...

...For children must have their story-tellers as the growing demand for them in our civic playgrounds shows...

...Though really not intended for publication, this First Communion story was brought out afterward in book form and was so kindly received that I followed it with others and so made my entrance into a field where I have found inspiration and reward not to be measured by earthly gain...