Jokes for All Occasions (Dodo Press) Book

"The ways of telling a story are as many as the tellers themselves. It is impossible to lay down precise rules by which any one may perfect himself in the art, but it is possible to offer suggestions by which to guide practise in narration toward a gratifying success. Broadly distinguished, there are two methods of telling a story. One uses the extreme of brevity, and makes its chief reliance on the point. The other devotes itself in great part to preliminary elaboration in the narrative, making this as amusing as possible, so that the point itself serves to cap a climax. In the public telling of an anecdote the tyro would be well advised to follow the first method. That is, he should put his reliance on the point of the story, and on this alone. "