The Rhythm of Narration
A good storyteller controls the rhythm of the story, to keep a clear structure and to bring the story to life. Rhythm is realized by pauses and the speed of narration. We can observe that the speed of narration is higher when nearing a climax and within conversations in stories. As a consequence of this choice, in these circumstances the pauses are shorter. Long pauses are used to mark new paragraphs. Otherwise, some pauses can be the result of hesitations or other imperfections of performance. These observations are based on measuring pauses and the number of syllables per second for several different recounts of one story. The speed of paragraphs varies between 3.5 and 7.9 number of syllables per second.
Another factor that adds to the rhythm is provided by an audience member uttering short agreements such as ee, hayagan, which mean ‘indeed’. This is such a necessary part of the storytelling, that it is impossible to tell a story when the audience does not react at all.
