I’ve mentioned it before.
I invented the “and then…” rule at a cub scout campout. It’s masterful in it’s simplicity and effectiveness.
The story that Froederick is trying to tell in this strip? It’s the story, as I remember it, that the cub scout told when I invented the “and then” rule.
I’ve been on many campouts, but don’t remember spooky stories around the campfire. I heard lots of spooky stories, but not around the campfire.
Usually you told the scary stories at sleepovers (cousins especially during reunions). I had a prissy cousin about five years older and her sister was my age, and by 10 I could make up and tell ones that would make the older one have nightmares… and I’d do it on purpose. Flashlight for under the chin was mandatory for these sessions as well.
Scoffy still can’t hear, can he? Have him go next.
that’s a good rule. all writers and story tellers should be forced to stick to it.
in my opinion, anyway.
“And then” and “it was like” — definitely good rules for any sort of story-telling (with, perhaps, an exception for occasions as in the song “Corpse Bride” where the chorus gets excited at the climax and keeps asking, “and then?”)