paper boat
Fascinate your audience with a simple yet engaging story.
Prerequisite: To tell the story, you will need a paper boat<chapter-boat>.
Note
The following steps only describe the essential story elements. Be creative and embellish the story as much as you like.
captain, ship, seven seas
Tell your audience how once upon a time, a captain was sailing the seven seas on this ship.
Meanwhile, show the paper boat to your audience and move it as if it were navigating.
thunderstorm
Tell your audience that one night the sea got very rough, and a violent thunderstorm with waves as high as houses wrecked the ship. At first, the
bowcrashed.Tear off one end of the paper boat. Tear from halfway along the upper deck to the lower corner of the boat.
Next, the
sternwas smashed.Tear off the other end of the paper boat in the same way.
Finally, the
mastbroke.Tear off the top corner of the paper boat. Tear it off in a circular motion as it will become the neckline of the captain’s shirt later.
Tell your audience how the ship, with all its freight, gold and silver, was buried in the sea and was never seen again.
Demonstrate with the paper boat how the wrecked ship sinks.
shirt
Tell your audience that only one item was found at the beach, years later. It was the captain’s shirt—the last shirt the captain ever wore.
Unfold the wrecked paper boat and present the shirt.
sweater
Ask your audience: And how do we know that it was summer when the ship sank?
Wait for a moment to create some tension.
Meanwhile, fully unfold the paper, turn it around, and fold the paper back in half so that it has long sleeves now.
Now, solve the riddle: Because if it had been winter, the captain would have worn—*a sweater!*
Present the sweater.
Congratulations, you just unfolded an intriguing story!
Tip
For future reference, an overview of the story elements is included as a "story cheat sheet<chapter-cheat-telling>" in the following chapters.