Story Teller
Story Teller by Anthony Stuchel & John Hicks

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be an infamous gunslinger, or a daring secret agent?  Do you have children who wish they were part of the stories you read to them before they go to sleep at night?  Well Story Teller is tailor-made just for you.

With Story Teller you and your children can become part of exciting stories instead of just reading about someone else. All you have to do is fill in a list of words to be used in the story and your adventure will begin.

If you become tired of the stories provided with Story Teller, you can make your own stories and decide where to customize them to fit your adventures.

Main Menu

Using Story Teller

Creating Your Own Stories


Main Menu

File

Open (Ctrl-O)

Opens a story file.

Save (Ctrl-S)

Saves the currently loaded story and any words entered.

Save As (Ctrl-A)

Saves the currently loaded words using a different name.

Save As Text

Saves the currently loaded story, as it appears on the screen, in a text file.

Print Story (Ctrl-P)

Prints the story in its current state.

Print Form

Prints a list of prompts for the words to be used in the story. Also prints the story showing where the words will be filled in.

Exit (Alt-F4)

Exits Story Teller.

Edit

Edit Word List (Ctrl-E)

Allows you to enter or edit the words used to fill the currently loaded story.

Font (Ctrl-F)

Allows you to change the font of the story when you print it to your printer.

Copy (Ctrl-C)

Copies the currently selected text to the clipboard.

Help

Help on Story Teller (F1)

Brings up this help.

About Story Teller (F9)

Brings up information about Story Teller.


Using Story Teller

To use Story Teller, use Open from the File menu to load a story. Then, to fill in or change the words in the story, select Edit Word List from the Edit menu (the Edit Word List dialog comes up automatically when you open a file). When the list of words appears, change the words you want and select OK. If you select CANCEL in the word list edit dialog, none of the changes you made are accepted. If you wish to clear all the words in the list, select CLEAR in the word list edit dialog.

There are really two ways to use Story Teller. The first way to use Story Teller is to fill in the words of the story so that they make sense and develop a consistent plot. This is how you can create personalized stories for children. Let the children take part and the story develops according to their imaginations.

The second way to use Story Teller is to ignore the plot or theme of the story and simply fill in parts of speech. This results in hilariously unlikely tales that become funnier with each word changed. Try it and see.


Creating Your Own Stories

Creating stories for Story Teller is not difficult but the format for the story file must be followed carefully.

Use any ASCII text editor such as Notepad to create your story in the following format:

Title

The first line contains a title of up to 50 characters.

Number of words

The second line tells how many words are to be filled in.

The prompts and words

After the second line come the prompts and the words themselves. These consist of a line containing the prompt and a line containing the word, for example:

Enter a noun:

hat

Enter a girls name:

Jennifer

Enter a place:

Enter the name of a pet:

Rover

The blank after Enter a place: in the previous example means that no word has been entered. You must have a word or a blank line after each prompt (when you first create your story, simply follow each prompt with a blank line; words can be filled in from within the program). IMPORTANT: there must be exactly the same number of prompts and words as stated in the second line of the file.

The story

On the line immediately following the list of prompts and words, the story itself starts. Anywhere in the story that you want a word filled in by the user, put a | (the "pipe" character, usually located on the same key as the "\") and a number and another |. The number should correspond to the prompt in the list of prompts and words before the story. The story should look like the following:

Once upon a time, a |1| named |2| wanted to learn to |5|.

To denote a paragraph break, leave a blank line.

Naming the file

After completing your story, save the file with name of your choice using the extension .STT.

A Warning

As stated earlier, this format must be carefully followed or Story Teller may react quite unpredictably when attempting the use the new story file.

Blank lines

Story Teller allows blank lines in a story file in only two cases:

To denote a word that has not been entered in the prompts and word list.

To denote a paragraph break in the story.

Hint

If you have not already, use your ASCII text editor to view one of the story files (any *.STT file) included with Story Teller. By using this help and viewing an existing story file, you should have no problems creating your own stories.