Story Writing Hints
By
Gerald D. O’Nan
Author of the
Adventures of Andy Ant Books
(Note: I will try to give you hints and ideas about writing stories using the 8 books in The Adventures of Andy Ant as examples. Having a set of the Andy Ant books available will help you understand the context better, but it isn’t necessary if you have a good imagination.)
The Story Behind the Story – The Goofed Up Science Project
If you have been following these hints you might recall that one of my early trademarks was being long on the want but short on preparation. I loved to play and dream but I would usually put off the preparation until the last minute. It wasn’t that I couldn’t do the work, I was just a procrastinator. Or to be a bit more blunt, I had a lazy streak.
I was the youngest of two boys in our family. My brother was the opposite of me. He always seemed to get his work done. As a reward for his diligence, our dad would always heap praise on him… I wondered if Dad would go to sleep at night, wishing I could be more like Larry.
I was in the sixth grade when the science project was given to the class by my favorite teacher, Mrs. Mash. Mrs. Mash was one of those teachers that truly inspired students and nobody wanted to let her down. I was actually a pretty good student that year, much to the credit of Mrs. Mash! But, I still had that tendency to wait until the last minute on some of my projects. In fact, I waited so long that I actually forgot about it.
I decided on my science project as soon as I got the assignment. I started working on it right away and then put it on the “back shelf of my mind.” I had an infatuation with electricity and a striking memory of a visit to Hoover Dam a couple of years earlier. My actual project was to build a turbine run by water in the ditch by our house. The turbine would rotate copper coils inside a large magnet and turn on a lightbulb. I finally remembered the project the night before it was due. The only part I had completed was the turbine. As you can probably guess, Mrs. Mash was not impressed with my lack of effort.
The project in The Goofed Up Science Project came from my procrastination in making the turbine and generator as well as my unsuccessful efforts to create ant farms. I think my mom was always glad that my ant farms failed since I wanted to keep them on the desk in my room. Like most moms, having extra ants in the house never seemed like a good idea.
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