Irish Twins (but they speak Spanish)

Our Irish Twins have taught themselves Spanish.

Yes, the language of the conquistadors.

And matadors.

And other blood-thirsty fighters.

THE Extraordinary Ellia: “Cinco.”

“That means, ‘I want a watermelon cake’ in Spanish.”

THE Amazing Jillian: “Scooby-dooby.”

(I’m experimenting with upgrading the word “the” to all capital letters to see if it adds even more BLAM-SHAZAAM! to their names.)

DadFace Directive

Each world has it’s own language.

Two letters back I talked about World-Building in Writing. (You’re about to get sick of this word, but the whole reason to build a world with your writing is to be unique.) Today I’m back to add another point to help you add a whole new dimension to your writing.

4. A unique language creates a unique world.

Starting with the most obvious example, every fantasy book has its own creatures with their own…

Unique names.

You can see the tiniest of examples in this newsletter. Instead of simply calling my offspring by their names, I have come up with elaborate titles like “THE Amazing Jillian.”

My favorite title goes to my favorite entitled Pyrenees, Everest the Not-So-Great Pyrenees.

There are the DadFace & MomBrain characters to boot.  

Of course you could literally create your own language like J.R.R. Tolkien did in The Lord of the Rings. But he was an Oxford trained linguist who worked on the Oxford English Dictionary after all.

A far simpler way make your writing stand out is to invent…

New spellings.

Look to the man who is credited for doing this in email on purpose (important qualifier there). The copywriter and martial artist Matt Furey does this in his emails.

His own take on words involves using “whirld” for “world” and calling lockdowns “shlock downs.”

These are some of the simplest ways to show your readers at a glance that your writing is written by the one and only you.

Missed the earlier letter on world-building?

You can read ‘Licity Goes BUMP in the Night here.

Baby ‘Licity is asleep, but the kitten is not. Did you know cat paws work on touchscreens and the trackpads? Turns writing on my laptop into an episode of dueling pianos.

Anyway, this is getting impossible…

So I’m out.

—DadFace

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