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‘Licity goes Bump in the night
Plus world-building template found in Eden...
Trent Isaac
August 08, 2023
You know a dog that walks around in circles before lying down for bed?
‘Lil ‘Licity has her own version of the bed orbit. But in her ritual, she runs her head into the wall. I guess she’s measuring out the border of the mat. Like a boxer getting a feel for the ring before the match of his lifetime.
Except with ‘Lissy the historic match is bedtime. Her opponent? Sleep itself.
Speaking of separating night from the day, the darkness from the light…
DadFace Directive
…reminds me of world-building. I’m reading a book on the subject. I think the prImary use for such an exercise is in fantasy. But you can build a world in all sorts of writing and more.
You would want to do this to be utterly unique. As the idea goes, the further you can pull a reader into your world, and the more they want to stay… the harder it will be for them to get distracted and stop reading your stuff.
The author of this book had the ingenuity to apply his world-building talent to business.
But he seemed overcome with the idea that no one can give specifics on how to build a world. Beyond giving you a few ideas on the importance of world-building, and two specific tips to get started, he basically said: “your on your own, kid.”
Peculiar, because I haven’t even finished the book yet and I figured out a specific way to go about world-building.
Start with the Garden of Eden.
And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
Step 1: Introduce sources of mystery.
What is a tree of life?
Curiouser yet, what is a tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
Notice I said mysterious sources, not source. I’ll let you in on why you need more than one in a moment…
Step 2: Start with an image.
And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads.
The next several verses describe this river.
This is the one concrete step from the book I’m reading that I’ll share here.
All you need to start is an image. That’s how C.S. Lewis started building the world for Narnia.
Lewis wrote that the first Narnia story, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, all came to him from a single picture he had in his head of a faun carrying an umbrella and parcels through a snowy wood.
Step 3: Explore one mysterious thing in your world.
If your world has nothing unique or mysterious or clever, what’s to say it’s a world at all. Maybe it’s just this same world your reader is trying to escape.
But don’t throw everything at your reader at once. In Genesis, you quickly begin exploring the consequences of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Yet you don’t hear about the Tree of Life again until Adam and Eve get kicked out of Eden.
So hold some mystery back. Give your reader a reason to keep exploring.
Just as I am holding back some information, mainly because it’s in an uncooked form, like a hunk of raw ramen in its cardboard brick stage of development.
Maybe I’ll have more for you after I get it noodled.
The Not-So-Great Pyrenees has brought shame to her family. It’s truly shocking and deserves its own letter. So, so long.
—DadFace
P.S. - Yes, this is letter is late. Your old DadFace is defending the home front from sickness that snuck into our house and wounded MomBrain. Our normal publishing schedule is Monday. Or other days.
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