Darn Worlds of Make Believe!

Has anyone watched Mister Roger’s Neighborhood?

He has this toy train in his house that goes to a world of make believe and that, apart from when he feeds his fish, was probably one of my most favorite parts about Mister Roger’s Neighborhood.

I didn’t really like anything much else. I didn’t see that many episodes either.

Anyway, this world of make believe was filled with creatures and humans who were princesses or other things and they did things and stuff happened (vague memory).

I bet the producers of this show had a ton of fun making up this strange world. But wouldn’t it be so much easier if the world was based on our world as we know it? Just make a dragon fly over NYC! There you have it, fantasy.

Seasemae…I cannot spell it right. Seaseamea. Nope. Anyway, the place where Big Bird lives. That’s kind of like our world as we know it but only the buildings are normal-looking. Everything else is fantasy.

When I write my fantasy stories though, I cannot put a fantasy creature or fantasy situation in our world as we know it.

Mainly because:

• I haven’t been many different places with street names so I don’t have many places to use as models.
• If I try to describe the place I live in, I fail. Reality description is not my forte. I feel like I’m writing an essay.
• My story flows better if I make it all up.

If I do write about a world kind of like somewhere in the States which has street names, I suffer. No, wait, I don’t suffer per se. Stop saying, “Awww”.

What do I do then? Well,

• I don’t mention street names. There are no street names where I live. Just turn left three blocks down at the Seven-Eleven and you’re good to go.
• People live close by or across the street so I don’t have to name streets.
• They just don’t have streets. Like a village with dirt-made paths.
• Or, I avoid writing stories in the modern era 😛

coward

Maybe so, but I think it’s good tactics. If I write a story based in our world as we know it, I fail to write a good story. So, why do it?

But

Making a world from scratch

is

so

hard

guys.

It comes with a price. A cha-ching and a ba-bling.

All my stories (except for The Puppeteer Series which I sometimes base off of our world without naming streets) have made-up, make believe worlds. It’s like baking a cake from the scratch of scratch.

I don’t go out and buy the flower, guys. I start by growing the wheat and then grind it to make the flower. I don’t buy milk. I have to go out and make Jack trade the cow in for three magic beans that I had to go all the way to Fairyland to get (which by the way is a three-day ride on a whale, who calls himself Monstro, across the Atlantic Ocean unless Superman is available).

And I certainly do not buy the vanilla essence. I go all the way to Madagascar to get it. It’s a heck of a long journey especially if you have to get a permission slip to pick vanilla. You can only get it from a snake that wants to talk to you for a whole day about how he came to know the Little Prince.

That was a lot of references. Did you catch ’em all? 😛

Pokémon?

Basically, I’m doing this all the time.

If you’re a fellow writer, let’s just take a moment and pat each other on the backs.

If you’re an aspiring writer, don’t fear.

The perks of creating a world from scratch is that you can have a civilization made entirely out of dragons and you can have as many types of dragons as you want. Pokémon?

Or you can have a world that is floating in the ocean. Nvm the science of it all. If it works in your world, it works.

And it’s hard, yes. But it can be so much fun, too 🙂