Writers: You Have to Try This

Reality is a lovely place, but I wouldn’t want to live there – Adam Young

This summer,  a new themed area is coming to the Disneyland Paris Resort. What setting has captured the minds of Disney’s always creative Imagineers this time? Well, Paris of course.

It may seem strange, Disneyland Paris opening a themed area that depicts Paris. That would be like Disneyland in Anaheim creating a themed area called Anaheim, or Disney World opening a new area called Orlando land.  But Disney knows what it’s doing. See, the Paris they create, based on the Pixar film Ratatoulle, will be way more wondrous than Paris, with more sensory experiences. The music will be more romantic, the sidewalks cleaner, the cafes more quaint. See, Paris, the real one, isn’t the same as the one you’ve seen in movies or read about in books. That Paris doesn’t exist. Oh, I love Paris. It’s one of my favorite cities, but that’s just it, it’s a city, a modern metropolis full of the pitfalls of city life – traffic, crime, graffiti.  But Disney, well, they’ll make their little piece of Paris more “wondrous”, more romantic, more dream-like.

So writers, take note. Don’t just write about the way places are in the real world. Instead, take a tip from Disney and take a real world place and make it kinder, sweeter, warmer, and overall more wondrous.   Up the volume on your imagery, and increase the fantasy of reality, then, your readers can escape and get lost in your books…and that’s what they want.