CREATING FICTIONAL WORLDS IN REAL LIFE

Bring your favorite stories to life!

Theming
RESOURCES

Do you read books or watch movies

to escape from the pressures of daily life?

Learn how to bring that fictional feeling to life and live in your favorite story every day with unique decorating tricks, practical event planning tips, creative activity ideas and comprehensive resources from a professional event planner, interior decorator, escape room designer and murder mystery game writer!

What Does It Mean to Immerse Yourself In A Story?

CREATING

SPACES

Fictional

How to Live Inside a Story

IMMERSION: When you read a book, or watch a movie, or even hear a story, the very best part of that whole experience is the moment that your consciousness of the real world turns off, and you feel as though you’re existing INSIDE the world of that story. You’ve left reality, and your mind is completely focused on the events happening in that fictional world. This feeling is why many of us read or consume stories -- it’s fun to mentally escape to a completely different place.

WORLDBUILDING: The process of creating a space that feels like a fictional place is known as worldbuilding. You'll be replicating the most evocative elements of a fictional world, so anyone in that space can recognize where they are. You won't be replacing everything that normally lives in your space, but instead, you'll add iconic visual connections to the fantasy world that will force the boring items from the real world out of focus.

THREE SIMPLE STEPS: Recreating your favorite fictional spaces in real life is actually a simple process! Just follow these three basic steps:

1) Identify the most iconic items from your world

2) Collect similar items from your house or friends, or create some yourself

3) Strategically arrange these into still-lives that evoke the feeling of your world

ALL THE TIPS AND TRICKS: I've created dozens of fantasy worlds this way! Click here to learn the rest of the process ...

ALL ABOUT CREATING STORY-INSPIRED SPACES

What Kind of World

Will You Create?

VISIT OUR "CREATING SPACES" PAGE

CREATING

EVENTS

Fictional

How to Party Inside a Story

EVENT BASICS: The key elements of a really successful immersive event are:

1) The setting

2) The food

3) The activities

4) The costumes

SELL THE ILLUSION: You can SAY you’re holding a Last Night on the Titanic dinner party, but if there’s nothing remotely nautical about the setting, and the menu is modern, and nothing happens but normal party small talk, your event does not qualify as immersive. You have to really SELL the illusion that you’ve traveled through a magical portal to visit another time and place.

INCORPORATE ICONIC ITEMS: Build that world that you love with iconic items from the story amongst your decor, authentic food and drink that the protagonists of your story would have consumed, story-themed outfits and costumes, and most importantly, planned activities that mimic parts of your fictional world.

For example, you can make potions at a Harry Potter event, or learn swing dancing at a Great Gatsby event, or decorate hats with flowers at an Alice in Wonderland Mad Hatter tea party … there are so many options, and it’s the things that you do that get people out of their seats and into the fictional world that really completes the fantasy, and make your event unforgettable.

ALL THE TIPS AND TRICKS: Now, creating and hosting immersive events is fun, but it takes imagination and some practical tricks to build fictional worlds inside real world spaces on a budget. Click this link to learn all the secrets you'll need to create your own immersive event!

ALL ABOUT CREATING STORY-INSPIRED EVENTS

What Kind of Events

Will You Create?

VISIT OUR "CREATING EVENTS" PAGE

CREATING

ACTIVITIES

Immersive

How to Create Immersive Activities

THE REAL KEY: The most important element of any immersive event is the activities!

When you are hosting an event that is meant to take place in another world – like a Harry Potter party or an Alice in Wonderland tea – you’ll do the obvious preparation like putting up some decorations that would belong in that world, and serving some food that comes from that world, but the REAL reason your guests will feel like they’ve actually traveled into a story is the things that you DO during the party.

IMAGINE YOURSELF THERE: Imagine that you’re the guest, and you arrive at this hypothetical Harry Potter party in your house robes, clutching your wand. In that moment between when you ring the doorbell and your host opens the door, you will have a moment of panic/hope, where your brain says, “ooh, I hope this is good! But what if it isn’t?” That Potterhead fan deep inside you really wants that door to open onto Hogwarts.

If this event turns out to be just a normal get-together at a friend’s house, where everyone stands around eating, drinking and chatting, that’s … fine … but it’s certainly not the enchanted evening your secret internal book nerd was hoping for.

THE ULTIMATE EVENT: But … if you have to give a password to the Fat Lady to enter the house, then you sit on a stool in the front hall with the Sorting Hat on your head and hear someone call out your house, then they hand you a Marauder’s Map of the house and you see that “classes” are set up in each room, so you go to the dungeon and make potions, then you go to Divination and have your tea leaves read, then you go to Charms and make a fancy wand with a dowel and hot glue and paint, then you go to History of Magic which is actually a Harry Potter trivia game with all the other guests … you will have a spectacular time, and you’ll remember that party forever.

THE REAL SECRET: The secret to hosting a really thrilling immersive event is to plan some themed activities throughout the party. Getting your guests up out of their seats and interacting with each other in a fun way that references back to the original book or story is the key.

ALL THE TIPS AND TRICKS: Click here to learn all about how to create themed activities for ANY fictional world!

ALL ABOUT CREATING THEMED ACTIVITIES