From Theme Park Design to Cozy Fantasy: Our Creative Journey

For years, J and M have shown up at theme park companies every morning and helped build worlds.

Not metaphorical worlds. Real, physical, walkable worlds. The kind where you round a corner and suddenly you’re in a gorgeous marketplace, or a futuristic space station, or a haunted manor where the wallpaper watches you. The kind of worlds that make millions of people feel, if only for an afternoon, like they’ve stepped into a story.

That experience shapes everything about how we write cozy fantasy. And the journey from theme park designer to novelist has been both more natural and more surprising than you might expect. (Also, there was significantly less bureaucracy involved in the novel-writing. Just putting that out there.)

What theme park design Actually Is

For those unfamiliar, theme park design can combine engineering, architecture, storytelling, art direction, and a dozen other specialties into something entirely unique.

J’s work spans multiple projects and roles. Without getting into specifics (NDAs baby), the core of the work is always the same: create an experience that transports people. Make them feel something. Make them forget, for a little while, that the outside world exists.

Sound familiar? That’s because the job description for a theme park designer is remarkably similar to the job description for a novelist. Minus the hard hats.

The Art of Immersive Storytelling

In theme park design, one of the first things you learn is that every detail tells a story. The peeling paint on a building says “this place has history.” The smell of baking bread says “someone lives here.” The distant sound of music says “something wonderful is happening just around the corner.”

This philosophy translates directly to writing. When we describe the chocolate shop in Chivalry & Chocolate, we’re not just listing what the room looks like. We’re creating an environment the reader can step into. The warmth of the ovens. The rich, layered scent of cocoa and vanilla. The sound of Etchling’s claws clicking on the stone floor. The way afternoon light comes through the front windows and turns everything golden.

Theme park design teaches us that immersion isn’t about describing everything. It’s about choosing the right details, the ones that make the reader’s brain fill in the rest. A single, perfectly chosen sensory detail does more work than a paragraph of description. (This is also why we spent three hours debating what Etchling’s claws sound like on different floor surfaces. We’re not saying we’re normal. We’re saying we’re thorough.)

Designing for Emotion

Theme park designers talk a lot about “emotional beats.” Every attraction, every land, every resort is designed to take guests on an emotional journey. There’s the anticipation of the queue. The excitement of the ride. The warmth of the resolution. The lingering glow as you exit into the gift shop. (Yes, the gift shop is part of the emotional design. The man was a genius.)

We structure our novels the same way. Every chapter is designed to create an emotional response. Sometimes it’s comfort: a scene where characters share a meal and everything feels safe. Sometimes it’s tension: a moment where trust is tested. Sometimes it’s pure delight: Etchling doing something so ridiculous and endearing that you can’t help but smile.

The theme park design principle behind all of it is simple: never leave the guest (or reader) wondering how they should feel. The environment, pacing, and details should all work together to create a cohesive emotional experience.

Building Worlds People Want to Live In

This is the big one. The single most important lesson from theme park design that informs our fiction.

The best theme park environments aren’t just impressive; they’re inviting. Main Street, U.S.A. isn’t just a recreation of a turn-of-the-century American town. It’s an idealized version of one: a place that feels nostalgic even if you’ve never experienced the era it represents. It’s designed to make you think, “I wish I could live here.”

That’s exactly what cozy fantasy does at its best. The worlds in cozy fantasy aren’t just backdrops for the story; they’re destinations. When we built the setting for Chivalry & Chocolate, we asked ourselves the same question J asks at work: “Would someone want to spend time here?”

The chocolate shop needed to feel like a place you’d want to visit on a Saturday morning. The village needed to feel like somewhere you’d want to live. The storeroom where Etchling nests needed to feel cozy enough that you’d happily curl up there yourself. (Among the truffles. Obviously.)

If a reader finishes our book and thinks, “I wish that place were real,” we’ve succeeded.

The Transition

Theme park design is the kind of job you dream about as a kid, and working there was a genuine privilege. The creativity, the collaboration, the sheer ambition of the projects involve, all of it is extraordinary.

But there’s something about writing fiction that satisfies a different creative need too. In theme park design, you work within enormous constraints: budget, physics, safety codes, guest flow patterns, corporate approvals. The creative vision is always filtered through practical reality.

In writing, the only constraint is sheer imagination. If we want the shop to have a hidden room accessible only through a bookcase, it’s done. If we want Etchling to have scales that change color based on mood, we just write it. No engineering review required. No one asking about load-bearing walls. The freedom is exhilarating.

At the same time, the discipline of theme park design keeps our writing grounded. We still think about “guest experience” (reader experience). We still obsess over sensory details. We still design for emotion first and plot second. The skills are deeply transferable.

Why Cozy Fantasy Feels Like Home

When we discovered cozy fantasy, it felt like finding a genre that was built for people who design immersive worlds. The emphasis on atmosphere, on warmth, on creating spaces that feel safe and inviting, it mirrors everything J brings from theme park design.

Cozy fantasy is, in many ways, the literary equivalent of a themed immersive space. It’s a place designed to make you feel welcome. A place where the details matter, where kindness is the default, and where you leave feeling better than when you arrived.

That’s why we write it. Not because it’s trendy (though we’re thrilled it’s having a moment), but because it aligns perfectly with what we’ve always believed: the best creative work makes people feel something good. Whether it’s a theme park or a novel, the goal is the same. Build a world people want to live in. Fill it with characters worth caring about. And never, ever underestimate the power of making someone smile.

(Also, nobody at a publishing house has ever told us a dragon can’t be in a chocolate shop because of fire codes. That alone makes this career transition worth it. We hope we can be in this for the long haul.)

Curious about how theme park design principles show up in our fiction? Follow along as we share more behind-the-scenes insights into our creative process!