In one of the older groups I teach, the students have created a phrase that seems totally antithetical to the foundation of Written Out Loud. And I love it.
The phrase is “Not Disney.”
The idea is that they’ve seen so many Disney movies in which characters initially dislike each other and then fall in love, in which bullying is first treated nonchalantly and then resolved by the end, and on and on, that they’ve had enough. They want to write an original story where all these devices are turned on their head and examined from a place where everything isn’t sunshine and rainbows.
I want to be clear: I love Disney. But I also love the instinct to go against the grain, to push back on what we’ve seen innumerable times.
Sometimes a reaction against something can be as sustaining and fun as a true inspiration.