Fantasy and Science Fiction are alike in that each requires the creation of a complete new world. Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Avengers and Planet of the Apes each occupies its own imaginary universe.Fantasy and Sci-Fi are great for entertainment but not so great for selling most products and services.The process of selling requires a reality hook, something that gives us, here in this world, a handle on the impossible. Would you like to sit and listen as John Lennon writes the lyrics and melody to Imagine, one of the most popular songs of all time? It’s easy to go there. All you need is the white Steinway piano on which John composed the song. You can see the cigarette burn on it from a moment when he got distracted and forgot it was there. That cigarette burn is a reality hook, a point of focus that brings an abstract moment from yesterday into the black and white of now.The power of any message – particularly an advertisement – is increased when you add a detail easily imagined by the listener. It was easy to see that cigarette burn on the white Steinway, wasn’t it? This piano exists, not in fantasy, but in the residence of Yoko Ono in Manhattan’s famous Dakota building. John gave it to her on her birthday in 1971.If you are a writer, a real one, you need to study magical thinking. Unlike science fiction and fantasy, the world of magical thinking is this world and all its impossible events happen in this, our own all-too-familiar universe. The writing style created by magical thinking is called Magical Realism and you’ll need to be good at it if you want to gain and hold the attention of 21st century America.Fortunately, a new book was just published about it. The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking     by Matthew Hutson1. Objects Carry Essences: Cooties, Contagion, and Historicity“John Lennon sat at this piano.”2. Symbols Have Power: Spells, Ceremonies, and the Law of SimilarityA Red Sox jersey bearing the name and number of Dave Ortiz was buried by a construction worker under the foundation of the new 1.5 billion dollar stadium of the New York Yankees. Yankee management took this curse seriously enough to consider filing criminal charges.3. Actions Have Distant Consequences: Using Superstition to Make Luck Work for You.A ‘lucky fisherman’s hat’ makes you feel different. Consequently, you make better decisions.4. The Mind Knows No Bounds: Psychokinesis, ESP, and TranscendenceAt the root of the bestselling book, The Secret, is a bit of magical thinking called The Law of Attraction which says if you focus on a thing and see it in your mind and believe it is yours, you will have it. The book has sold more than 19 million copies.5. The Soul Lives On: Death Is Not the End of Us.We think of a thousand different ways to say it and believe it. “There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” – Thornton Wilder, last lines of The Bridge of San Luis Rey6. The World is Alive: Animals, Objects, and Gods are People, Too.In her award-winning book, The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion speaks of coping with the death of her husband. “I stopped at the door to the room. I could not give away the rest of his shoes. I stood there a moment, then realized why: he would need shoes if he was to return.” Likewise, most of us never delete the telephone numbers of close friends who have died. We leave them on our cell phones because there is part of us...