You have to start with fun

    "Fairy tales [...] are ways of telling us true things without labouring the point. They begin in delight, and they end in truth. But if you start with what you think is truth, you'll seldom end up with delight - it doesn't work that way round. You have to start with fun."

    From Philip Pullman's "The Firework-Maker's Daughter on Stage", collected in Daemon Voices: Essays on Storytelling.