First book review by The Disney Blog

I was thrilled to see “Backstage Disneyland” reviewed this week by John Frost of The Disney Blog, one of the longest-running independent Disney fan websites.

It was a first for me. I’m usually the one doing the reviewing and have never had anything I’ve ever written professionally reviewed. I was surprised to find the review online and appreciative of John’s kind words about the book.

I would be happy to provide review copies of “Backstage Disneyland to any other publications that would like to review the book.

I’ve known John for a long time as a trusted colleague in the theme park blogosphere and had reached out to him as one of my first readers.

John gave me some valuable feedback. Contrary to my instincts, John encouraged me to make the plot points even more over the top and the story even more fantastical.

I’m grateful to John for his feedback and thankful for the wonderful review.

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Sample chapters
Prologue: Once Upon a Time
Chapter 1: Wonderful World of Disney
Chapter 2: A Whole New World
Chapter 3: Exile on Main Street USA
Chapter 4: Evil Plans
Chapter 5: Real Princesses of Disneyland
Chapter 6: Action Figure
Chapter 7: Code R
Chapter 8: Common Foes
Chapter 9: Peace, Love & Mickey
Chapter 10: Operation Death Star
Chapter 11: Frozen Ever After

How I wrote an entire novel on my iPhone

I wrote most of “Backstage Disneyland” on my iPhone while traveling to and from work on a commuter train. I’ve become pretty adept at writing on the phone and was surprised at how quickly the book came together. 

In total, it took me about a month to write the book and a long three-day weekend to edit it. It helped that I knew the characters and the locations intimately. The writing seemed to flow out of me and I frequently found myself in such a groove that I’d write while I walked to or from the office or home after getting off the train.

The writing experience on “Backstage Disneyland” was far different than any of my past work. My novel took nearly two years to write and the screenplay four months. I’ve dropped a number of writing projects midway through the process just because I lost interest in the story or turned my attention to other things.

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Sample chapters
Prologue: Once Upon a Time
Chapter 1: Wonderful World of Disney
Chapter 2: A Whole New World
Chapter 3: Exile on Main Street USA
Chapter 4: Evil Plans
Chapter 5: Real Princesses of Disneyland
Chapter 6: Action Figure
Chapter 7: Code R
Chapter 8: Common Foes
Chapter 9: Peace, Love & Mickey
Chapter 10: Operation Death Star
Chapter 11: Frozen Ever After

Building a world as a multiverse sandbox

“Backstage Disneyland” started with me wondering what life would be like for the Disney characters - their challenges, relationships and squabbles - if they all lived together in one community.

The multiverse sandbox approach to storytelling has been tried in books, movies, TV shows and video games. Disney and Pixar have done it with everything from “Once Upon a Time” and “Disney Infinity” to “Toy Story” and “Wreck-It Ralph.”

I found myself constantly referring to “Toy Story” while working on my book - wondering what the characters would do when nobody was looking.

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Sample chapters
Prologue: Once Upon a Time
Chapter 1: Wonderful World of Disney
Chapter 2: A Whole New World
Chapter 3: Exile on Main Street USA
Chapter 4: Evil Plans
Chapter 5: Real Princesses of Disneyland
Chapter 6: Action Figure
Chapter 7: Code R
Chapter 8: Common Foes
Chapter 9: Peace, Love & Mickey
Chapter 10: Operation Death Star
Chapter 11: Frozen Ever After

Staying faithful to the Disney Way

After nearly a decade of blogging about theme parks and a quarter century of writing about Disneyland I’ve become something I’d never thought possible: An expert.

I try not to ever use the term “theme park expert” because it sounds pretentious and arrogant (and ridiculous too). But there’s no denying my experience covering the parks made writing “Backstage Disneyland” the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I didn’t have to do a bit of research. It was all in my head just waiting to come out.

It was also helpful that I was intimately familiar with the Disneyland culture and the customs associated with the Happiest Place on Earth. I did my best to stay true and faithful to the Disney Way while taking that belief system to it’s logical and illogical conclusion.

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Sample chapters
Prologue: Once Upon a Time
Chapter 1: Wonderful World of Disney
Chapter 2: A Whole New World
Chapter 3: Exile on Main Street USA
Chapter 4: Evil Plans
Chapter 5: Real Princesses of Disneyland
Chapter 6: Action Figure
Chapter 7: Code R
Chapter 8: Common Foes
Chapter 9: Peace, Love & Mickey
Chapter 10: Operation Death Star

Chapter 11: Frozen Ever After

What were you thinking?

So I guess the first question some readers will have is: How can you publish this book?

Don’t you have to get permission from Disney et al to use their characters? That’s what I thought at first too when I started dreaming up “Backstage Disneyland,” but then I decided to plunge ahead anyway to see what developed.

I ultimately passed on the utterly unsatisfying notion of slightly changing the names and locations. Instead I transformed the characters and reimagined their world. I quickly found that my work of fan fiction was evolving into a mix of parody, satire, critique and commentary.

My goal was only ever to write an entertaining story, not lay claim to the characters or their associated trademarks or copyrights. I’d be happy to adapt my work to make it publishable on a mass market and thrilled at the opportunity to collaborate with Disney if the opportunity arose.

Buy the book: Kindle | Paperback (coming soon)

Read the blog

Sample chapters
Prologue: Once Upon a Time
Chapter 1: Wonderful World of Disney
Chapter 2: A Whole New World
Chapter 3: Exile on Main Street USA
Chapter 4: Evil Plans
Chapter 5: Real Princesses of Disneyland
Chapter 6: Action Figure
Chapter 7: Code R
Chapter 8: Common Foes
Chapter 9: Peace, Love & Mickey
Chapter 10: Operation Death Star

Chapter 11: Frozen Ever After

Prologue to Backstage Disneyland, a new novella by Brady MacDonald

Prologue

Once Upon a Time

Backstage Disneyland started like many of my story ideas with a "what if" question: What if Disney characters are real and they live backstage at Disneyland?

As a newspaper reporter, I've written about Disneyland for nearly 25 years and covered theme parks as a blogger for a decade.

Being in the business of make believe, Disneyland officials have always insisted that the characters in the parks are real. Costumes? What costumes? Nobody plays Mickey Mouse. Mickey is Mickey.

As a lover of storytelling, I've always gone along with the absurd and surreal premise with a wry wink and a bemused smile.

But what if it were true?

What if there was a secret world hidden behind the scenes at the Happiest Place on Earth?

What would it be like to have the characters from all the Disney, Pixar, Marvel and Star Wars stories living together in one tight-knit community?

Would they act differently among themselves? Would they have the same problems as you and me? Would they fight? Party? Date?

And what if one fateful day that long-held secret was revealed to the world in a stunning and dramatic way?

The premise of characters from different universes interacting in a single sandbox has been examined in many books, TV shows, movies and video games. But I wanted to explore the interpersonal relationships of this enormous extended family and imagine their day-to-day challenges.

Backstage Disneyland is a work of fan fiction. The characters presented here are in the public domain and others are copyrighted by Disney. I don't make any claims to those copyrights or trademarks. I am just a big fan who wanted to write a fun story about my favorite characters in a newly imagined way. I hope you enjoy it.

Buy the book: Kindle | Paperback (coming soon)

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Sample chapters
Prologue: Once Upon a Time
Chapter 1: Wonderful World of Disney
Chapter 2: A Whole New World
Chapter 3: Exile on Main Street USA
Chapter 4: Evil Plans
Chapter 5: Real Princesses of Disneyland
Chapter 6: Action Figure
Chapter 7: Code R
Chapter 8: Common Foes
Chapter 9: Peace, Love & Mickey
Chapter 10: Operation Death Star

Chapter 11: Frozen Ever After

Coming Soon to Good Reads: Backstage Disneyland by Brady MacDonald

I just self-published a 22,000-word novella called “Backstage Disneyland” on Amazon Kindle and CreateSpace.

On Monday, I’m going to start publishing portions of “Backstage Disneyland” on Good Reads. My plan is to release a sample from a new chapter each Monday and follow up with a few blog posts every week about things that came to mind while I was writing the book. I plan to blog about the writing process, the story itself and questions readers might have.

I’ve self-published one full-length novel (“The First Book of the Last Testament”) and written an unpublished screenplay (“A Cook in the Kitchen”). I recently completed a compilation of newspaper articles from the past 60 years called “Disneyland: From Orange Groves to Opening Day.”

I’m hoping this experiment on Good Reads might land me a literary agent, interest from a small publishing house or opportunities to write, rewrite or ghost write other works.

I’d appreciate any thoughts and feedback the Good Reads community can provide on “Backstage Disneyland.” And please help spread the word about the project on social media using #BSDL.

Buy the book

Read the blog

Sample chapters
Prologue: Once Upon a Time
Chapter 1: Wonderful World of Disney
Chapter 2: A Whole New World
Chapter 3: Exile on Main Street USA
Chapter 4: Evil Plans
Chapter 5: Real Princesses of Disneyland
Chapter 6: Action Figure
Chapter 7: Code R
Chapter 8: Common Foes
Chapter 9: Peace, Love & Mickey
Chapter 10: Operation Death Star
Chapter 11: Frozen Ever After

Hopefully this is the last and final test

I'm trying to get Blogger to feed into the Good Reads blog.

This is a test to see how the scheduling function works in Blogger.

Buy the book: Kindle | Paperback (coming soon)

Read the blog

Sample chapters
Prologue: Once Upon a Time
Chapter 1: Wonderful World of Disney
Chapter 2: A Whole New World
Chapter 3: Exile on Main Street USA
Chapter 4: Evil Plans
Chapter 5: Real Princesses of Disneyland
Chapter 6: Action Figure
Chapter 7: Code R
Chapter 8: Common Foes
Chapter 9: Peace, Love & Mickey
Chapter 10: Operation Death Star
Chapter 11: Frozen Ever After

Welcome to Backstage Disneyland

This blog will feed into my Good Reads blog.

This is a test. This is only a test.