An Enchanted Beginning (How It All Started) | Writer's Blog #4

Updated: Jan 10, 2022

[ December 10, 2021 ]

Before The Enchanted Saga became my debut book series, it was a product of fanfiction in a Facebook group titled Enchanted Storybrooke Roleplay. It was based on the ABC television series, Once Upon a Time, which ran for seven seasons.

Once Upon a Time. . .

As I said before, my true journey in storytelling began after writing a short story with my Mamaw, titled The Impossible. However, I thought that my writing would originally begin and end with that story.

In December 2015, I was introduced to the world of roleplay on Facebook. I joined the Enchanted Storybrooke Roleplay group, which was inspired by the ABC television series, Once Upon a Time. At first, I was wary because I only associated roleplay with sex and eroticism. I was wrong, thankfully.

Joining the group, I began with the role of Sir Percival from the show's fifth season. However, I abandoned him shortly after acquiring the role of Cyrus, who was Alice's husband on the spin-off series, Once Upon a Time in Wonderland.

Enchanted in Storybrooke

In January 2016, I decided that I wanted to create my own original character. I'd made a few friends in the group that did that. For example, William made one that was a fictional version of himself, and Nancy took a one-shot character from the TV series and revamped her.

My original character was presented as the twin brother of Aurora, who is the princess from Sleeping Beauty. She was my favorite Disney Princess. Well, she still is. My character was also sort of a fictional version of myself. He wanted to find his birth parents.

According to the timeline of the TV series, Queen Briar Rose and King Stefan were probably dead before Aurora was introduced in the second season. So, I was aware that this part of his journey wasn't going to be explored.

Over the first few weeks of me using the character, I made friends with another gay guy in the group. He had an original character named Bragin (which I changed the spelling for when I decided to publish.) Through our characters, we connected quickly. Soon, we developed a relationship out of character.

Leaving Storybrooke

In September 2016, I made the decision to leave the Facebook group because of creative differences, leaving Masen’s story incomplete. I won't go into too much detail, but I was dealing with a breakup, and I needed a break to figure out how to continue Masen's story without Bragin.

I could have rebooted the character and reintroduced him into Storybrooke, but it seemed wrong for me to do that. Creatively, it would have been easy, but mentally... I was emotionally attached to the Masen that I had been writing for.

Barlet Rose: An Enchanted Tale

Even though Masen’s original storyline ended abruptly, I never stopped trying to see the potential in the future of Masen’s story.

In February 2017, after creating countless Gmail and Yahoo email accounts, to make Facebook profiles for the main characters, I made a private group and began writing Barlet Rose: An Enchanted Tale, which followed Masen raising the triplets on his own.

Soon after finishing Barlet Rose, I decided to self-publish Masen's adventures from Enchanted Storybrooke Roleplay, and after editing out all copyrighted material... Three years later, in October 2020, I finally published the first novel in Masen’s 5-part story, Enchanted: A Happy Beginning.

Available on Wattpad

The original drafts of both Enchanted: A Happy Beginning and Wonderstruck: An Enchanted Sequel has been released on Wattpad. These versions still retain most of the Once Upon a Time and copyrighted Disney references.

Enchanted in Storybrooke, Part One [An Original Draft]

https://www.wattpad.com/story/290721308-enchanted-in-storybrooke-part-one

Enchanted in Storybrooke, Part Two [An Original Draft]

https://www.wattpad.com/story/290728696-enchanted-in-storybrooke-part-two