trapping the plot bunny

A plot bunny bit me last week.

medieval illustration of rabbit blowing a trumpet
From the 13th century Ashridge Petrus Comestor, Royal 3 D VI in the British Library’s illuminated manuscripts catalogue.

Not the kind of plot bunny I can just scratch a couple of lines and save in my “to write” file either. It’s a really great weird historical/intrusive entity/questionable reality type bunny.

It’s so good I’m loath to share it with anyone for fear of getting scooped (which is silly, but that’s another post). So good, in fact, that I’m tempted to drop the novel-in-progress to plummet down this new research rabbit hole.

But I reined myself in.

Look, I’ve been struggling with rewrites. My schedule is cluttered of late and distractions of every sort compete for my limited time. Research is comparatively easy because I don’t have to invent anything or kludge all the cool stuff into a coherent narrative: all the things I beat my head against with the WIP.

But part of this novel-writing thing is finishing the damn book. That means keeping at it even when it’s not fun or easy.

So I’ve (carefully, lovingly) trapped the plot bunny with a list of sources and ideas and filed it away with the others. Pro: I’ll never run out of ideas. Con: I can only do them one at a time.

 

Published by

Allison Thurman

Raised on a diet of Star Wars, Monty Python, and In Search Of, Allison Thurman has always made stuff, lately out of words. She lives in a galaxy far, far away (well, the DC metro area) with too many books and not enough swords.

3 thoughts on “trapping the plot bunny”

  1. Please forgive me for the sin of automatically thinking of you being assaulted by the killer rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The term “plot bunny” doesn’t normally do that to me but the “bit me” made it happen.

    Amazing what your word choices can do to your readers’ brains. ;p

Leave a Reply