Here Comes the Plot Bunny…

There once was a girl with a story in her head. A story she wanted, no she needed to write. The girl was excited and started outlining, storyboarding, and cutting out images and pasting them on boards. She loved to see the faces she’d attached to the characters in her mind. They spoke to her regularly and whispered all the best scenes. So, one day, she started to write. She wrote the opening scene, then another scene, then another. She had written eight thousand words and loved the story.

But then, a plot bunny hopped into her ear and reminded her she did not know enough about her characters to write this story. The bunny told her to stop writing this draft and start a new draft with different characters. The girl listened to the bunny and agreed. She started again with a new story. She wrote seven thousand words.

When the plot bunny returned, the girl showed it all the words she’d written on the new story and beamed with pride. The plot bunny shook its head. It told her this writing was for nothing as she had not completed the first draft. When the girl reminded the bunny of its words about the first story, the bunny wiggled his nose and reminded her of the very first draft she completed 12 years ago. It told her she needed to edit that draft.

The girl, more confused than ever, thought about what the bunny said to her. It was very convincing. Maybe she had wandered too far from her original thought so many years ago. Maybe she should scrap both new drafts and edit the very old draft. Maybe. The plot bunny cleaned its ears and scratched its belly, and vanished leaving her with a decision.

The girl didn’t know what to do. Edit an old draft which she’d set aside as a potential book three in the series. Keep writing the draft about the characters she had not fully fleshed out and would be book two in the series, or go back to the initial draft which would be book one. She chose the worst of all. She stopped writing.

Then, one day, the girl was looking around in Discord and stumbled across a post from a fellow writer about a Discord channel called Bookdun. The channel opened a new world of contacts, team events, discussions, and games centered on writing. She saw sprinting and colorful names. She saw pages for structure, dialogue, and world building. As she scrolled down the list of pages, her eyes sparkled and her characters started to speak to her, again. They’d missed her, but she remembered the adorable plot bunny that had led her away from everything she tried. She sat back from the laptop and stared at the screen. A page in the list caught her eye: Put your plot bunnies here. She was elated. She could write her story and if the plot bunny came around, she could put it here where it could live with other plot bunnies. She could essentially ignore it!

The girl did just that. She joined the Discord and wrote her first 10k in one week. She joined a team of writers all working to the same goal… words on the page. After one month with Bookdun, she’d written 37k words, and she wrote happily ever after.

Epilogue:
Plot bunny still comes around, and the girl still listens. Now, however, she knows exactly where to put it.

Acknowledgements:
The girl is me.