Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Plot Bunnies

I know a lot of people hate plot bunnies, but most of my novels start out that way. Medusa's Desire, a few years ago, was nothing more than a jotted down sentence along the lines of: "Write a novel where Medusa is the hero instead of the villain. It should be a romance and maybe she's in love with Perseus." I daydreamed about it a little and really wanted to write it, but it wasn't developed enough at the time. It evolved as I studied the myth and let the idea build up, while I was finishing my previous novel.

I always deal with plot bunnies by jotting down my ideas in a word document to be looked at later. I'm usually working on something else when they come, so I don't have time to pay attention to them. I'm glad I do because I have a horrible memory. A few months ago, I remember looking through my plot bunnies and not remembering even half the stuff I had come up with.

I was a bit sad lately because although I have many outlines already saved on my computer, it seemed like all the plot bunnies had run away. It had been awhile since I had come up with something new, except this past week, things have been different. I've been waking up in the middle of the night or taking a nap and waking up and suddenly there are plot bunnies in my head that I need to immediately jot down before I forget them. It's very exciting.

What do you do with your plot bunnies?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I put mine in my phone. I have a flip phone with T9 word so it's funny, I have like 20 notes. And my plot bunnies are usually more like lines I come up with for a story (usually the one I'm working on) that I want to incorporate.

SC Author said...

I'm hopping between two story ideas right now :( I'm in a snag because I don't know which to write! AHHH!!!!! I haven't written (not including outlining and random notes) for days. -_______-

SC Author said...

Story ideas meaning legit WIPS. One, a MS which I'm rewriting, and the other, a WIP half done, but which I'm about to do over. So two rewrites diverged in a yellow wood, and I have no idea which to pick. Help!!!

E.B. Black said...

@SC Writer: I'm having some of that trouble, too! It's hard to know how to pick sometimes. Like, I have the first draft written of the next book in the Death of Eros series (Medusa's Desire is the first book and I'll be publishing that soon), but at the same time, the words for a trilogy about necromancers are coming to me very easily. And it's hard to know which one to do because I want to add to the series, but write the trilogy at the same time!

Maybe you should divide your writing time in half and work the first half on one project and the second half on the other!

T.J. said...

A Word doc with two liners - MC personality plus plot. So many. So little time. LOL I need to let them ferment, and when one is bubbling over, I write it up LOL

Martin Willoughby said...

Never heard that term before. I put mine down on a piece of paper and refer to them from time to time...assuming I'm in an organised mood that day.

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