Writers Must Fall Into Their Rabbit Holes. Completely. Utterly. Absolutely.

Authors know what I’m talking about. Experimenting with our stories exposes rabbit holes — for our characters, in our plots, our creativity, us.

One character finds utopia while another goes to hell. Both are places few authors have visited, so both will require authors to take a leap into unknown worlds.

Think of the sighted author who wants to write a strong, blind protagonist into their next great story. Everything the writer knows about the subject will come from bits of experience mixed with known stereotypes, speculation, expectation and creative license. The rabbit hole I speak of is the writer beginning with a basic character who sports dark sunglasses, to one who ends up wearing the skin of the blind whereby they are able to sense the world through the tips of their toes. It’d be a leap into a world they’ve never visited — but leaping is what improves the creative writing process!

Writers must allow themselves the courage to take risks, immerse themselves in the unknown, and fall to wherever gravity takes them. That’s the rabbit hole deal. Nothing comes from writing safe. Unless a writer is an expert on a certain topic, every story they’ll create will have its limitations because their knowledge isn’t endless. The only way to become more intimate with a topic is to jump into a rabbit hole to find the answer. It makes for better storytelling to be able to drop, discover and write from the experience. If a sighted reader (or a blind one) can feel blind as they read about a blind character, things are going on the right track.

The additional piece of information to include is that it still has to feel real to the reader, or they’ll be lost forever.

Every story can have its fantastical side, but it must also abide by some natural laws and boundaries.

The rabbit hole metaphor is fantastical, but it’s supported by oodles of calculated, known elements. A hole assumes gravity is present and understood by the reader. When I say leap, you assume something of direction — up and down. A hole has edges, which means there are two points. There’s a safe side and an unknown one. There’s a line of division — and it doesn’t matter how outrageous a story is, it must still have these realistic elements to ground it.

Here’s another couple of natural-law-abiding facts that follow this pattern.

You found this post and knew the story wasn’t about rabbits or holes. This popular metaphor brought you here, not fluffy animals and great openings in the dirt. The metaphor aligns you to this text.

In storytelling, metaphors do the same thing. They bring the readers closer to understanding the underlying context within an arc. Here, it’s used to talk about creating stories, falling into the unknown and making discoveries along the way. It’s about exploring things with a child’s wonder and then being open to everything and anything that follows — and there’s no right or wrong when it comes to discovery.

There are, however, right and wrongs in how we go about writing what we find and putting it into stories.

But that’s a different discussion for another day.

-M

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