Authors know what I’m talking about. Experimenting with stories exposes rabbit holes. 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 worlds they know little about.
Think of the sighted author who wants to write a strong, blind protagonist into their next great story. Everything 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 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 what’s down there. 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, it still has to feel real to the reader or they’ll be lost forever.
Every story has its fantastical side but also it also abides by natural laws and boundaries. The rabbit hole metaphor is itself, fantastical, but it’s supported by oodles of calculated elements to make it work. A hole assumes gravity is involved. When I say leap, you assume something of direction — up and down. The hole has edges which means there are two points. Its flat, safe side is here while everything else unknown is down and beyond it. There’s a line of division — and it doesn’t matter how outrageous a story, it must still have realism 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. A popular metaphor brought you here, not fluffy animals and dirt. The metaphor advances the storytelling process so that this post becomes something about creating stories, falling into the unknown and making discoveries along the way. It’s about exploring things with a child’s wonder and being open to everything and anything — 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.
