Ah, the sudden rogue plot bunny. The unrelated idea that pops up in your head at some inopportune moment (usually when trying to work on a WIP), and wants you to chase it down a winding rabbit trail of thought, plot, research, and writing.
Usually not actually a full story.
What do you do when you’re attacked by one?
Mad Genius Club 
12 responses to “Squirrel!”
I tell myself that it’s so good, I don’t need to write it down so that I won’t forget it later. That seems to be the perfect way of disposing of it forever.
Write down the sentence, image, description, what ever it was that actually stuck around long enough to be a plot bunny and not just a dust bunny. Then, it’s neatly caged until I’m ready for it. Maybe it’s a short story, maybe flash fiction, or maybe it actually fits into a different story as a little vignette. And maybe, it’s the prompt for an image or art piece.
I start it, then leave it in the appropriate file on the computer. If it stomps off in a huff and goes no farther, well, that was that. If I can get back to it later and turn it into something, yeah! A few are content to be worked into the WIP in a slightly different form.
I’m usually doing something that cannot be safely interrupted (driving, trotting on the treadmill) to take notes when plot bunnies scamper into view. I’ll have just enough hind-brain free that something will come up in a song, or that I’ll see, and the brain squirrel will skitter up, dragging something else from memory, ram the two together, and chitter, “Pssssst, what about—” plot bunny!
I keep a notebook by my bed & in my pocket. Since I mostly do series, I’m often chasing plot bunnies in various entries-not-yet-published (or even named).
Usually I’m ruminating on a (work/series) in process, so the bunnies aren’t wild orphans, but when one of those pops up anyway, it gets corralled in a separate spot, ideally aimed at a short story either in-series or standalone.
I belong to the corral plot bunnies in notebook school; but since the notebooks also have thoughts on works in progress, series in progress, and RL stuff I need to worry about, I number the pages in the notebooks and start a table of contents on the back page. The notebook is finished when contents meet table of contents, usually about five or ten pages from the back of the book.
I break out the pen and pencil, then…oh look, the dog wants some pets and scratches. Anyway, what was the question again?
Write down the idea and file it. This is called “writing by file folder.” Later, it may become something when I’ve got time for it.
Maybe.
Normally I write the thing down, and it’s like draining it out of my head. A file on the computer is as good as the warehouse in the Raiders of the Lost Ark for file and forget.
This time, though, that has resulted in… 4 chapters so far…
Not! Helping!
Notes.
Also, I try to introduce it to other plot bunnies, in hopes of building a full story.
Write it down. When stuck on something else. Kick it around a bit. At some point it’ll start vaguely resembling an actual story.
I’m currently editing a collection of six, that somehow managed to total up to 68K words. Made a cover. Time to publish.
That doesn’t look like the Perfessor to me. He wears a purple fedora.
I get it down ‘somehow’… and worry about it later.