Category Archives: The Rabbit Hole

About my story “The Rabbit Hole”, published in the collection “Nineteen Tales of COVID-19”.

Stepping back to write

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For the next few months, I will be stepping back a little from social media to concentrate on writing. It’s time to finish my novel!

My editor (Akosua Brown) and I have come up with A Plan. I have been working on a three-book science fantasy series set here in Ontario, involving a family that grows up in authoritarianism, and then flees. (And then their son wants to go back?!!! Also includes a hidden city under Algonquin Park and lots of cute bunnies.)

This started as a short story, “The Rabbit Hole” (included in the recently published “Rabbit Trap Sampler”) and has grown into a three-volume epic.

Our plan for Volume 1:

* July 1–Sep 1: Create draft 1 (rough, for Scott only).

* Sep 1–Oct 15: Create Draft 2 (shareable version).

* Oct 15–Nov 15: Manuscript review.

* Nov 15–Dec 31: Final manuscript.

* Jan 2027: Design. This is when the cover will happen, plus things like trope cards.

* Feb 2027: Uploads.

* Target Launch: March 15, 2027.

Volumes 2 and 3 will follow at six-month intervals.

Story Outline of Volume 1:

* Red is rescued from an abusive home by apparent social workers. He recovers in a guest home. One of the workers introduces him to the intelligent speaking rabbits who actually run the place. He is invited to live in the rabbits’ home, a great underground city.

* Red meets Darlene there, and they form a family. They live in the rabbit city, enjoying a rich if regimented existence… but then they starts to notice things that seem a bit off: strange conversations overheard, odd video programs in the distance, things suddenly hidden by the rabbits as they approach.

* Then Red and Darlene discover the enslaved humans…

I’ve gone through my outline for Volume 1 and identified at least 18 writing segments in the story that I need to create or expand. This means that I need to do three segments per week to get the draft done by the first of September.

I’ll also be working on two limited-animation book trailers.

Let the writing begin!

After some time

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Yes, I’m back. Work on The Rabbit Trap continues, and things have been seriously rearranged (not to mention it’s now three volumes).

But! I have created a writing sampler to tide people over until I can get Volume One out there! Here are the front and back, and the unboxing of 25 rush-printed examples at my book club’s summer barbecue!

I am setting the paperback and ebook up on IngramSpark for wide distribution. It’s only been a week, and the ebook is already available through Amazon, Kobo, etc.

I am now trying my own direct book sales too, so the paperback is available through Booksby, and the ebook is available through Gumroad:
https://books.by/scott-robert-dawson-books
https://srdbooks.gumroad.com/l/the-rabbit-trap-sampler
THese links are now on my store too, https://shop.srdbooks.ca.

Scene turns

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So I’ve gone over the outline for Volume One of The Rabbit Trap and explicitly called out scene turns for the major scenes, as suggested by (among others) Jennifer Ellis in her blog. This is something I’ve never tried before and it’s a little eye opening. There are vast stretches of time that may be just skipped over, and then there are sections thick with events. This is giving me an idea where I need to concentrate my next writing efforts. (That and finishing the outline for Volume 3… writing it backwards from a desired ending as suggested by Charlène A Bagcal in her Threads post.)

Crappy Drawing Tuesday!

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The first drawing is an attempt at working out how the fancy rabbit restaurant “Tastes of Human” might work. This is one of the few rabbit restaurants that has human servers. It’s a special treat for the rabbit rulers to see the subservience of humans.

I think I’m going to make another break with the canon of the old writing group and give the rabbits an upright bipedal gait, where they can carry things. It will make things so much easier. (This was handwaved past in the old group.)

The second drawing is a sketch of the moment where Darlene realizes the rabbits are Not Her Friends. She was rescued from a crappy life that included being leered as a waitress in a crappy donut shop, and now the rabbits want her to serve again?!!

Diane Visits Algonquin Main

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The Bunnies decide to let a few carefully-selected Humans visit their home.

This is a segment that may or may not make it into the final version of “The Rabbit Trap”. It’s really part of the backstory, explaining how the conditions arose that let Red and his family live in Algonquin Main.


It was happening! Diane was excited. Caramel had bounced up to her during the weekly closed-doors Rabbit Meeting and announced the news. She, Diane, had been selected to visit the rabbit city of Algonquin Main!

It wasn’t going to be a long visit. Caramel had said that the warrens were thinking of expanding their contacts with human society — carefully-selected parts of human society, anyway — and this visit was a trial run.

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Holidays. And Writing…

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I’m working on some things for The Rabbit Trap suggested by Akosua. One of them is rewriting a tentative first scene to be from the viewpoint of character Darlene rather than character Red. This turns out to be surprisingly tricky, given that the main actions in the scene are performed by Red. This is something I have tried for the first time.

Another request is rewriting the story outline to follow the internal emotional events of my protagonist rather than the external events. Again: tricky, and new to me. But it makes sense given that everything my protagonist (or any other character) does has to make sense to them at the moment. It has to be the option that appears to move them toward what they want with the least effort. Appears to them, that is. To the rest of us, it could appear completely crazy.

So I will have to dive into the emotional arc behind my character…

In other news, Happy New Year! I made a commemorative drawing for the New Year with many of my characters!

A book trailer, shirts, and Fifty Thousand Words

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I have been working on an animatic, a kind of limited animation, to make a book trailer to promote The Rabbit Trap. I hope to have it done in a few weeks.

To express my gratitude for the help I have gotten with it, I have ordered shirts! They will include the new logo I have developed for the story.

As far as the story itself is concerned, Akosua and the Write-Now Club are proposing another writing challenge: another Fifty Thousand Words in Fifty Days challenge! This will take us to the end of summer, conveniently when I had planned to have a first draft done. I’ve pulled out Scrivener and started organizing things already.

A segment from The Rabbit Trap!

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Linda of Funny Face Fiction has featured a segment from The Rabbit Trap on her blog!

The story is about a family who escapes a totalitarian nightmare — and what happens when one of them wants to go back.

This segment provides a view of the Great Revolt, where enslaved humans desperately try to escape captivity. It is draft text that may or may not make it into the final book.

The Rabbit Trap

Funny Face Fiction is the publisher of Hollow Edge by Frankie Cameron.

When Can I Use Real Names and Products?

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In the Devilbunnies universe, writers used the names of existing concepts, characters, products and companies. Some of them were associated with the Bunnies or their enemies:

For the Bunnies

For the Bunnies’ Opponents

  • Elmer Fudd (from Warner Brothers; lent his name to the anti-Bunny forces);
  • Moxie, Irn Bru, D&B (“uncute” drinks);
  • Vanilla extract (the Bunnies were actually supposed to be allergic or even burned by it);

In some cases the group authors took the name and ran with it.

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