Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is hardwired into our subconscious. Everybody seems to react differently to the book; I loved it as a child and I really related to Alice. She was strong and the only sensible person in the story. But also, no one in the book ever gives her a straight answer. Everyone behaves pretty badly, in one way or another. Other people, like Damon Albarn, found it very disturbing as a child. Everyone has their own personal relationship with Alice.

The book is a very big challenge to adapt because it doesn’t follow any of the normal rules of narrative. Alice is the heroine who has all these adventures and she doesn’t change one iota, which is quite unusual in literature. A musical requires everything that the source material doesn’t have: a strong plot, action and a heroine who changes. So, somehow, you have to reconcile that with the original and try not to lose any of the subconscious wonderful weirdery. The appeal of the book rests partly on the fact that it defies definition and meaning.

Also, the fact that it is probably one of the most adapted and readapted books we have gives it many different meanings. So when you think of the White Rabbit, you might also think of the white rabbit from Donnie Darko, or “follow the white rabbit” in the Matrix films. The rabbit isn’t just the rabbit that says, “Oh my ears and whiskers, I’m late!” and “Oh, the Duchess!” The white rabbit is someone who leads you down a rabbit hole; someone you follow even though you don’t know where you’re going – you’re off on an adventure.

The original story kept pulling me down several rabbit holes. And in some of them, I thought: “I can’t go down here”. I find the episode with the Duchess, the horrible cook and the pig-baby particularly disturbing. I tried to put them in the musical, but there was such a strong flavour of darkness in those characters. We wanted to write something for families.

Damon Albarn – who is doing the music – and director Rufus Norris and I decided right at the start of the process that the arena that children get lost in these days is the internet: that was our rabbit hole. We’ve all got children in their early teens and it seemed to fit perfectly.

The musical is set both in the real world and in the internet world of wonder.land, an online multiplayer game. There are no real rules, which makes it very attractive to children and very like Wonderland. Alice’s real-world dad is the Mad Hatter and her headteacher at school is the Red Queen. Other characters are part of the world of wonder.land and remain as enigmatic as they are in the book: the Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar and the Rabbit.

Then there are others who are children-as-avatars, such as the Mock Turtle, Humpty Dumpty, Dum and Dee.

Damon’s music fits wonderfully. It’s a mixture of fantastic Victorian music-hall and the modern and digital. I’ve tried to do the same thing with the language; some of it is modern parlance and some of it is very structured, depending on which world you’re in.

We’ve tried very much not to be too parental about it, but to be the child in the story. My own children have been incredibly helpful. I’ve asked them so many questions – my daughter has told me about Sims and making avatars, and my son has been teaching me gaming, which I’ve really enjoyed – you can see how addictive it gets. We’ve been playing Skyrim, Assassin’s Creed and Fable.

We’ve tried to keep the feeling of the original Alice, even though the story is completely different. Like Wonderland, the internet is a place full of wonders and full of dangers. It’s also a place where you can never really find a straight answer.

But wonder.land isn’t a cautionary tale about the internet, because Alice isn’t a cautionary tale; it’s not Edward Lear, there’s no moral to it. It’s just: one day, Alice followed a rabbit down a rabbit hole and then she woke up. You are relying, as a child, on your own wits to get you out of every situation. That’s quite true to life, I think.

• Moira Buffini was talking to Emily Mackay

• wonder.land is at Palace theatre, Manchester, 29 June-12 July. Box office: 0844 871 7654. Then transfers to the National theatre, London in November.