Bullet Drafts
I’ve been writing short and serialized fiction for the last fifteen years. In that time, I’ve developed an outlining methods that solves a lot of problems for me… where some of the things I learned in college have not. It want to talk about them here, because I’m sure some of you struggle with the same challenges.
Recently, I published by first novel, Mercyblades. It’s a fun, action-packed adventure through a post-scarcity future and I used these methods to write it. All of the examples below are taken from the first chapter of that novel.
Challenges
Studying creative writing in college, what I heard all the time was this adage: Writing is Rewriting. It means you’ll be writing each piece many times, over many drafts and revisions. The advice I received was to start with “free writing,” which is an exploratory kind of writing, then take the best 10% of whatever you produce and start again. That’s a LOT of text on the cutting room floor.
This advice never worked for me. First of all, I have trouble free writing. I get distracted by all the fiddy concerns of writing prose while I’m trying to figure out characters and plot, voice and tone, big picture stuff. (Since I’m a genre writer, I also have to do a ton of world building.) I need to tackle these things separately, progressing to prose only after I’ve got everything else worked out.
For me, it’s always been easy to do that high-level thinking in an outline.
Second, even when I’m writing actual text, I often want to skip past something that’s giving me trouble or write multiple versions of a line, and defer decision-making until later. That’s also easier to do in an outline, where I’m not worried about word variety, pacing, paragraphs breaks, etc, etc, etc.
Not everyone loves outlining, I know, but hear me out. When you write in bullet format, it’s really easy to…
- Jot down different versions of a line
- OR keep track of alternate lines
- Cut-and-paste entire sections
- And just leave things __ for later
Instead of writing and rewriting (and rewriting and rewriting), I use outlines to work out all my big picture ideas, then I use another outline to write my first draft. That’s the “bullet draft” of the title. Only then do I set down and write actual prose.
Let’s get into it. (Apologies for the poor list formatting; Medium doesn’t support proper bullet lists.)
The Story Outline
This is where I ask myself all the big questions: What is this story about? Who are the characters and what are their arcs? What’s the plot, in chronological order? What’s the best way to tell this story?
I’ll write timelines for each character, write backstory, develop locations, and I’ll do it all in bullet list format. The resulting document becomes my constant companion during the rest of the project, like a series bible. I’ll also add to it as I go, creating new characters and setting details, or tracking changes to the plot.
These were my very first notes about what would become Mercyblades…
- Elemental Genres
— Adventure
— Wonder - Themes
— Moral responsibility to be your brother’s keeper.
— Transhumanism
— Post-scarcity sociology - Protagonist(s)
— Uplifted vigilantes on a mission to enforce human rights across an endless array of bottle worlds throughout the solar system
— Have heightened control over information networks (for some reason), which - What do they call their group?
— Weeping Knights
— Righteous Wind
— The Bad Sign
— Black Cats
— The Cal
— The Wake
— Harbingers - Character ideas…
— Zorro-style egotist who likes making fools of the foolish
— Thrill-seeking ___ with spheel feet :)
— Former cultist, was rescued & deprogrammed, pays it forward
— Someone who’s edited their own mind?
You may notice… I didn’t use any of those names. ;) “Mercyblades” eventually came from the name of their signature weapons, which I hadn’t figured out yet. I also ended up combining two of those character ideas together and developing the last one into something significantly different.
The important point is that it only took a few bullets to work out those ideas. I didn’t waste thousands of words working them out in free writing. It’s only once I have a clear idea of my characters, my world, and my story that I sit down to write full sentences.
But before I do that… a second type of outline, different from the first!
The Chapter/Scene Outline
Even with the high-level story figured out, I’ve always found that leaping right into prose results in a flat, uninteresting slog through the plot. Over time, I’ve learned to stop and ask myself a series of questions, as well as build out my plot outline for the chapter (or scene, if it’s a short story).
The most important question is this: What’s interesting about this chapter? Might seem obvious, but it’s really easy to lose sight of it when you’re free writing. After that, I ask myself things how I’ll get into the scene: What’s happening before it starts? What’s my POV character thinking about? This has really helped my opening lines.
I might realize I need a new character, at this step, or reorganize things from my original plot outline. Don’t feel handcuffed by your first idea! It’s rarely going to be your best.
The first chapter of Mercyblades sees my brain-in-a-jaw character run down some unnamed people who cut them off in traffic, or its orbital equivalent. I was thinking a lot about the first chapter of Snow Crash, which is this over-the-top action sequence where the protagonist is taking pizza delivery way too seriously. I always loved the drama of it and the way it plunged you head-first into the book’s cyberpunk setting.
Here’s what my chapter outline looked like…
Plot
- Ashe chases down her enemy
“This isn’t about orbital mechanics. It’s about manners.” - Long range: Ashe sabotages their targeting system
— She uses dream-logic VR to gain access to their system and makes a metaphorical adjustment that ruins their aim
— Needs a heist metaphor - Medium range: Ashe uses missiles to take out their guns
— Write from POV of a warhead, as if the trip across space is their entire life :) - Close range: Ashe tangles w/ tentacle-headed “tug boat” drones
— Spaceship hand-to-hand combat!
— Echo’s thrusters are on robotic arms, so she can swing them around like rocket-powered fists - Ashe disables their ship, laser etches penis on their hull ;)
What’s interesting about this chapter?…
- Ode to the first chapter of Snow Crash :)
- Set the tone for space combat
- Dream logic for VR & hacking
What’s our way in?…
- Ashe fumes about getting cut off in (orbital) traffic
- OR in-media res as she battles drones at close range?
Who cuts her off? Why?…
- Just some nobodies in a low-rent spindlecraft
- They’re being careless
- OR they have a pre-existing grudge against Ashe?
How do they defend themselves?…
- Point defense guns (for micrometeorites)
- Particle cannons
- “Tug boat” drones used for moving things around in space
- Try to run away, but they can’t handle as many g-forces as Ashe
Why doesn’t Ashe just ding their Access & avoid all this violence?…
- She’s kind of a violent person ←
- OR their Access is already low (for obvious reasons)
- OR she thinks they need to learn a lesson
This is also where I brainstorm fight choreography. Not a major concern for a lot of writers, but I loves me some swashbuckling. I might not even use everything I outline at this stage. It’s just a resource I can draw from while I’m writing…
The Bullet Draft
It’s finally time to write! We’re talking full sentences, dialog, punctuation! It’s still an outline, with each bullet being a full idea (usually a sentence or three), which means I don’t have to worry about how it all flows together. I can easily write multiple versions of something, leave something blank or later, or move entire chunks of text. This makes it easy to breeze through the bulk of the writing and leave the detail work for later, when I can focus exclusively on prose.
The first few paragraphs of Mercyblades looked something like this…
- This isn’t about orbital mechanics.It’s about manners. It’s about principle.
— OR Not even a little. It’s about principle.
— It’s about treating people with respect, even when that person is just a brain in a jar.
— Especially when that brain is in a jar inside a heavily-armed, high-g spacecraft!
— OR Especially when that brain and that jar are inside a heavily armed, high-g spacecraft.
— Especially then. - The Echo had been slung comfortably wide around Ceres when a glorified covered wagon blasted its skinny arse across her clearly registered flight path.
— Nothing the lithe, little Echo couldn’t dodge, of course, but that’s not the point. Common courtesy is the point!
— Naturally, Ashe broke orbit and went after them, selflessly donating her time to teach the owners of that barely mobile junkyard a desperately needed lesson on right of way.
— The spindlecraft hasn’t gotten far. It’s basically an elevator shaft with a fusion drive attached.
— Everything else — hydrogen tanks and living quarters and whatever the hells — just bolted onto them any old way, without a thought for structural integrity or operational efficiency or good forking taste.
— They just chug along at a constant 1g acceleration, perfect for meat-bodies and mouth-breathers in no particular hurry to get anywhere.
— … except directly in Ashe’s way, apparently. - The Echo, on the other hand, is like an elegant equation: short, powerful, and ruthlessly efficient.
— Half her mass is propulsion, not a gram wasted.
— A quartet of high-g thrusters are tucked against the sides of her rectangular hull, alive with indigo glow.
— The rest of her is mostly fusion reactor, since her captain has no need for living quarters or squicky life support systems. So gross.
— Her synthetic brain is safely nestled behind a nose cone bristling with weapons… no, let’s call them “teaching aids.”
In a later chapter, there’s some fast back-and-forth dialog. This excerpt demonstrates how to write dialog without all the blocking or even signposting who’s speaking…
- “Oh, so… You’re in a fight club?”
— “I’m in a way of life, Roka! Just like you are.
— I’ve been following your exploits for a while, you and your synth mentor. They don’t have your sense of showmanship.” - “Glad to hear it’s appreciated, but was it really necessary to ambush me? You couldn’t have sent a polite invitation?”
— “I wasn’t sure you’d accept.” - “Well, then attacking me without warning makes perfect sense.”
— “I knew you’d understand.”
The final prose looks like this…
“Oh, so… You’re in a fight club?”
She slams her glass down on the bar. “I’m in a way of life, Roka! Just like you are.” Then, more calmly, “I’ve been following your exploits for a while, you and your synth mentor. They don’t have your sense of showmanship.”
Now it’s Roka’s turn to bow. “Glad to hear it’s appreciated, but was it really necessary to ambush me? You couldn’t have sent a polite invitation?”
“I wasn’t sure you’d accept.”
“Well, then attacking me without warning makes perfect sense.”
“I knew you’d understand.”
The First Draft
Okay. Technically, the Bullet Draft comes first, but this is the first draft I’d actually show a reader. It’s full, flowing prose with paragraphs and proper dialog, all the little niceties I didn’t want to worry about before. Now that I have 90% of the text written, I can really roll up my sleeves and devote my entire attention to smooth, readable text. I start at the top of my outline and just erase bullets as I go.
To see what that looks like, you can read the first chapter of Mercyblades free on medium or check out the novel on Amazon.
Disclaimer
I can’t prove to you that this method has saved me thousands of words or resulted in better stories, except to tell you that I’ve been much happier with my writing since I started using it. I used to abandon a lot of stories, because I’d get a few pages in and just hate what I’d written. Now, I take my time during the Story Outline, letting my mind wander and giving my ideas time to develop. I don’t start writing until I’m happy.
The real benefit of this method is that you split up three very distinct elements of writing into their own phases:
- Breaking the story
- Writing scenes & dialog
- Polishing the prose
Being able to focus on them one at a time has made writing a lot easier — and more enjoyable! — for me. Hopefully, it’s improved the final product, too. I’ll leave that judgment to you.
Give it a try. Maybe it will help your writing, too.
