Part 3 – Building the Bones: Brainstorming and 1^st drafts

This is Part 3 of a series by B.A. Bellec on using AI to edit his novel Cobalt Lungs. Start with the [Series Introduction].

The three-document system B.A. Bellec used to brainstorm and draft his novel to 40,000 words with AI as a working partner.

My two cents. Before you touch GPT. Make sure you have a lot of finished product. Think of it like an editor or beta reader. Your story doesn’t need to be done, but you’d better have at least 80% written and very strong notes on what isn’t written, so your partner can read between the lines and correct your idea or add to the brainstorm.

I am going to give you my process. This is by no means the only way, but I do think this is an effective way to consider starting any project.

Create a Word document and call it brainstorming and the title of your story. Every idea you have, put it in here. Tag the sections with headers for easy navigation. Characters, settings, world building, inspirations, plot outline, whatever.  This might sound boring, but not every day is writing. Some days are organizing. Some days are outlining. Some days are maintenance. The brainstorming document isn’t sexy, but it is required if you are serious about using GPT. I guarantee your ideas will fall apart unless you structure them off the page first.

Then have a master file of your manuscript. This is where you put the best ideas. The master file only changes when you feel an idea is getting close to the final version. Generally, the master file is not for notes or brainstorms; only close to finished prose hits that master file.

Outside those two files, which I store in the cloud, I will have notes in my phone or make standalone single files on my laptop. These are temporary files. I will take an idea out of the brainstorming document and work on it via my phone or my laptop, then if the idea progresses well, I may move it to the master file, or I may put it back into the brainstorming document to cook a little further. Once something is in the master file, I delete the phone note and temporary Word file from my computer and remove anything in the brainstorming document regarding it. Often, I will immediately see either a callback for later or an early seed I want to add. I will create an action item for this seeding or callback and put that action item into the brainstorming document. I like to hyper-focus on moments, so going back to an early chapter to make a seed will take me out of the moment. I just want to keep moving forward, and I can get seeds and callbacks later.

How did GPT help me?

Do you see my three-document system? That is exactly how GPT helped. I uploaded all three documents and then said I am about to write chapter 20. Do you see my notes? Then I would ask my question. Usually, my favourite was to ask me 10 questions about the chapter I am about to write. This Q and A would help me clarify things I wasn’t clear about in my brainstorm. After that, I would take a crack at the first draft. I would upload that as a standalone, and I would again ask for 10 questions about the new writing, as well as any concerns around plot before and after. Because all the documents were uploaded on the same day, I found GPT was very sharp on the Q and A section. I would often go to my brainstorming document and jot down little ideas coming from the Q and A, ideas for future scenes, or seeds/callbacks I needed.

If you are not feeling in writer mode, or are a little down on yourself, try to stay productive in other ways. Do some brainstorming with GPT. Upload a section of your brainstorming document or just ask GPT questions. I will give you a good example. I was really struggling with my ending. Instead of forcing myself to write 2-3 bad chapters, I stopped and went to the brainstorming document and pulled up my music section. That is unique to my project. Instead of doing unproductive writing, I started brainstorming revisions to all the scenes in my book that featured music prominently. I spent a few days on that exercise. Getting ideas from GPT and either refining the brainstorm or just going to the early spot in the master manuscript and fixing it. I also used this time to work on those seeds I flagged in my brainstorm document. As you write new chapters near the back of your story, you will almost certainly want to foreshadow, tease, or set up the scenes. Instead of writing my ending, I worked on my seeds and music. After a few weeks of doing that, I felt I was finally reading for the ending, which had grown some tentacles along the way.

That is basically exactly how I got to the 40K word threshold I had set for when I would share the project with someone. I picked 40K because that is the novella/novel barrier. I still wasn’t sure what my final word count would be, and it wasn’t the final ending, but it made the draft strong enough that I could get an alpha reader, and it would surely grow from here, so the novella threshold was in the rearview mirror. What is an alpha reader? It might be an editor. It might be an author friend. It could be a stranger you found on a website like Fiverr. An alpha reader is the very first person you have shared the work with, no matter who they are.  I found someone on Fiverr who seemed like a good genre fit, and I noted to them that the ending was new, and I was not convinced it was my final ending at all.

Another important skill I will highlight. Taking breaks. Because everything is so well documented, hand the project over to the partner, and just don’t touch it for a week or two, however long they have it. Maybe some small brainstorm notes, but resist the urge to tweak things for that week.  Read a book. Watch a movie or show. Just don’t write into the master file. Don’t worry about GPT forgetting things a week later; you have all your documents to upload and get GPT back up to speed. Relax. Recharge. Your first draft is done.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

B.A. Bellec is an award-winning Canadian novelist, songwriter, and music video producer whose work blends cinematic storytelling, emotional atmosphere, and deeply human science fiction. Drawing from an education in film and a multidisciplinary creative process that merges music, prose, and visual symbolism, his stories explore themes of survival, memory, grief, identity, and the search for meaning inside collapsing systems.

Known for emotionally immersive worlds, recurring symbolic imagery, and a style that balances intimate character work with large-scale thematic ambition, Bellec creates stories that feel less like traditional narratives and more like lived emotional experiences. His current project, Cobalt Lungs, expands beyond the page into a companion concept album, combining literary fiction, atmospheric worldbuilding, and music into a unified creative universe.

COBALT LUNGS

Station Eleven meets The Road with the psychological containment and systems tension of Silo.

A deadly airborne spore has transformed the world into a collapsing maze of quarantines, sealed cities, and desperate survivors struggling to adapt. In the ruins of Vancouver, musician Maddy fights to hold onto her humanity inside an overcrowded refugee shelter while scientist Ethan isolates himself nearby, deep underground in a self-sustaining silo where routine has replaced emotion. As society fractures and survival becomes increasingly brutal, the two are pulled toward each other in ways neither of them fully understands. Atmospheric, intimate, and emotionally charged, Cobalt Lungs is a post-apocalyptic story about isolation, survival, and the dangerous hope that can still burn at the end of the world.

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