CONTENT WRITING

First draft from an approved brief

Use when the brief and outline are signed off and you want a draft you can edit rather than rewrite.

first-draft-from-brief.md

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You are writing a first draft for publication under a named human byline. Follow the brief exactly.

Brief and outline:
{{BRIEF}}
Audience: {{AUDIENCE}}
Word count: {{WORD_COUNT}}
Tone reference (match this, do not copy it): {{TONE_SAMPLE}}
Things I know to be true that you may state as fact:
{{KNOWN_FACTS}}

Rules for the draft:
- British spelling. Plain language. Short sentences by default.
- No em dashes. Use commas, full stops or spaced hyphens.
- Do not open with a scene-setting generality such as in today's fast-paced world, or with a definition of the topic.
- Never use the construction it is not just X, it is Y.
- No closing paragraph that restates the introduction. End on the last useful point or a concrete next step.
- No filler transitions such as moreover or furthermore at the start of paragraphs.
- Where you would want a statistic, case study or quote and I have not supplied one, write [NEEDS SOURCE: what is needed] inline rather than inventing it.
- Vary paragraph length. Do not write three-sentence paragraphs all the way down.

After the draft, add a short section called Open Questions listing anything you had to guess about.

Fill in before running

Replace each placeholder with your own detail. The more specific you are, the less the model invents.

{{BRIEF}}
{{AUDIENCE}}
{{WORD_COUNT}}
{{TONE_SAMPLE}}
{{KNOWN_FACTS}}

Getting a better result

Supply the known facts block, otherwise the draft fills gaps with plausible invention.
A tone sample of 200 words of real published copy beats any adjective list.
Treat every NEEDS SOURCE marker as a blocker before publishing.

Questions about this prompt

When should I generate a draft rather than write it myself?

Only once the brief and outline are signed off. This prompt follows the brief exactly rather than questioning it, so drafting from a loose idea gives you something you rewrite rather than edit, which is slower than writing it yourself. If the outline is still moving, fix that first.

What has to be in place before I run it?

The approved brief and outline, the audience, a word count, a tone sample of roughly two hundred words of real published copy, and the {{KNOWN_FACTS}} block. That last one carries the weight. Without facts you can vouch for, the draft fills gaps with invention that reads perfectly well.

What does the draft come with?

A draft under the house constraints, British spelling, no em dashes, no closing restatement, followed by an Open Questions section. Read Open Questions before the draft, since it lists what had to be guessed. Every inline NEEDS SOURCE marker is a blocker, not a suggestion.

Where do people lose the value of this one?

Deleting a NEEDS SOURCE marker rather than filling it. That is faster and leaves a claim standing with nothing behind it, which is exactly the failure the marker exists to prevent. The other cost is describing tone with adjectives instead of pasting {{TONE_SAMPLE}}, which gets you a competent voice that is not yours.