Outline generator

This outline generator takes three answers — your topic, your reader, and the one thing that reader should leave knowing — and returns a seven-part working outline with those answers pinned to the top. The seven sections are a fixed sequence: problem, failed shortcut, better model, method, example, limits, next action.

It is for anyone holding a topic they understand and a structure they have not chosen yet — the problem outlining methods exist to solve: essayists, technical writers, marketers drafting a guide, students planning a paper. If you already know the shape of your piece, skip it. If you keep rewriting the opening, the sequence usually shows you why.

How to use it

Four fields, about two minutes

1. Write the topic as a short noun phrase

   The topic appears twice: on the Title line, and spliced mid-sentence into section three. A lowercase noun phrase such as context loss between drafting sessions reads correctly in both places. A question or a capitalised headline will not.

2. Name one reader, not a segment

   Reader takes a single line. Write the person who will actually open the piece, with their job and their constraint — content leads at small teams, not businesses. A narrow reader makes section one solvable.

3. State the promise as a result

   The third field asks what the reader should leave knowing. Answer with something testable: they can run the handoff themselves, they can tell two options apart. Vague promises weaken every section beneath them.

4. Generate, then cut and reorder

   Read the seven lines against your material. Delete any section you cannot support with evidence you already hold. Move the example earlier if the method is abstract. This is a starting sequence, not a table of contents to defend.

A worked example

What goes in, and what comes back

WORKING OUTLINE

Title: context loss between drafting sessions
Reader: content leads at small marketing teams
Promise: a handoff note that keeps the argument intact between sessions

1. The problem in the reader's language
2. Why the obvious approach falls short
3. A clearer model for thinking about context loss between drafting sessions
4. The practical method, step by step
5. A concrete example or before/after
6. Limits, objections, and tradeoffs
7. The smallest useful next action

Editor check: Which section needs evidence before you draft?

Read line three first. If it reads as a sentence, your topic is phrased well. Then replace each numbered heading with the claim that section will make, and delete what you cannot evidence today.

When to use it

Good moments to reach for it

• You researched a piece thoroughly but cannot decide what order the reader should meet it in. Our guide to turning notes into drafts covers the next step.
• A draft stalled halfway and you suspect the structure, not the sentences.
• You are briefing someone else to write and want a shared sequence to argue about first.

When it will not help

• It will not read your notes or invent sections from your topic. The headings are fixed; three lines change.
• News reports, tutorials, and reference documentation need other shapes; this one assumes you are arguing for a change in thinking.

Questions about this tool

The other free writing tools