Writing brief builder

The brief builder returns an eight-part editorial brief. Your four answers — topic, reader, promise, and evidence — fill the top half. Below them sit three prompts you finish yourself: the central claim, the scope and non-goals, and the action you want. A fixed definition of done closes it.

Use it before you commission work, before you open a blank document, or before a review that keeps circling. Editors, freelancers, in-house teams, and solo writers all lose the same hours to a piece that was never scoped. Ten minutes here moves the disagreement earlier, into one paragraph.

How to use it

Four fields, about two minutes

1. Fill the working topic loosely

   This field is a placeholder for the subject, not a headline. Write it as you would describe the piece to a colleague. It appears verbatim under the first heading, so a phrase is enough; you will retitle later.

2. Pick the reader who has the problem

   This field accepts one line. Choose the person with the problem, not the person who approves the budget. If two audiences genuinely need the piece, write the harder one here and note the other under scope.

3. Write the promise as an after-state

   The promise field starts you at after reading, they will. Finish that sentence with something the reader could do or decide the same day. A promise that cannot fail gives reviewers nothing to judge the draft against.

4. List the evidence you already have

   The last field takes facts, sources, observations, interviews, and screenshots. List them plainly; the text is copied through unchanged. Whatever is missing becomes the research task, and seeing that gap now is most of the point.

A worked example

What goes in, and what comes back

WRITING BRIEF

Working topic
onboarding emails that survive a product rename

Primary reader
lifecycle marketers at small B2B software companies

Reader promise
they can audit and rewrite a six-email sequence in one afternoon

Evidence and examples
the support-ticket spike after the March rename; twelve emails that still name the old product; last quarter's audit spreadsheet

Central claim
[State the one idea you are prepared to defend]

Scope / non-goals
[Name what this piece will not try to cover]

Desired action
[What should the reader think, feel, or do next?]

Definition of done
Accurate, useful, edited, accessible, linked, and ready for its intended channel.

The bracketed lines are the work. Answer the central claim in one defensible sentence, then let the scope line remove the two subjects you were tempted to include. Paste the result above your draft.

When to use it

Good moments to reach for it

• Handing a piece to a freelancer who was not in the room where it was decided — see working with an editor.
• A draft came back wrong twice and nobody can say precisely what wrong means.
• You have a folder of research and no agreement on what the piece is arguing.

When it will not help

• It writes no prose and does none of the thinking. Three sections arrive as bracketed prompts, and a half-finished brief is worse than none.
• Long documents with several audiences — a book, a report with an executive summary — usually need a brief per section.

Questions about this tool

The other free writing tools