Get a better first draft from your AI.

Expecting a perfect result from one prompt is like expecting a hole in one. It happens now and then, mostly to the people posting about it. The great AI work you see online came after many rounds of prompts, and you only saw the last one.

AI gives average output to average effort. This page has the structure that gets the first draft as close as it can be, and the three follow-up prompts that take it the rest of the way.

Fill in the brackets and paste it into any AI chat. The part most people skip is the example of what good looks like, and it's the part that does the most.

The prompt structure.

BACKGROUND
[Who you are, what the business does and anything the AI needs to know about
this job. If you have a context document about your business, attach it.]

THE TASK
[What you want made, in one or two sentences.]

THE READER
[Who it's for, and what they should think, feel or do after reading it.]

WHAT GOOD LOOKS LIKE
[Paste one example you like and say what you like about it.]

RULES
[Length, tone, words to avoid, facts it must include and anything it must not
promise.]

FORMAT
[How you want it laid out: an email, a table, a script, five short points.]

Before you write anything, ask me up to five questions about whatever is
unclear. Wait for my answers, then write the first draft.

THE FEEDBACK ROUNDS

Treat the first draft as a start.

Work with your AI the way you'd work with someone on your team: draft, feedback, revision. These three prompts handle the rounds.

After the first draft.

Round two.

Good start. Here's my feedback before the next draft.

KEEP: [what's working, and why]
CHANGE: [what's wrong, and what you want instead]
BECAUSE: [the reason, so you can apply it to the parts I didn't mention]

Rewrite the whole thing with these changes, then tell me in two lines what you
changed.

When it's close but still flat.

Round three.

Read this as [the reader]. Point out the three weakest lines and say why each
one is weak. Then rewrite only those three lines.

When you're happy with it.

Before you close the chat.

List every rule I gave you in this chat as a short list I can paste at the start
of the next one, so I never have to give this feedback again.

THE NEXT STEP

Give it your business once.

The background part of this structure is the one you shouldn't have to type every time. Write your business down once and attach it, and every first draft starts closer. The Context Interview Prompt does that, and the Delegation Framework is the short version of this brief for everyday jobs.

See what we do