Bigger writing projects
Intermediate 4 · 1 minute 57 seconds · Free to learn · Words printed on screen · Watch above, then try the exercise below.
What you'll learn
- Why asking for the finished thing in one breath fails
- The three passes — outline, draft, polish
- Keeping your voice by showing it your writing
- The plausibility trap — invented uncles and beautiful wrong dates
Key points
Big writing is built in passes, not in one ask: heap the raw material in, ask for an outline first with the gaps marked honestly, then draft one section at a time, and polish only at the very end — or you polish things you later cut.
You stay the editor at every pass: argue with the draft when it sounds wrong ("too grand for us — make it smaller and truer"); arguing is a feature, not a failure.
Facts get the research treatment: every date is checked against a record before it earns a place, because a beautiful wrong date is still wrong. Camp rule: Big writing is built in passes, not wishes.
Try it
- Name your stalled project.
- Heap all the raw material into one conversation.
- Ask only for an outline — gaps marked honestly.
The words in this video
Prefer to read, or want to follow along while you watch? Here is everything the narrator says in this lesson, word for word.
Welcome back. I am Maggie. Today we go from one-off answers to whole projects — the family history I have been meaning to write for six years. The beginner mistake is asking for the finished thing in one breath. Write my family history gets you four bland paragraphs and a headache. Projects are built in passes. Outline first. Then one section at a time. Then the polish. The AI is tireless at every pass — you stay the editor.
Pass one — I feed it my raw material. Names, dates, the stories I tell at Christmas, in a heap. No organising. Heaps are allowed. I ask for an outline, not prose. Chapters by decade, with the gaps marked honestly — we do not know how grandfather crossed. Gaps are chapters too. Pass two — one chapter at a time. Draft the nineteen-sixties chapter from these notes, in my voice, warm and plain. My voice, because I showed it my writing first.
The draft comes back with bones. Now I edit like a person, not a fan — cutting the purple bits, fixing what only family would know. And I argue with it. That opening is too grand for us. Make it smaller and truer. Arguing is a feature, not a failure. Facts get the research treatment — every date checked against a record before it earns a place. A beautiful wrong date is still wrong.
Pass three, at the very end — the polish. Read it aloud, tighten sentences, one chapter per sitting. Polish last, or you polish things you later cut. The whole project lives in one conversation, so the AI remembers the family, the spelling of names, and the tone we chose in chapter one. The caution. It will invent a plausible uncle if you let it. Nothing enters the book that did not come from you or a record you checked.
Try it. Take your stalled project — the speech, the memoir, the club history — heap the material in, and ask only for an outline. Camp rule — big writing is built in passes, not wishes. Next time, spreadsheets without the tears. See you there.