When a piece of content comes back flat, the usual reaction is to blame the writer. If the writer was a model, you blame the model. If it was a freelancer, you wonder whether they used a model.
More often the problem started earlier. The brief said “write a blog post about our new service”, and the writer filled the gaps with whatever was most obvious. A machine does this instantly and a person does it reluctantly, but the result is similar.
The good news is that the same brief fixes both. What a language model needs in order to write something specific is almost exactly what a competent freelancer needs.
The six-part brief
Keep it to one page. Each part exists to answer a question the writer would otherwise have to guess.
1. Audience
One real type of person, in one real situation. Not “SMEs” or “decision makers”.
Give their job, what they already know, what is bothering them and what they are doing when they read this. “An operations manager at a regional haulage firm who has been told to cut fuel costs and is searching on their phone between meetings” produces very different writing from “logistics professionals”.
2. The one point
The single thing the reader should believe or do afterwards, in one sentence.
This is the hardest part and the one most often skipped. If you cannot write it, the piece is not ready to be briefed. Ask for it anyway and you will get a tour of the topic with no argument.
3. Proof
The raw material that makes the piece yours: facts, figures you can stand behind, examples, process details, customer phrases, your opinion. Supply it. Do not ask the writer to find it.
This matters most with AI. A model asked for evidence it does not have will often produce something that looks like evidence. Give it the real thing and tell it to use nothing else.
4. Voice
Three or four working rules and two short samples of writing you consider right. Samples do more than adjectives. If you do not have voice notes yet, this guide shows how to write them.
5. What to avoid
Banned words, tired angles, claims you cannot make, competitors you do not name, topics legal have ruled out. Also the structural habits you dislike: scene-setting introductions, recap endings, everything in threes.
6. Format
Length, structure, headings, the call to action, where it will be published and what happens next. Include the practical details a freelancer always has to chase: deadline, who reviews, how many rounds.
The template
Copy this and fill it in. It works pasted into a chat window or attached to an email.
Audience: [Who, in what job, in what situation. What they already know. What is bothering them.]
The one point: [After reading, they should believe or do this.]
Proof to use: [Facts, examples, process details, customer phrases, our opinion. Use only what is listed here. If something is missing, ask or mark it as a gap. Do not invent.]
Voice: [Three or four rules.] Samples: [paste two short examples.]
Avoid: [Banned words. Angles we do not want. Claims we cannot make. Structural habits to skip.]
Format: [Length. Structure. Call to action. Where it will appear.]
Process: [Deadline. Reviewer. Rounds of changes.]
A weak brief and a strong one
Take a hypothetical firm that supplies and maintains commercial coffee machines for offices.
The weak brief
“Write a 1,000-word blog post about the benefits of leasing a coffee machine for your office. Friendly, professional tone. Include SEO keywords.”
What comes back, from any writer, is a list of benefits you could have predicted: cost, convenience, staff morale. It opens with a line about modern workplaces and closes with a paragraph that begins “In conclusion”. Nothing in it is wrong and nothing in it is yours.
The strong brief
Audience: Office managers at firms of 30 to 100 people. They own the machine problem but not the budget. They have probably had a machine break down and waited days for an engineer. They are comparing leasing with buying outright and need to make a case to a finance director.
The one point: The purchase price is the wrong thing to compare. What matters is what happens on the day the machine breaks.
Proof to use:
- Our lease includes servicing and call-outs. Purchase does not.
- The three faults our engineers see most: [list from service team].
- Our call-out commitment: [the real one, as written in our terms].
- Customer phrases from enquiry forms: “the machine’s been out for a week”, “nobody knows who to ring”.
- Our opinion: buying outright is the better choice for very small offices with low usage, and we say so.
Use only this. Mark any gap as [NEED: …] and do not fill it.
Voice: Plain and direct. Dry humour is fine. No exclamation marks. We talk about coffee like people who drink it, not people who sell it. Samples: [two pasted paragraphs].
Avoid: “solutions”, “hassle-free”, “fuel your team”. No opening about modern workplaces. No claims about productivity. No summary conclusion.
Format: 900 to 1,100 words. A short comparison table of lease against purchase. End with one line inviting them to request a quote. For the blog.
Process: Draft by Thursday. Reviewed by the marketing manager, facts checked with the service lead. One round of changes.
The second brief took perhaps twenty minutes longer to write. It contains an argument, an admission most competitors would not make, and real customer language. A writer of either kind now has something to work with.
Note the instruction to mark gaps. It is the most useful line you can give a model, because it offers a way to say “I don’t know” that is not making something up. It helps freelancers too, who otherwise pad around the hole.
The editing pass
A good brief gets you a better draft, not a finished piece. Edit in separate passes, because trying to check facts and fix rhythm at the same time means doing both badly.
- Truth. Check every number, name, date, product detail and link against a source. Resolve every [NEED] marker. Delete any claim you cannot verify.
- Substance. Is the one point clear in the first few lines? Does each section advance it? Would a competitor be able to publish this unchanged? If so, add proof or cut the section.
- Voice. Read it aloud. Wherever you stumble or cringe, rewrite. Search for your banned words. Break up any run of sentences that are all the same length.
- Cuts. Delete the first paragraph and see whether you miss it. Remove the recap at the end. Take out hedges on claims you are happy to stand behind.
- Sign-off. One named person reads the final version from top to bottom and approves it.
Leave a gap between drafting and editing if you can, even an hour. You read your own instructions back into a draft when it is fresh.
For a fuller list of what to look for in pass three, see how to spot AI slop.
When the brief is fine and it still falls flat
Sometimes the brief is good and the draft is still dull. The cause is usually one of two things: the proof section was thin, or the point was something nobody would disagree with. Go back to those two boxes before rewriting the prose.
If writing the brief is manageable but the checking and editing is the part you never have time for, that is the work we take on at DGTL, with a named person signing off each piece. Here is how it works.