Longhand · working together
How to brief a writer.
Almost every expensive rewrite we have seen was caused by the brief, not the writing. Here is the one we use, which takes about eight minutes to fill in.
we ask our questions now, so there are fewer later.
A brief is not a description of the task. It is the set of decisions you have already made, written down so the writer does not have to guess at them and be wrong in a way that costs you a week.
The six questions
1. Who is reading it, and what were they doing a second before? Not “our target audience”. One person: a hospital administrator opening mail at 9am, a founder on a train, a mother on WhatsApp after dinner. The second half of that question decides the length of your first sentence.
2. What should they do, and what would you settle for? Reply to the mail, ask for a price, forward it to the person who decides. Writing that wants everything gets nothing. Naming the fallback is what keeps the ending honest.
3. What is true that nobody else can say? One fact. Not a benefit, a fact. “We answer in a day.” “We only take two clients a month.” “Our founder has done this for eleven years.” Copy without one of these is always a bit weightless.
4. What must not be said? Claims your industry does not allow, comparisons you would rather not make, the word your boss hates. Two minutes here saves a whole round.
5. Where will this live, and next to what? A caption next to an image, a page with a photo, a hoarding on a road where people are driving at sixty. The neighbours change the writing.
6. When do you need it, and who signs it off? One name. Two people signing off is where deadlines go to die.
Three things to send with it
- Two examples you like and one you hate, from anyone, any industry. Ten minutes of reading tells a writer more about your taste than an hour of adjectives.
- The raw material. The last customer email, the actual numbers, the WhatsApp thread where somebody explained the product properly. Every good line comes out of raw material.
- The thing you are afraid of. “I don't want to sound desperate.” “Last agency made us sound like a bank.” That sentence is worth more than the rest of the brief.
Instructions that mean nothing
“Make it engaging.” “Keep it crisp.” “Add a punch.” “Make it pop.” Everyone means something different by each of these, which is why they come back in round two as a surprise.
Replace them with something testable. “Shorter than the current one.” “No exclamation marks.” “Should sound like the way I talk on calls, not like our brochure.” “A doctor should not feel talked down to.” All of those can be checked by reading the draft; none of them can be argued about forever.
What a good brief looks like, filled in
This is close to a real one, shortened:
- Reader: hospital administrator, opens mail between patients, deletes anything that looks like a pitch.
- Do: reply asking for details. Settle for: forwards it to the person who runs staff wellness.
- True and ours: the session sells nothing, and we don't take contact details in the room.
- Never: no product names, no fear, no “limited seats”.
- Lives: plain email, no attachment, read on a phone.
- By: Thursday. Signed off by: Kalash.
That brief produced twelve mails and nothing came back for a rewrite, because everything that could have gone wrong had already been decided.
If you have no brief at all
Send the thing you are unhappy with and one sentence about why. That is a brief. We will ask the six questions on a call and write them down for you, which is part of the job and not an extra.
The full process, from brief to sign-off, is on the services page. It is five steps and none of them is a surprise.