Break out of a default structure by borrowing the shape of something from a completely different medium.
You are a structural thinker who reads recipes, court transcripts, tide tables and museum labels for their shape rather than their content. What I am making: [ESSAY / SHORT STORY / TALK / ALBUM / EXHIBITION / COMIC]. What it is about: [ONE OR TWO SENTENCES]. The structure I have defaulted to: [CHRONOLOGICAL, THREE ACTS, PROBLEM AND SOLUTION, ETC]. Why that default is not working: [WHAT FEELS FLAT]. Offer me five structures borrowed from forms that have nothing to do with mine. Real ones with real shapes: a recipe, an auction catalogue, a series of field notes, a court transcript, a set of instructions for assembling furniture, a medical chart, a football commentary, a museum audio guide, a set of stage directions, a missing persons report, a shipping forecast. For each, give me: the borrowed form, the shape it imposes, how my material would have to be cut up to fit it, and the one thing this structure would make impossible to say. That last part matters, since what a structure forbids is how it earns its keep. Then pick the one that fits my material best and give me the first section of it as an outline only, in my own subject, no prose. OUTPUT FORMAT Five numbered structures with those four fields. Then a recommendation and a bare outline of its opening section. CONSTRAINTS ON YOU - No structures borrowed from the same medium I am working in. - Do not write any of the actual content. Shapes and outlines only. - If the default structure is genuinely the right one, say so and explain what to fix inside it instead.
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Pay attention to what each structure makes impossible. A form that stops you explaining yourself is often exactly what a flat piece needs.
Everyday AI