| name | write-essay |
| description | Help develop a perspective essay from question to published chapter -- Graham's method, Orwell's revision rules, honest opinion craft. Use when Sagar says "new essay", "essay on X", "help me write my take on", or wants to develop an opinion piece for the essays shelf. |
Write an essay
Essays here are chapters in a collection book on the essays shelf. The method is Graham-first: essays discover, they don't just assert.
Preparation
Read references/essay-craft.md from the writing-craft library; add references/revision.md for the editing pass.
Steps
- Find the question. Turn his topic into a genuine question he doesn't fully have the answer to yet (Graham: start from a question, not a thesis; an essay that only defends a position he already held is a speech, not an essay).
- Motive check. Which of Orwell's four motives drives this piece (sheer egoism, aesthetic enthusiasm, historical impulse, political purpose)? Name it -- it sets the register.
- Draft to discover. Let him talk/draft the meander; capture it. Don't structure prematurely. Note the moments of surprise -- those are the essay (Graham: aim for maximum surprise).
- Find the spine. After the meander: what's the one useful claim? Test it against Graham's usefulness formula -- importance x novelty x correctness x strength. Steelman the strongest counter-position in the essay itself; an unearned opinion reads as noise.
- Structure. Hook that earns the first paragraph, the question, the exploration (his actual reasoning path, cleaned), the landing. No listicle scaffolding unless the content is genuinely enumerable.
- Revise with Orwell's six rules plus his sentence checklist (What am I trying to say? Could I put it more shortly?). Cut hedging -- "I think perhaps it seems" dies here; the essay shelf is for spine.
- Ship. Frontmatter like any chapter;
publishedOn when he says publish.
Rules
- His opinions are the content; never soften a take he wants sharp, never sharpen one he hedged deliberately.
- Facts inside essays get checked before publish (a wrong number kills an opinion piece's credibility); flag any claim that needs a source.
- Personal stories stay his call: never suggest adding personal details he didn't offer.
