| name | long-form-outline |
| description | Use when a book or a long article needs its argument's spine agreed before drafting — turning a brief into a part-and-chapter outline that holds one through-line end to end. |
Long-Form Outline
Long work fails in the structure long before it fails in the sentences. Agree the spine first, so drafting fills a shape instead of searching for one.
Steps
- State the one argument. Write the single sentence the whole piece exists to make. If you cannot, the piece is two pieces or none — resolve that before outlining.
- Name the reader and the promise. Who arrives, what they know already, and what they can do or understand by the end that they could not at the start. The outline serves that delta.
- Break the argument into parts. Group the work into a few movements that build in order — setup, development, turn, payoff — each carrying the argument forward, none repeating another's job.
- Draft chapters as questions. Give each chapter the one question it answers and the one point it lands. A chapter that needs "and" to describe it is two chapters; a chapter that answers no question is cut.
- Check the thread. Read the chapter points in order with nothing else. They should tell the whole argument on their own. Where the thread jumps or doubles back, fix the outline, not the future draft.
- Mark evidence and reuse. Note per chapter what it must prove and with what — a source, a story, a dataset — and flag which chapters could later seed a newsletter issue or a podcast episode, so reuse is planned from the start.
- Size each chapter. Give a rough length so the whole has proportion — the turn is not a paragraph and the setup is not half the book — and so milestones on the calendar are real.
Quality bar
- A one-sentence argument the whole outline serves.
- Chapter points, read alone and in order, deliver the complete argument.
- No chapter repeats another's job; each answers one question and lands one point.
- Evidence needs and reuse candidates are marked before drafting starts.
Output format
A structured outline: the one-sentence argument, the reader and promise, parts with their role, and chapters each carrying a question, a point, its evidence needs, a rough length, and any reuse flag.
