How to use AI to jumpstart your rough drafts

They’re called rough drafts because they’re rough

Incomplete ideas. Poorly formed arguments. Plots with holes large enough to need their own ZIP codes. Rough drafts are, by nature, pretty raggedy.

They’re also tough to write.

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Think about it: You have your prompt or assignment or idea. You know what the end result—your final draft—should contain, in theory. But in practice? Where on Earth do you begin? What should ideally be a brainstorm-like approach to pulling your ideas out of your head and onto the page, writing rough drafts can feel more like pulling teeth out of your head instead of thoughts.

There are lots of approaches to writing rough drafts—some of which can be expedited with new AI-based tools.

Go into outline overdrive

Starting a draft with an outline is always a good idea. It might seem unnecessary or even remedial, but it actually provides a skeleton onto which you can hang your thoughts.

We’ve all made outlines and summaries before—they can be labor intensive, tedious, boring. None of which you want to feel while you’re working to get a rough draft down. So get some help from a large language model.

Generative predictive text AI can revolutionize the way you approach outlining your writing—especially if you have a good sense of all the pieces your work needs but are stumped about the order. Simple prompts to a chat AI will return simple outlines; detailed prompts will yield more thorough structures. No matter the prompt, the outline output won’t be perfect—but it doesn’t have to be. It just has to be done. Once you have an outline to work with, your rough draft will be off to the races.

Get some real-time inspiration

Even with your outline in hand, you might still find it tough to rough in the rough draft. AI can help here, too.

Try using AI to get started by pasting portions of your outline into the prompt box. What you’ll get in return can be used as a jumping off point for further expanding your outline into your rough draft. If you go topic by topic, point by point, you might find that you have a template into which you can weave your own ideas.

Get a head start on your next draft

It might seem a fool’s errand to have AI check your work on a rough draft—it’s supposed to be imperfect, right? But AI can help you move from rough draft to working draft even faster.

Once your rough draft feels complete, run it through AI again or ask a friend to review it. Suggestions for changes can help guide your next draft’s creation.