You don't need a hundred writing prompts. You need five you trust and actually reuse.
Keep a negative list
Treat the first output as a draft, not a verdict. The prompt does the typing; you keep the judgment about what ships.
- Keep one ask per prompt — chaining beats cramming
- Lower the reading level, then check what broke
- Ask for three angles, then cut to the one worth shipping
Cut before you polish
Lock the parts that never change and leave one slot for the variable. Now every run shares a family resemblance instead of starting from scratch.
- Have the model flag what it could not cover
- Compare two outputs instead of trusting one
- Keep one ask per prompt — chaining beats cramming
Generate options, not answers
Write down what you never want as explicitly as what you do. The exclusions often do more work than the instructions.
- Save the prompt that worked so the next person reuses it
- Name the audience and the single goal before you generate
- Lower the reading level, then check what broke
Ask for the reasoning, then the result. When the model shows its steps you can see exactly where to push back.