Pre-Writing Planner
Most blank-page trouble is really an unclear assignment. Answer seven short prompts about your piece, one or two sentences each, and the planner turns them into a writing brief you can keep beside you as you draft. It covers context, goal, audience, scope, what you know, tone, and your request. Everything stays in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.
Plan your piece
What does a reader need to know before this piece makes sense? What prompted it?
If a reader remembers one thing, what should it be? Name the single takeaway.
Who are you writing for? What do they already know, and what will be new to them?
What must this piece cover, and what should it leave out? Note any length, format, or deadline.
What do you already know well here, and where are you unsure or likely to hand-wave?
How should this read? Choose a few words for the voice, such as plain, warm, formal, or urgent.
In a sentence or two, what exactly are you setting out to write?
Why plan before you draft
Pre-writing planning means deciding a piece's audience, goal, scope, and tone before drafting, so the first sentence is a choice rather than a guess. A blank page feels like a writing problem, but often it is a thinking problem: the piece is not clear yet. Naming those things first gives the draft something to aim at.
What CLARITY stands for
- C: Context
- What a reader needs to know before the piece makes sense.
- L: Learning goal
- The one thing a reader should take away.
- A: Audience
- Who the piece is for, and what they already know.
- R: Requirements (scope)
- What the piece must cover, and what it leaves out.
- I: Information check
- What you know well, and where you still need to verify.
- T: Tone
- How the piece should sound.
- Y: Your request
- In a sentence, what you are setting out to write.
The seven prompts run in a deliberate order. Context and goal set what the piece is for. Audience and scope set its edges. The knowledge check surfaces what you still need to look up before you commit to a claim. Tone sets the voice. The last prompt asks you to say, plainly, what you are writing, which is often the moment the piece comes into focus.
This planner is inspired by the CLARITY framework introduced by Hannah Meyer Schapiro, Manuela Tripepi, and Julia Blackley in "Reclaiming the writing process using AI" (Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education, 2026, doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.00337-25). The prompts here are our own and generalized for any writing. Unstoppable Ink is not affiliated with the authors or the American Society for Microbiology.
Last updated June 28, 2026.
Pre-writing, answered
What is a pre-writing brief?
A pre-writing brief is a short note to yourself that sets the direction of a piece before you draft it: who it is for, what it should achieve, what it must cover, and how it should sound. Writing the brief first makes the draft faster and steadier.
What does CLARITY stand for?
CLARITY is a pre-writing checklist: Context, Learning goal, Audience, Requirements (scope), Information check, Tone, and Your request. This planner is inspired by that framework and turns each letter into a short prompt for any kind of writing.
Is this planner private?
Yes. Your answers stay in your browser. Nothing is sent to a server, stored, or logged. The brief is assembled on your own device, and you copy it when you are ready.