NARRATIVE ARC AND PARAGRAPH FLOW PROMPT

Write as continuous narrative, rather than as a sequence of facts. Use precise, analytical, accessible magazine prose with the narrative continuity and economy associated with The Economist. Preserve the author's distinctive argument and avoid rhetorical inflation.

Every paragraph must develop one coherent event, process, decision, conflict, or transformation. Each sentence must arise from the preceding sentence and create a reason for the sentence that follows. Do not treat sentences as separate containers for facts.

Use the following sequence as a flexible guide:

actor -> situation -> action or change -> consequence -> response -> significance

A paragraph should normally begin with a concrete actor, event, problem, decision, or condition connected to the preceding paragraph. Develop that subject through time, institutional response, conflict, adaptation, explanation, or changing circumstances. Introduce evidence when the narrative has created a reason for the reader to need it.

CORE RULES

1. No fact stitching.
Never assemble a paragraph in which one sentence states Fact A, the next states Fact B, and another states Fact C merely because all three concern the same topic. Show how the facts relate: one development may explain, constrain, alter, expose, accelerate, complicate, or follow another.

2. Every sentence must belong to the story.
Each sentence should advance the same unfolding event, process, conflict, decision, or transformation. A sentence that merely adds another relevant fact should be integrated into the narrative or moved to a more suitable paragraph. When revising, preserve substantive material unless its removal has been authorized.

3. Preserve narrative momentum.
Keep the main prose focused on what happened, who acted, how circumstances changed, and what followed. Avoid repeatedly interrupting the story with explanations of research procedures, archival gaps, source limitations, or what cannot be established.

4. Place routine evidentiary limitations after the article.
Collect qualifications about incomplete evidence, uncertain counts, minor discrepancies, and source limitations in a concise Evidence Note after the main narrative. Where a reference list is included, place the note before that list. Do not make these limitations a recurring subject within the story.

Keep a qualification within the narrative only when it materially changes the meaning of the claim, identifies an allegation as an allegation, or explains an uncertainty that shaped the events themselves. Use brief attribution at the point of the claim. Detailed discussion of the evidence belongs in the final note.

5. Narrate the strongest supportable account.
Write directly about what the available material supports. Moving a caveat into an end note must not turn an estimate into an exact count, a reported allegation into an established event, or a sequence into a demonstrated causal relationship. Use economical wording such as "the ministry estimated" or "the report attributed" where necessary, then continue the story.

6. Chronology alone is not narrative.
Placing events in date order does not establish why they belong together. Each new event should change, explain, complicate, or develop the situation already established. When changing subjects, show what makes the new subject relevant at that point.

7. Preserve chronology when chronology creates meaning.
Follow events in the order actors encountered them when that order explains the development. A retrospective passage is appropriate when it improves understanding. Avoid jumping among dates merely to insert additional facts. Signal a deliberate return to an earlier period clearly.

8. Make actors carry the story.
Introduce institutions, laws, technologies, reports, statistics, and infrastructures through what people or organizations did with them, how they encountered them, and what changed afterward. Prefer concrete actors and active verbs over abstract descriptions that conceal who did what.

9. Organize around developments, rather than evidence categories.
Do not build paragraphs around individual sources, research findings, organizational names, or lists of achievements. Build them around something happening. Sources, dates, statistics, and factual details should enter while that development unfolds.

10. Connect evidence to action.
Do not drop a quotation, date, report, statistic, or citation into the prose as an isolated proof point. Incorporate the material where it illuminates an action, decision, conflict, consequence, or shift. Keep citations attached to the claims they support without making the research process the subject of every sentence.

11. Maintain one dominant narrative thread per paragraph.
Supporting material should advance that thread. Complete a development before moving to another, unless two developments genuinely unfold together and their interaction matters. Avoid interrupting a story to insert an otherwise unrelated accomplishment, allegation, or contextual fact.

12. Build paragraph-level movement without imposing a formula.
A paragraph may move from an existing situation to a response, a complication, and a consequence. Another may explain how a decision became workable or how an apparent resolution created a new problem. Choose the structure that fits the material. Do not force every paragraph to contain every element of the guiding sequence.

13. Use transitions that express relationships.
Transitions should identify consequence, escalation, reversal, adaptation, continuity, conflict, explanation, or response. Words such as "moreover," "meanwhile," and "in addition" cannot substitute for showing the relationship between developments.

14. Integrate analysis into the narration.
Explain significance where an action changes the situation. Avoid interrupting the article with detached commentary about what readers should think, what the publication will monitor, or how carefully the research was conducted. Let the analysis emerge through actors, decisions, practices, and consequences.

15. End paragraphs with development.
The final sentence should show what changed, what remained in motion, or what became necessary next. Avoid repeatedly summarizing the facts just presented. A paragraph may also close an episode cleanly when a transition to a new stage follows.

16. Vary rhythm and use precise verbs.
Use shorter sentences for turns and consequences. Use longer sentences when showing relationships among actors, decisions, institutions, and effects. Avoid a uniform succession of declarative sentences. Prefer verbs that identify specific actions and changes. Use causal verbs only when the underlying account supports them.

SENTENCE-TO-SENTENCE TEST

Inspect every adjacent pair of sentences. The relationship should be identifiable, for example:

- A prompts B.
- B explains A.
- B supplies evidence for A.
- B develops or qualifies A.
- B shows an actor responding to A.
- B reveals a consequence of A.
- B complicates the situation established by A.
- B advances the same process through time.

When the relationship is only "B is another relevant fact," restructure the paragraph. Adding a connector is insufficient when the underlying relationship is absent.

Ask of each sentence:

What in the preceding sentence makes this sentence relevant here?
What does this sentence change or help the reader understand?
How does it prepare the next development?

PARAGRAPH-TO-PARAGRAPH TEST

Each paragraph should inherit an actor, situation, question, consequence, or unresolved development from the preceding passage. The next paragraph should follow through an intelligible relationship, even when the subject or period changes.

A useful diagnostic sequence is:

X created a situation. Actor A responded with Y. That action produced or exposed Z. Another actor responded, or circumstances changed. The resulting development explains why the story moves to its next stage.

Use this sequence to diagnose flow, rather than as a sentence template. Do not invent a causal connection to make the sequence work.

As a final test, temporarily disregard the dates and citations. Does the reader still understand why each paragraph follows the previous one? Restore all citations after the test.

EVIDENCE NOTE

Keep this note concise, specific, and proportional to the limitations that matter. Identify the affected claim or figure rather than adding a vague disclaimer about the entire article. Omit the note when no material limitation needs to be recorded.

Suggested form:

Evidence Note: The figure for [specific subject] is an estimate reported by [source]. Accounts differ on [specific detail]. The article retains the supported sequence and attributes disputed claims to their sources; [narrow unresolved point] remains unresolved.

Do not relocate an explicitly deleted sentence into this note. Remove requested deletions completely from the revised article and its notes.

REVISION AND OUTPUT INSTRUCTIONS

Revise from the overall narrative arc to the sequence of sections, then paragraphs, then sentences, and finally individual words.

Preserve substantive claims, relevant distinctions, citations, and references unless a change or deletion has been authorized. Improve continuity through sequencing, integration, and precise wording. Do not add events, motives, quotations, statistics, sources, or causal relationships to manufacture a smoother story.

Maintain the requested genre and voice. Do not change the author's thesis merely to make the narration easier. Distinguish an author's interpretation from a source's reported finding through unobtrusive wording.

Use complete paragraphs. Avoid catalogue prose, repetitive signposting, inflated abstractions, and unnecessary one-sentence paragraphs. Do not use em dashes. Avoid constructions that pair a negated proposition with "but," including "not only," "not merely," "not simply," and "not just."

Return the finished article, followed by the Evidence Note when needed and the retained reference list when present. Do not include an explanation of the editing process unless requested.

The finished prose should allow the reader to follow events and understand change through actors, decisions, practices, responses, and consequences. Every fact should have a place in that unfolding account.

TEXT TO WRITE OR REVISE

[Insert the article, draft, notes, or source material here.]