# The Six-Sentence Frame (Chapter 8)

**Use when:** drafting an email a person reads once. The frame is not for legal notices, HR findings, or anything that may surface in a records request; those keep their formal structure, because the future reads slowly.

Six sentences, six jobs, in this order:

```
1. What this is about, in one line.
2. What changed, or what I need from you.
3. The first reason, in one line.
4. The second reason, only if there is one.
5. What happens next.
6. One human line.
```

A filled example: "The Q3 report is late. You'll have it by Friday close. The vendor data arrived two days behind. I'd rather ship it verified than on time. I'll confirm Thursday. Thanks for holding the line for me."

## The four moves

1. Dump first: write the long version, every fear and footnote out.
2. Frame second: label which job each thought serves.
3. Compress third: cut each job to its sentence. Hand the agent the frame and the dump; it keeps the scissors, you keep the judgment.
4. Read as the reader last: you are the person at nine in the morning with forty other emails, and you decide whether your own message earns its place.

## The compression prompt

```
Here is a dump of everything I want to say: [PASTE].
Cut it to the six-sentence frame: one line for what this is about, one
for what changed or what I need, one line per reason, one for what
happens next, one human line. Keep my facts, keep my numbers, cut
everything else.
```

## Reader first: three questions before the draft starts

- Who is the reader? Not their title. Their situation at the moment of reading.
- What do they decide? Your message exists to change one decision, or to arm one.
- What should they feel when they finish? Respect the decision maker, or the relationship pays.

The answers go straight into the prompt: "The reader is a project manager who has been burned by late handoffs twice this quarter. She decides whether to block her team's time tomorrow. I want her to feel informed, not managed."

## The check

Read the draft and ask whether each sentence serves the reader's decision. Sentence two, the ask, is the only one the reader truly owes you. Everything else is their service. Before you send, read the cc list and ask whether each name needed the message, or only needed to know it happened.