Bulk RAW Prompts in ZimmWriter's Custom Outlines

Let me start by saying that raw prompts are a powerful feature for advanced users. Using raw prompts gives you extreme flexibility and ability to have ZimmWriter generate virtually exactly what you want.

Let’s set some basics about raw prompts:

Raw prompts are only meant for use with custom outlines in the bulk writer. However, if you don’t want to define an “outline” and enjoy using the ZimmWriter AI generated outlines, then read about the MASTER raw prompt functionality below.
They’re applied to subheadings you choose (but not the intro, FAQ, or conclusion).
When ZimmWriter writes the content for a subsection, it makes multiple calls to the AI. The first call (which I call a “pass”) generates the meat of the content for the subheading and would normally apply settings such as literary devices, lists, tables, voice, audience personality, style mimic, etc. But when you use a raw prompt, ZimmWriter no longer uses those settings, and instead uses your raw prompt instead. However, some things in ZimmWriter occur on second passes (e.g., nuke AI words, bold AI words, skinny paragraphs, custom prompts, translation) and they still apply when using a raw prompt since they occur on passes subsequent to the first.
Additional custom outline variables can work alongside raw prompts on a subheading.

Table of Contents

Creating a Raw Prompt

Inside the bulk writer, inside of the custom outline menu, you will see a button called “Create Raw Prompts”. When you press it, the window below will popup.

Note: Even though the penny arcade also has a custom outline menu, it doesn’t have access to the create raw prompts option. That’s by design. However, for those savvy people, I “think” that you can use a raw prompt with a custom outline in the penny arcade. So give it a shot.

The first thing you can do in this menu is define your raw prompt. What I’m about to say is very important. It will determine whether you get good output, or crappy output.

Ready?

Even though I call this a raw prompt, there is still a template that I feed into the AI. Here is the template I feed to the AI for the first raw prompt attached to a specific subheading:

[KNOWLEDGE]:

Any global background set through a {cgb_name} prompt attached to the end of a title, or a global background set through the bulk SEO csv file.

[FACTS]:

Any subheading background set through a {cb_name} attached to the end of the same subheading as the raw prompt or any automatically generated background caused by SERP scraping which happens behind the scenes.

[ARTICLE TITLE]:

The title that you've given the article in the bulk writer.

[CURRENT SUBTOPIC]:

The name of the current subtopic.
But if this is a H3, then the H3 name + parent H2 name.
But if this is a H4, then the H4 name + parent H3 name + parent H2 name.

[DIRECTIONS]:

Your raw prompt that you create inside the Raw Prompt input box.

[RESULT]:

ZimmWriter will now take the filled-out template and feed it into the AI to get your result.

If you don’t specify a global background or a subheading background, those KNOWLEDGE and FACTS sections won’t be included.

After ZimmWriter gets the result from the AI, everything then works as normal, which includes any further steps ZimmWriter would normally apply on a subheading as additional calls to the AI in this order:

Nuke AI Words
Bold Words
Skinny Paragraphs
Custom Prompt
Translation

Saving a Raw Prompt

At this point, you’ve created what you want to go in the raw prompt input box. But now we need to save our raw prompt.

Let’s talk options first.

The two options—allow applying global background to raw prompt and allow applying subheading background to raw prompt—will determine whether ZimmWriter includes those background sections (discussed above) in the template for your raw prompt.

The third option, allow uploading subheading to WordPress, is a very powerful feature if you can wrap your head around it. It causes the subheading section to which the raw prompt is attached to not get uploaded to WordPress or appear in the HTML output. It’ll only appear in the text file.

Why might you want to do this?

Imagine that you’ve got some content for your blog posts that you don’t want in the main article area. It could be content for the hero section, for a sidebar, etc. ZimmWriter will write your article, upload it to WordPress, but won’t upload the sections with raw prompts that you didn’t want uploaded.

Then you can go into your text file, after the blog post was uploaded, and yank out the non-uploaded sections, putting them where they need to go.

Now that you’ve set your options, it’s time to name your raw prompt.

Just like the naming format for custom prompts {cp_name}, custom global backgrounds {cgb_name}, and custom backgrounds {cb_name}, a raw prompt has a similar format.

{raw_name}

The “name” portion can be any English letters, numbers, or underscores.

Now press the “Save New Prompt” button.

Applying a Raw Prompt

Imagine I’m creating a custom outline for a bunch of blog posts about food: Best BBQ Ribs Recipe, Best Chicken Tacos Recipe, Best Crumb Cake Recipe, etc.

So lets create a custom outline to apply to each of those articles in bulk:

The first thing you’ll notice is a first subheading called “Extra Titles” which I’ve attached a raw prompt called {raw_create_more_titles}. Here’s what it looks like:

Do you notice how I unchecked the allow uploading subheading to WordPress?

Maybe you’re not happy with the ZimmWriter titles and have a prompt to create some variations. Now we can have ZimmWriter do that in this raw prompt for our Extra Titles subheading, which won’t be uploaded to WordPress.

For my first article titled Best BBQ Ribs Recipe, here’s what is in the text file, but not uploaded to WordPress or in the HTML file:

Pretty cool huh?

Note: That underscore on the end of the title was not in the custom outline. Instead, it’s something I do on the backend to flag that subheading as one not to upload to WordPress.

The next thing you’ll see in my outline is a “History” subheading. I don’t have a raw prompt attached to it, so it processes like normal. Meaning, any normal ZimmWriter options still apply (e.g., literary devices, lists, tables, voice, audience personality, etc.).

Then we come to the Ingredients subheading with an attached {raw_ingredients} prompt. Let’s check that out:

I used Claude Sonnet 3.5 to write the article, and guess what I got as output in my HTML file and on WordPress?

See how easy that is?!

Keep in mind that the performance will vary depending on the AI model you choose.

Let’s check out the next outline element, recipe, which uses {raw_recipe} as a raw prompt.

Here’s the prompt:

And the result:

This is a super simple prompt. I know some of you like to get CRAZY with your prompts. But stuff like this wasn’t possible before raw prompts.

The rest of the custom outline subheadings, Cooking Tips and Final Thoughts, don’t have raw prompts attached, so they’ll process as normal.

Now go take a break. Grab a snack, or a coffee. Because what I’m going to talk about next might just fry your brain. But if you can grasp it, you’ll have superpowers.

Stacking Raw Prompts

A single subheading does not have to have one raw prompt. It can have up to three. Let me show you:

Look at the Recipe subheading.

Is has a stack of three raw prompts.

ZimmWriter allows you to stack up to three raw prompts, and they apply from left to right.

First {raw_recipe} will apply
Second {raw_expander} applies on the result from {raw_recipe}
Third {raw_italic_seo_entities} applies on the result from {raw_expander}

Phew!

The big thing to keep in mind is that the template that ZimmWriter feeds into the AI is different for the second and third raw prompts, compared to the first raw prompt, in a stack.

Here is the template that the second and third raw prompt in a stack use:

[ARTICLE TITLE]:

The title that you've given the article in the bulk writer.

[CURRENT SUBTOPIC]:

The name of the current subtopic.
But if this is a H3, then the H3 name + parent H2 name.
But if this is a H4, then the H4 name + parent H3 name + parent H2 name.

[TEXT TO MODIFY]:

The output from the prior raw prompt.

[MODIFY THE TEXT ACCORDING TO THESE RULES]:

Your raw prompt that you create inside the Raw Prompt input box.

[MODIFIED TEXT]:

Do you notice the difference in the template for stacked prompts two and three, compared to the template for stacked prompt one?

Scroll up if you need to compare.

If you’ve had the guts to make it this far in the article, then I assume you can understand it.

I’m sure you’ll come up with reasons for stacking raw prompts, but one use case might be prompt leakage cleanup. As you dig deeper into prompt engineering, you’ll notice some leaks often appear (especially when using different models). If you’re encountering this a lot, then maybe you could create a second raw prompt to clean it up. Just play with it and see what you can do.

Master Raw Prompt

You can also use any raw prompt as a “MASTER” raw prompt to achieve ultimate power!

Normally, a raw prompt can only apply to subheadings that you specify. That kinda sucks because what if you want ZimmWriter to create the entire outline, but still apply a raw prompt to the subheadings?

(master raw prompt enters the room)

Here is an example of what it looks like:

That’s it!

When you specify a single raw prompt, with no actual “outline”, that raw prompt becomes a master raw prompt.

What’s it do?

ZimmWriter will generate your entire outline, but that raw prompt – e.g., {raw_recipe}, will apply to each subheading that ZimmWriter generates!

So again, using a raw prompt as a master raw prompt, allows ZimmWriter to generate the entire outline, yet you are still in the driver seat of the actual prompt.

A few things to note:

Using a master raw prompt should only be one line. If for some reason you have multiple lines, you’re doing it wrong.
You can still use all the normal variables that you could already used with raw prompts, such as stacked raw prompts, {img}, etc. Yet some of them may end up being redundant.

Final Tips

Raw prompts give you ultimate power. Here are some additional things you should know:

Raw prompts work with the other custom outline variables but regarding {auto_h3_#}, the raw prompt will only apply on the current subheading. The AI generated H3 children will not apply the raw prompt.
Raw prompts that are stacked define the stack order from left to right, but they don’t have to be adjacent. You can have other stuff in-between. ZimmWriter doesn’t care the order of variables attached to a subheading, aside from {var1-5}. So this is perfectly okay:

Even though you can only define these raw prompts in the bulk writer’s custom outline menu, you might technically be able to apply them in the SEO writer and the custom outline for the penny arcade. That’s outside the intended use, but give it a shot if you’re interested.
The AI model used for a raw prompt is the model for writing the article, unless you specify a {model=name} for the subheading. However, it’s not possible to apply a different model to each raw prompt in a stack.

Bulk RAW Prompts in ZimmWriter’s Custom Outlines