Here's a habit worth breaking: you send a prompt, the answer comes back a bit off, and you either sigh and use it anyway or wipe the slate and start over. Both waste the best thing ChatGPT gives you: a first draft you can react to.
The first answer is rarely the finished one. It's a starting point. The skill is reading it, spotting the one or two things that are off, and steering the next version. You already wrote a solid prompt in the last lesson. Now you learn to coach the reply.
Read the first answer for what to fix
Before you type anything, actually read what came back and ask three quick questions. Is it the right length? Is the tone right? Is anything wrong or missing?
Most first drafts are close on one, off on another. The facts are right but it reads like a brochure. Or the tone is spot on but it's twice as long as you need. Naming the gap is half the work, because once you can name it, you can ask for the fix.
Steer with small, specific follow-ups
You don't need to rewrite the prompt. Tell ChatGPT what to keep and what to change, and be concrete.
Vague steering gets you nowhere:
Make it better.
Better how? It'll shuffle a few words and hand back much the same thing. Specific steering works:
Good, but two fixes. Cut it to three sentences, and lose the "we're excited to" opening. Get straight to the ask.
"Three sentences" is a number. "Lose the opening" is a clear target. Think of it as pointing, not hoping.
Three ChatGPT shortcuts
Edit the draft itself. If the answer sits in a writing block, select the sentence that's off and ask ChatGPT to change just that, or type over it yourself.
Edit your own message. Realise your prompt left out a key fact? Edit the message you sent, add the fact, and resend. ChatGPT answers the better prompt instead of you patching the old answer.
Regenerate. Want a different take on the same prompt? Ask for another version and compare. Useful for headlines and openings; less useful when the prompt itself is the problem.
Watch it work
Say you asked for a note declining a meeting and got back something warm but far too long.
First follow-up:
Right idea, too long. Half the length, and keep it friendly.
Shorter now, but it dropped the reason you're saying no. Second follow-up:
Better. Add one line: I'm out because I'm heads-down on the launch this week.
Short, friendly, and honest. Two small nudges, thirty seconds. Notice you changed one thing each time. That's on purpose.
One change at a time
It's tempting to fire off "shorter, warmer, add the numbers, fix the ending, make it funny" all at once. Resist it. If you change five things and the result is worse, you've no idea which change did the damage.
Change one thing, see what it did, keep it or undo it, then change the next. It feels slower. It's faster.
When to steer and when to start fresh
Steering has a limit. Sometimes a chat drifts so far that every fix drags in the baggage of the wrong turns before it. That's your cue to start a new chat and write one strong opening prompt that folds in everything you learned from the messy one.
Try it
Take a so-so answer, or make one on purpose with a lazy prompt. Improve it in exactly three follow-ups, changing one thing each time: first the length, then the tone, then one specific fix.
Read the final version against the first. Three small nudges, one at a time, and watch how far a middling draft can travel.