Exercises

6 exercises on Temerarii Media. About 45 minutes.

1 · Read the rails first

Open brand rails before you open anything else. It lists every term this studio will not publish. Read the list and ask what kind of business would need that list — the answer tells you more than any positioning statement does.

How you know you have it: You can describe this studio's failure mode in one sentence. Not “they want to sound professional” — the specific thing that would make these buyers stop trusting this business.

2 · Trace one cell end to end

Pick any day in the calendar. Follow it through: the week's framing, the day's slot, the copy authored for each surface, and the storyboard it becomes. Notice that a social post, an email subject and a blog are different pieces of writing, not one sentence reused.

How you know you have it: You can say which authored field feeds which channel, and why an SMS cannot simply be the tagline.

3 · Find what the gate cannot see

Every cell in this calendar already passed the voice gate. That is the floor, not the goal. Find three cells that pass and are still wrong — a hook repeated from a nearby week, a line written for the wrong surface, a claim the business cannot actually check. Name each one as week, day and field.

How you know you have it: Three, each with a reason a machine could not have produced. If your three are all “too salesy”, you are reading for tone rather than for this brand.

4 · The one you would argue about

The banned list on the rails page is enforced literally: it catches words, and it cannot read intent. Find a place where you would override it — a sentence that contains a banned term while arguing against the very thing the rule exists to prevent — or argue that no such override should ever be allowed.

How you know you have it: A short paragraph either way. There is no correct answer and we are reading the reasoning. Deleting copy because the tool said so is the weakest response available; overriding without a reason is the same failure facing the other way.

5 · Rewrite one cell without losing it

Pick a cell and rewrite it. Each week records a strategic intent — what the week is for. Keep that intact.

How you know you have it: The rewrite clears the rails AND still does the job the intent describes. A rewrite that passes by removing the argument has failed, even though the gate is green.

6 · Improve Temerarii

This is the one we care most about. Name one concrete change to what this studio publishes and write it as a note an operator could execute without asking you a question: the cell or surface, the problem, and the replacement. A pillar we under-serve, a channel we are on out of habit, a recurring hook that has stopped working, an argument nobody is making.

How you know you have it: Someone could act on it tomorrow without a meeting. “The blog should be punchier” is a critic. Naming the surface, the problem and the replacement is an editor, and this seat is the second one.

What we are reading for

• Did you read this brand's list, or apply a generic one? These rails are not the usual ones. A reviewer who has only pattern-matched “no superlatives” catches nothing here.
• Does your rewrite preserve the intent? Passing the gate is the floor, not the goal.
• Can someone act on your notes without asking you a question? “Make it punchier” is a critic. Naming the cell, the problem and the replacement is an editor. This seat is the second one.
• Did you disagree with anything? The strongest submissions push back on a rule, a flag, or the brief. Someone who accepts every rule will not catch the rule that is wrong.