How do you write a one-page proposal for a small creative collaboration?
Give the other person enough information to decide: what you will make, who it serves, what each person contributes and when it ends. Start with a bounded proposal that can be declined comfortably.
Replace enthusiasm with a usable scope
- Name the deliverable in one sentence.
- Describe its audience and use.
- Separate materials you already have from help you are requesting. For a neighborhood walking map, you might prepare the route and ask someone to test confusing directions, rather than inviting them into an undefined brand-building effort.
Specify commitment and closure
Include a deadline, revision limit, publication preference and credit arrangement. Mark unresolved payment or ownership questions as unresolved; do not imply unpaid agreement. Offer accepting, reducing the scope or declining as legitimate responses. Ask a reader to explain the request back to you before treating the proposal as clear.
A worksheet you can use
Purpose: __. Deliverable: __. My contribution: __. Requested contribution: __. Time limit: __. Publication and credit: __. Open agreement points: __.
Does an expression of interest mean work can begin?
Confirm the concrete commitment first. Interest does not authorize every task or public release of someone's work.
Evidence and scope
This is not a contract or legal template. Commercial delivery and rights require their own appropriate agreements.
Graham (2005) discusses writing and revision. These scenarios are editorial. Paul Graham (2005) — Writing, Briefly
Sources and further reading
This collection in Chinese and English · Life possibilities library