Let's face it, writing is hard. It's not for the faint of heart. Writing demands hours of work researching, planning, drafting, and revising. Ideas have to be tested, reworked, and refined, until every element is perfect.

If you're going to invest the time and effort to write, you should write about something you actually care about. When you don't, it shows. The writing lies flat and lifeless on the page, and all that hard work is for naught.

That's why at essay.app we begin with the premise that to write well you need to start from a topic that matters. Something you genuinely want to explore, or at least something that aligns with your values, goals, and interests.

When you first sign up for Essay, you’re asked to answer a few questions about who you are as a writer, select some general subjects that interest you, and complete a quick interests and personality quiz.

Essay's Topic Explorer uses this information to deliver personalized topics on the subjects you are interested in. Therefore, when you come to the blank page, you always have a place to start that motivates you to write.

The information you provide here is solely used to generate customized topics aimed at inspiring you to write and for no other purpose.

To access the Topic Explorer, create a new document from Essay Home. In Outline, click the "Add a topic" button at the top of the Outline panel.

You will have two starting points:

If you’re starting from scratch and don’t know what you want to write about, start with “Help me find a topic.”

You'll be asked: "What do you want to write about today?"

The first step is to choose a topic category. You'll see a number of general subject options to choose from. These categories are generated based on your "interests quiz" and previous use of the Topic Explorer.

Click the "Refine" button to add feedback and comments to give more direction to the suggestions. Add feedback on topics that interest you. For example:

Give me categories about music and its historical impact

Then click "Update results."

Continue to refresh and refine the categories until you find one that suits you. Once you have a category you want to write about, select it and click "Continue to topic suggestions."

Once you have selected a category that interests you, the Topic Explorer will generate essay prompts for you to choose from.

Click "Refresh" to generate a new list of suggested topics.

If you're not finding a topic that you want to write about, click "Refine" to add your thoughts and feedback to better personalize and guide the results.

Continue to refine the suggestions by adding further feedback until you find a topic you want to write about.

Click "Start writing" once you have a topic

If you find a topic that interests you but you don’t want to write about it now, click the "Save for Later" icon next to the suggestion. Saved topics are stored as 'Topic notes' so you can return to them later. This allows you to build a running list of interesting topics at your disposal when you're ready for them.

Saved topics exist as a note and can be found on the Notes page of Essay Home or your Notes toolbar.

If after a few refreshes you're not getting the results you like, you can click "Adjust your recommendations." This lets you access your interest profile to update your information or retake the interest quiz to refine your topic preferences.

If you have been assigned a topic or already have one in mind, click "Start with my own topic."

You can either start writing with your topic or, if it isn't speaking to you, refine it to find an angle that interests you.

You'll be asked "What are you planning on writing about?"

Enter your topic in the space provide, and if you're ready to write click "Start writing."

If your assigned topic doesn't interest you, you can refine it to find an angle that inspires you to write. For example, let's say I'm reading the Giver in my English class, and I've been assigned a dull topic:

Analyze how rules and structure maintain order in the society depicted in The Giver.

This topic is dry and does not motivate me to write. I can click "Continue to topic suggestions" and the Topic Explorer will offer refined suggestions based on my interest profile. Alternatively, I can be more intentional by adding specific feedback about my interests (for example, Greek Literature) in the "refinement" section and click "Continue to topic suggestions."

The Topic Explorer will generate a list of 4 suggested topics for you to choose from.

From here you can:

For example, maybe the selected topic in the image above is close, but not quite right. I can click "Refine" and add more feedback. Perhaps I'm very familiar with Plato's cave. I can tell the Topic Explorer to Give me topic about The Giver, comparing it to Plato's Cave, and then click "Update results."

Once you've refined your topic into something you want to explore, select it and click "Start writing."

"Topics" exist as notes. When you "Add a topic" the topic will be pinned to the top of your Outline panel.

Clicking on the three dot menu of the pinned topic will give you some options

You can swap the current pinned topic with another topic you saved for later.

Open up the "Notes" toolbar to access your saved topics. When you hover over the note card, you'll see an icon appear to "Swap topic." Click it to swap the current pinned topic with this one.

You can also pin and unpin a topic from the note card in the Notes toolbar.

Once you have a topic that interests you and compels you to write, you'll then want to: