If you haven’t yet given much thought to the AI-powered content revolution, the time has come. What started as a cool but somewhat clunky ability – which seems like only a few months ago – is now a full speed ahead productivity tool that is making content generation easier for writers of all skill levels.
Canva – the design platform that is no stranger to disruption – is one of the latest to join the movement, rolling out Canva Docs, and recently giving it a big boost with the power Magic Write.
What is Magic Write?
Magic Write is your own AI text generator to “help you get out a first draft, fast.” With a simple prompt, Magic Write can pump out anything from social media captions to blog post outlines, and can even flesh out the details of that same blog post to help you arrive at an initial deliverable.
How to Use Magic Write
First of all, Magic Write is free for the first 25 queries (more on queries below) but anything beyond that requires a Canva Pro subscription—it’s only $12.99 a month, and I’ve already detailed all the benefits that make that spend worth it…and that was before Magic Write! Not to mention that there is a 30-day free trial for you to give it a shot.
Anyway, while many are rushing to use AI-powered tools with the goal of moving from the first step to the last in the click of a button, there is so much more to know and to be utilized.
Meaning, can a tool like Magic Write create an entire blog post in minutes? It sure can. But, if you can accomplish such a feat with Magic Write’s help, so can others.
So, to keep your content ahead of the curve, it’s my opinion that Magic Write can elevate every step in the content generation process, leading to a much greater product in the end.
Kick Off a New Project
I blog a lot, and many times I’m lucky to just have the words come to me. But it’s those other instances where I don’t even know where to start that make me question what I’m doing with my free time. It’s a terrible, extinguishing feeling.
This is where the value with a tool like Magic Write begins, and helps get someone like me back into the right frame of mind. With Magic Write, if you don’t have the word or the perfect words, it’s OK; all you need is the idea. From there, once you plug that concept into Magic Write as the initial prompt you’re off to the races.
For example, let’s say you’ve caught soccer fever from this year’s FIFA World Cup and want to write something along the lines of becoming a soccer superfan.
To “kick” things off (pun intended) open a new Canva Doc, click the “+” sign and then select “Magic Write.” Simply add a prompt like “how to become a soccer superfan,” hit enter, and wait a few seconds:
And by a few seconds, I mean literally a few seconds. In this example, you can see below where I’m met with “9 things you can do in order to kick off a superfan journey:
Not bad, right?
The better news is that this is the tip of the iceberg, and there is so much more than can be accomplished with simple instruction.
Flesh Things Out
Now that I have a bit of an outline, where to next? From these 9 ideas I’m now inspired to write, and have more than a few light bulbs going off. Of course, though, to produce an informative piece of content on any subject, I’m going to have to provide more than just a simple list of things people can do to become a soccer superfan.
So, I can just start going down the list, asking myself what else someone would need to know for each of these different outline points in order to make the most of them.
Idea number one is “Watch as many games as you can – whether in person or on TV.”
That’s great, but how!?
Let’s start with that “in-person” piece—If I’m located in Orange County, California, what are my options?
So, back to Magic Write I go, clicking the “+” sign again and then adding a prompt along the lines of:
“Write two paragraphs about the options someone has if they want to watch professional soccer in-person around Orange County, California.”
In this case, I purposely wrote the prompt a little clunkier and conversationally to see how Magic Write would handle it.
The result:
Again, voila!
Two paragraphs? Check! Different options where I can watch soccer in-person around Orange County? Check!
Verify, Polish & Complete
So far, everything looks and is great—and in very little time! But I do want to pause and revisit my note above about still putting in the effort to make sure your content is as great and unique as possible.
Think of it like this—if Magic Write saves me an hour when creating a finished blog post, I’d personally use some of that time savings to tinker and add, and in this case, verify facts, polish the text to truly make it my own, and then complete it.
So, while I love the headstart Magic Write is giving me, I still want to take the time to add my own personal words and anecdotes, and to still make sure the finished piece I’m providing to my audience is the best as it can possibly be (and unique to me).
Going back to my example project, let’s take a look at a few things.
Ask And You Shall Receive
With my example prompt, you can see I asked for two paragraphs and received two paragraphs! And not that you’ll always receive what is asked for, but if you need something specific, whether it’s a bulleted or numbered list, or over 100 words of text that starts with a famous quote, etc., let Magic Write know.
Be Specific
Second, you also want to be specific in terms of the content you’re needing to be fulfilled. For example, if I were to say something like “where can I watch live soccer” which is a similar prompt to the one I used, I would have received dramatically different results, probably around watching soccer on TV or at the Youth Complex, etc.
So, because I wanted to keep the content specific to pro soccer, I let it be known with descriptors like “professional soccer” and “in-person.”.
Start Broad & Fine-Tune
Last, when it comes to polishing, a useful exercise is using Magic Write to refine the content it has already created.
For example, going back to the paragraphs Magic Write created above, while I’m happy with the information, I’d like the tone to be a bit more conversational.
How to do it? Just ask:
”Can you rewrite this text to be more conversational?”
The result:
Want to have a little more fun with it? Go wild! Ask Magic Write to create the same content, but in the voice of a play-by-play announcer, and with a soccer pun at the end:
Prompt: “can you rewrite this in the voice of a play-by-play announcer? can you also mention bright sunshine while adding a hilarious soccer pun at the end?”
Result:
Not bad, right? In these cases, though, you can tell that the quality might decrease a bit in order for Magic Write to accommodate your requests.
The beauty is, you can keep refining for as long as you’d like.
I’m going to pass this through one more time, now asking to not be so repetitive…and much better!
In conclusion, Magic Write in Canva Docs is a valuable resource for anyone looking to jumpstart their creative process. No matter where you are in the writing process, using simple prompts, refinement, and adding your own personal touch can help you pull a rabbit out of what seemed like an empty hat.
