@cstross
That's *exactly* the strategy I use for revising for exams. Helping someone else to revise does all those things for me, and helps me prepare 47 different "essay plans" too, for likely questions.

@cstross I think there are quite distinct stages in this process. My father, who was a writer, always said ‘Don’t talk it out’, meaning that at the very birth of an idea, you need to let it marinate internally to build up a head of creative steam to follow through with it, which can be dissipated by talking about it too early. But once you have the premise set, having to verbalise a coherent outline really does help to identify flawas.