Make AI Writing Sound Like You: A Voice Worksheet

Where to start

Give AI examples of your own writing and explain what you want preserved. ‘Make it human’ is too vague to guide a useful edit. Voice includes the details you notice, how directly you address a reader, your level of certainty and the rhythm of your explanations.

Choose samples representative of the book rather than a casual message if the book is formal. Do not ask a model to infer your life story from style samples; supply any personal experiences you want included and prohibit invented anecdotes.

Create a small voice guide

• Select two or three passages you wrote and still like. Remove private information that is irrelevant to the task.
• Describe sentence rhythm, preferred vocabulary, humor, reader address and how you express uncertainty.
• List recurring phrases or rhetorical habits you want to avoid, with examples.
• Request a revision of one paragraph and compare meaning, specificity and tone before applying the guide across a chapter.

Replace a vague instruction

Weak: ‘Make this more engaging.’ Better: ‘Keep the practical, understated tone of my sample. Use concrete objects and actions. Keep my first-person account exactly as supplied. Do not add a triumphant conclusion, rhetorical questions or claims of certainty where I wrote “may.”’

Original: ‘I tried three pots before finding one that fit the railing.’ A revision about an ‘inspiring journey of transformation’ loses both the object and the experience. Preserve the pot and railing; improve only the awkward wording around them.

Check your result

• The revision still says what you meant.
• No experience, credential or quotation has been invented.
• A whole chapter sounds coherent without making every paragraph the same length.