How to Write With AI Without Losing Your Voice

Decide what the piece must do first

Before you ask for any prose, decide four things: who the reader is, the point, the evidence, and the action you want the reader to take. Write a one-sentence promise for the piece and list the two or three ideas it needs to deliver that promise.

That sentence becomes the test for every paragraph. If a paragraph doesn't serve it, it goes, however good it sounds.

Ask AI to diagnose, not rewrite

A useful writing partner helps you see your draft, not replace it. Ask AI where the logic jumps, which claims need support, what a skeptical reader would question, and which passages repeat the same idea. Then decide for yourself which criticism is valid. Some of it won't be.

Here's a prompt you can paste in with your draft:

Don't rewrite this. Tell me where the logic jumps, which claims need support, what a skeptical reader would question, and which passages repeat the same idea. Quote the sentence each time.

Rewrites are easy to ask for. Diagnosis is more useful, because it leaves the sentences, and the decisions, with you.

Compare several structures, then choose

When you do want alternatives, ask for several: three openings, two orders for the sections, a few ways to make one transition. Then compare them and pick or combine.

Choosing between options keeps you in charge of the argument. Accepting the first smooth answer hands that job to the tool.

Put your own language back in

Read the draft aloud. Mark every generic transition, inflated claim and phrase you'd never say out loud, and replace it. Then add the details only you know: the observation, example, tension or constraint that made the piece worth writing in the first place.

That last pass is where the draft becomes yours. Don't skip it.

Keep a short voice guide

A voice guide is a short note with your preferred words, your sentence rhythm, phrases to avoid, and examples of your own writing that sound like you. Keep it to a page. Paste it in when you ask AI for critique, and check your final pass against it so the draft still sounds like the person who wrote it.

The aim isn't to hide that a tool helped. The aim is to publish something accurate, intentional and recognizably yours.

This guide covers drafting. Once the draft is done, editing is a separate job with its own checklist.

Keep going

• How to Edit Your Own Writing: A Practical Revision Checklist, for the finished draft.
• Precision Editing Kit ($24), if you want the editing workflow as a kit.
• All Kit & File guides