Building Your Voice
How to diagnose a draft that sounds wrong and fix it in the voice document
Your voice document is read fresh on every drafting run, so it is the one lever that changes every future draft at once. This page is about the loop: read a draft, name what is off, write the fix into the document.
For what the document is and where it lives, see Your Voice.
The loop
- A draft arrives.
- You notice something that is not you.
- You add one plain sentence to the voice document that says what you want instead.
- Save. The next run uses it.
The AI does not learn from approved posts. Only the voice document and the notes shape a draft, so the fix has to be written down.
Diagnosing a mismatch
| It reads as | Add to the voice document |
|---|---|
| Too formal | "I write conversationally, with contractions." |
| Too casual | "Plain and professional; no jokes." |
| Too long | "Short posts. One finished thing is a complete post." |
| Too shallow | "Go into the detail; include the part numbers and the reasoning." |
| Generic | A belief: "I am skeptical of 'just recap it' advice and say so." |
| Wrong reader | "Written for owners who can read a schematic." |
| Wrong structure | "Start with what was wrong, then what fixed it, then what it cost." |
Edit or reject?
- Edit the draft for a one-off: a sentence, a title, a paragraph that runs long.
- Reject and update the voice document for a pattern. Give a one-line reason; the next run sees it along with the returned notes.
Keep the house rules
The seeded document ends with a short set of rules: first person, specific over vague, never invent a fact, short posts are fine, no hype. They are there because they work. Change them if you must, but do not delete "never invent a fact."
When not to touch it
- After one odd draft. It may be the note.
- For a single word choice. Edit the draft.
Next: Content Planning