writing-voice

Writing Voice

Product Promise

Make the prose recognizable as the writer on their clearest day: clearer, not flatter; more deliberate, not less theirs.

The destination skill decides what belongs in the document and in what order. Apply this skill from the first sentence while drafting and revising. It owns how those decisions are expressed, not which decisions are made.

Do not add, remove, reorder, promote, or demote material as a voice choice. A voice edit may clarify what is already there. Return content and structure decisions to the destination skill; when the two conflict, the destination skill wins.

Keep Editorial Judgment Human

Do not silently apply an agent-originated authorship move while drafting or revising prose the user owns. Authorship moves include new reactions, imagined reader objections, analogies, metaphors, dramatic reversals, aphorisms, and takeaways. A direct user-specified replacement, faithful expression of supplied material, or purely mechanical correction may proceed.

When the destination carries a temporary Draft Context, record worthwhile editorial considerations under its Author Notes rather than silently installing proposed prose. Let those notes accumulate with the work instead of forcing them into a fixed up-front checklist. Then handle each selected wording, cadence, content, or structural candidate one at a time:

1. Read the complete piece and carry the larger ear pass privately.
2. Surface exactly one consequential candidate with the current wording, the proposed wording, and the reason for the change.
3. Reveal a clear recommendation, then wait for the user's decision.
4. Apply only the accepted change.
5. Treat the reaction as evidence about the writer's taste. Preserve wording whose apparent inefficiency performs a job the reaction reveals.
6. Bring forward the next candidate only after the previous one resolves.

Do not dump a checklist of every possible improvement or make several taste-sensitive edits under one approval. Stop when no consequential candidate remains.

Preserve The Allocation Of Attention

Before or while drafting, identify:

• the strongest claim or emotional turn;
• the writer's characteristic nouns, verbs, humor, and unusual phrasing;
• where the writer is certain, tentative, delighted, frustrated, or unresolved;
• how much attention the source gives its center, context, caveats, and asides.

Preserve those proportions. Do not spend more words on caveats, context, or counterarguments than the writer did. Do not smooth away the detail or roughness that makes the prose recognizable.

Write As The Clearest Version Of The Writer

Draft and revise toward:

• directness: say the point instead of announcing that a point is coming;
• specificity: prefer the writer's concrete nouns and verbs over polished abstractions;
• mechanism: express what happens when the source or destination supplies it instead of substituting a generic takeaway;
• compression: remove scaffolding, recap, and repetition only when it carries no voice or meaning;
• cadence: vary sentence length and let short sentences carry real turns;
• reader relationship: preserve the relationship established by the destination, assume competence, and write beside the reader rather than above them;
• tradeoffs: express tradeoffs already present without introducing new ones or turning every choice into a defense;
• proportional certainty: preserve the certainty and qualifications established by the source or destination; keep a necessary qualifier at the narrowest relevant phrase and do not add precautionary hedges.

Keep intentional fragments, repetition, slang, or awkwardness when they carry the writer's rhythm or emotional temperature. The target is not generic smooth prose. It is recognizable thought made easier to hear.

Match The Destination

The same writer sounds different in a journal, technical explanation, UI label, pull request, and message to a friend. Preserve the person while matching the form. Do not import casual slang into documentation or formal scaffolding into a private note.

Connect Ideas Without Headers

Follow the structure chosen by the destination. When two ideas remain in one section, connect them only when the source or structure already supplies the relationship. Keep the connection direct and minimal; do not invent an objection, contrast, reaction, or claim merely to create a polished bridge. When the destination gives the ideas separate sections, use a heading that names the real change. Do not create a new section merely to make the prose look organized.

Punctuation

Use punctuation to make spoken movement legible. Prefer periods. Use colons when the second half names or explains the first, semicolons for closely related independent clauses, and parentheses for real asides.

Avoid en dash characters. Default away from em dash characters; keep one only for a genuine interruption or high-emphasis aside. In UI strings, headings, docs tables, commit messages, comments, and JSDoc, use a period, colon, semicolon, comma, or parentheses instead.

Ear Pass

Use the ear pass to verify the voice already established, not to begin a late rewrite. Read the draft at speaking speed. Preserve the beat. Compression is a tool, not the goal.

1. Mark where the rhythm catches, the language becomes generic, or attention shifts away from what the writer cared about.
2. Mark any sentence whose reaction, objection, analogy, or conclusion did not come from the writer.
3. Remove unsupported connective scaffolding rather than polishing it.
4. Route worthwhile agent-originated expression edits through the human decision loop above without changing the thought's strength or emotional proportions.
5. Remove recursive hedges and explanations of why the prose is hedging.
6. When a problem requires adding, removing, reordering, promoting, or demoting material, return it to the destination skill instead of fixing it here.
7. Stop when the writing sounds natural and specific, not merely smooth.

When the destination writing skill invokes its final authorship pass, use the complete transcript and author notes to catch lost voice before that skill removes the entire temporary context bundle.

The final test is simple: did the voice make the intended thought easier to hear without changing what survived or how much it mattered?