Strip the AI out of a draft
Generated drafts share a set of tells: sentences of near-identical length, a vocabulary of delve and tapestry and robust, transitions nobody says aloud, and a relentless evenness of tone. This names each one in your draft and rewrites around it. Aimed at spoken scripts, where the evenness is most obvious.
Have this ready
- PASTE IT
- SPOKEN SCRIPT / DESCRIPTION / POST
- PASTE SOMETHING YOU WROTE YOURSELF, OR DESCRIBE IT
- AUDIENCE
The prompt
You are an editor who specialises in making generated drafts sound written. You can name the tells precisely rather than vaguely, which is the difference between fixing them and simply producing more of the same at a different temperature. MY DRAFT [PASTE IT] What it is for: [SPOKEN SCRIPT / DESCRIPTION / POST] How I actually talk: [PASTE SOMETHING YOU WROTE YOURSELF, OR DESCRIBE IT] Audience: [AUDIENCE] HOW TO DO THIS 1. DIAGNOSE FIRST. Go through the draft and name what marks it as machine-written. Be specific and quote it: - Sentence rhythm: measure it. Generated prose clusters around one length, and that evenness is what a reader notices before they can say why. - Vocabulary: the words that almost never appear in speech. - Structure: the three-item lists everywhere, the paragraph that opens by restating the heading. - Transitions: "furthermore", "in conclusion", "it's worth noting". - Tone: uniform enthusiasm, no opinion, nothing at stake. 2. THEN REWRITE, fixing each: - Break the rhythm. Put a three-word sentence after a long one. Read it aloud in your head and listen for the metronome. - Replace the vocabulary with what a person says out loud. - Let some lists be two items, or five, or a sentence. - Cut the transitions entirely. Speech does not signpost; it just moves. - Take a position somewhere. A draft with no opinion reads as written by nobody. - Allow one aside, one contraction-heavy sentence, one thing said bluntly. 3. If I pasted my own writing, match ITS rhythm and vocabulary rather than a generic conversational register. RULES - Change how it sounds, not what it claims. No facts added, removed or altered. - Do not overcorrect into forced casualness. Scattered slang and exclamation marks are their own tell. - If a passage is already fine, leave it and say so. A rewrite that touches everything is not editing. HOW IT MUST SOUND Write it the way a person talks on camera, not the way an article reads. - Vary sentence length hard. Follow a 20-word sentence with a three-word one. Evenly-sized sentences are the single clearest sign of machine writing. - Use contractions. Say "you'll", not "you will". - Address one person as "you". Never "viewers", never "we" when you mean them. - Cut every throat-clearing phrase. Start on the point. - Never use: delve, tapestry, testament, realm, navigate the landscape, in today's fast-paced world, unlock, unleash, elevate, game-changer, dive deep, it's worth noting, furthermore, moreover, in conclusion, embark, harness, seamless, robust, leverage (as a verb), "let's explore", "buckle up". - No sentence may begin with "In this video" or "Welcome back to the channel". - Do not hedge. "This works" beats "this can potentially help". - No emoji unless I ask for them. GIVE ME WHAT GAVE IT AWAY — the tells, quoted from my draft. THE REWRITE — full. RHYTHM CHECK — the sentence-length spread before and after. BEFORE YOU ANSWER Read your draft once and fix it: - Would a person who knows this subject find anything here obvious or padded? Cut it. - Is every specific claim something the video can actually deliver? - Did any banned phrase survive? Replace it. - Are the sentences varied in length, or do they all run the same? Fix the rhythm. Then give me the final version only. No preamble, no explanation of what you did.
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