How to Make Claude Write Like You
Teach Claude once. Never repeat yourself again
Hi!
I have a quick question. Please take a second to answer, it’ll help me plan future content :)
Many of you know me from Medium.com. I started writing there in 2021, grew to 149k followers, and used that to build this Substack and two YouTube channels (around 50k subscribers each). So I have a lot of experience in writing and AI.
I’m thinking about sharing these two things with you:
My complete Claude writing system: All the files to make Claude write like you in posts, emails, reports, presentations, etc. No guides or tutorials. You just download it and start using it right away.
Guides on using AI for writing: How to use my Claude system to write more without sacrificing quality, repurpose content into other formats, etc. Plus everything I’ve learned in these 5 years as a writer to build an audience and make money.
Reply to this email or leave a comment: are you interested in 1, 2, both, or none? I’ll read every single reply. Thanks in advance!
You can think of today’s post like a mix of 1 & 2. Hope you like it!
In 2023, many people were against AI writing.
In 2026, many writers are using AI.
Some writers I follow have admitted they use AI for writing. Others haven’t mentioned it publicly, but they’ve suspiciously increased the number of posts they publish per week over the past few years.
Heck, Substack’s top newsletter in education is called “Write with AI.“
I’m not against AI.
I’m against using AI for bad writing.
If you use AI to enhance your writing and produce high-quality work more frequently, your readers will be happy.
The problem is that most people use AI to produce bad writing.
The fix isn’t a better prompt. It’s a file.
One file that teaches AI exactly how you write, what you never say, and what makes your writing yours. You create it once. You reuse it every time.
In this guide, you will:
Learn why most produce AI slop
Get the exact prompt that captures your writing voice in a single file
Learn why and how to use this file in Claude
Download my personal writing-voice file as a working example
Why most produce AI slop
Since ChatGPT’s release, we’ve been obsessed with the em-dash and a few words that make your writing sound AI.
Here’s my (ironic) response to this:
and this
My advice: Don’t mind AI words.
It’s fine if you have a few AI words in your vocabulary.
What’s not fine is to produce content under your name that doesn’t sound like you.
By default, AI doesn’t know your voice. It doesn’t know you hate the word “utilize.” It doesn’t know you always open with a personal story, or that you’d never use a semicolon in a million years.
So it defaults to the safest, most average version of whatever you asked for.
That’s not AI’s fault. You gave it a vague instruction in your prompts and expected a specific result.
The file that fixes this
The fix is an .md file (a simple text file with some formatting). The one we’ll create contains everything Claude needs to write like you.
Not “write well.” Write like you.
Here’s a summary of what goes in it:
Words and phrases you’d never use
Sentence patterns you default to
How you open and close pieces
Your formatting instincts (short paragraphs? lists?)
What your writing sounds like at its best
Writers you admire and what you’d steal from each one
Positions you’d never take
and more!
The insight that makes this work: most of a good voice profile is about what you reject. Not “I like direct writing,” but “I’d never use semicolons because they make my writing sound like a college essay.”
That’s the kind of specificity Claude can actually use.
How to create your voice file
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