1. Start with the words you never want to see

Every writer has a list of words that make them wince, and AI tools love all of them. Mine started with the usual suspects: “delve,” “tapestry,” “in today’s fast-paced world,” “moreover,” “furthermore,” and “it’s important to note that.” Every AI draft I ever received had at least two of them in the first paragraph.

So the first section of my style guide is a banned list. Not a vague “avoid clichés” — an actual list, with the replacement next to each one:

• “delve into” → “look at,” “check,” “test”
• “in today’s fast-paced world” → the actual situation: “In a week with three deadlines…”
• “moreover / furthermore / additionally” → just start the sentence
• “it’s important to note that” → delete it; the sentence works without it
• “landscape,” “realm,” “tapestry” → the actual thing you’re describing

Here’s the part that surprised me: the banned list does more than clean up the output. It teaches the tool something about taste. When I paste the list into a prompt, the drafts come back noticeably tighter even in places the list doesn’t cover, because the tool has a concrete sense of what I consider lazy writing. A banned list is the fastest way to say “this is not my voice” in a language a model can act on.

2. Describe your voice in verbs, not adjectives

My first attempt at a style guide said my voice was “direct, warm, and practical.” The AI read that and produced drafts that were direct, warm, and practical — in the way a hotel welcome letter is direct, warm, and practical. Adjectives are too slippery. Every writer thinks they’re direct. Almost none of them agree on what direct means.

So I rewrote the voice section as things I do, with examples:

• I open with a specific moment or number, not a general claim. (“I spent three hours on a 120-word page.” Not “Writing landing pages is hard.”)
• I use contractions. Always. “Don’t,” not “do not.”
• I use short sentences for emphasis. One or two words, sometimes. Like this.
• I give the reader a concrete detail per section: a number, a name, a time, a place.
• I end sections with the takeaway, not a summary of the summary.

That version works, because a model can copy a behaviour. It can’t copy “warm.” Give it the moves, not the mood. If you’re not sure what your moves are, read your last three pieces and circle the sentences that sound most like you. The patterns in those sentences are your voice section.

3. Add before-and-after examples

This is the part most style guides skip, and it’s the part that matters most. A rule tells the tool what to do; an example shows it what the result looks like. My guide carries three pairs, and they’re the most-thumbed part of the whole document:

Before: “In today’s competitive digital landscape, it is essential for content creators to leverage AI tools in order to streamline their workflows.”

After: “AI drafts save me about two hours a week. Here’s the workflow.”

Before: “Furthermore, the utilisation of automated systems can significantly enhance productivity.”

After: “The tool does the boring half. I do the thinking half.”

Before: “This article will delve into the various strategies one might employ.”

After: “Here’s what actually worked, in order.”

Three pairs, each one showing the same move: cut the fog, keep the fact. When I paste these into a prompt, the model’s next draft shifts toward the “after” versions without me having to explain why. Examples are the closest thing to a demonstration you can give a tool that only reads text.

4. Keep it to one page

A style guide that nobody reads is a diary entry. Mine fits on one page — about 400 words, five short sections:

1. Voice in three lines. The moves, not the adjectives.
2. Banned words. The list, with replacements.
3. Sentence rules. Short sentences, contractions, one concrete detail per section.
4. Examples. Three before-and-after pairs.
5. Format rules. How long paragraphs run, when to use a list, what a heading sounds like.

That’s it. Anything longer and the tool starts ignoring the middle of it — models are like people that way; they remember the start and the end and skim the rest. If your guide needs a second page, your guide needs an editor. Cut it until it fits.

5. Feed it to the tool the same way every time

A style guide only works if it actually reaches the tool, and “reaches the tool” means pasted into the conversation, not saved in a folder somewhere. I keep mine as a single text block and use it in three places:

• Pasted at the top of the prompt for one-off drafts. It adds about thirty seconds and saves about thirty minutes of editing.
• In the custom instructions of the tool I use most, so every new chat starts with it. This is the highest-leverage spot — set it once and stop thinking about it.
• As a project file in tools that support one, so long pieces like guides and case studies get the full guide without me pasting it each time.

One warning: don’t paste the guide and then also write a paragraph of extra instructions that contradict it. If your prompt says “make it punchy and bold” while the guide says “plain and direct,” the tool has to guess which one you mean, and it will guess wrong. The guide is the instruction. The prompt is just the topic.

6. Test it with three drafts

Don’t trust a style guide until you’ve watched it survive contact with a real draft. My test is simple: I run three different topics through the tool with the guide attached, and I read the results looking for three things:

• Did the banned words stay out? If one slipped through, the list needs to be shorter or the replacement clearer.
• Does it sound like me on a good day? If it sounds like a press release, the voice section needs an example, not another adjective.
• Did I have to rewrite more than a third of it? If yes, the guide is describing the writer I wish I was, not the writer I am. Rewrite the guide to match your actual sentences, not your aspirations.

After the test, I update the guide. It takes five minutes and I do it whenever a bad draft shows me a gap — a word I hadn’t banned yet, a habit I hadn’t named. A style guide is a living document, but only if you treat it like one. Mine has been edited eleven times this year. Each edit made the next draft better.

The honest truth

A style guide won’t make an AI tool write like you. Nothing will, completely — your voice lives in the choices you make while editing, and no document can hand those over. But a good guide moves the draft from “a stranger wrote this” to “a decent first attempt by someone who knows my habits.” That’s a smaller edit, a faster publish, and a draft you can actually work with instead of fighting.

The real payoff is subtler, though. Writing the guide forced me to answer a question I’d been dodging for years: what do I actually sound like? I had to read my own work, name my own moves, and admit which habits were mine and which were just filler I’d picked up. The AI drafts got better. So did my own writing. The guide was supposed to teach the tool. It ended up teaching me.

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