Most AI writing sounds the same.
"In today's fast-paced world." "Let's dive in." "It's not just X, it's Y." Three bullet points, an emoji, and a question at the end.
That's not because AI can't write well. It's because it doesn't know how you write. With no examples, it falls back on the average of everything it has read, and the average sounds like nobody.
The fix isn't a better one-line prompt. It's a voice profile: a short, reusable description of how you write, built from your own samples. You make it once, in about 20 minutes, and use it every time.
Step 1: Collect 3–5 samples of your best writing
Pick writing that already sounds like you at your best:
- Emails to clients or customers that got a good response
- LinkedIn posts or newsletters people commented on
- A page from your website you're proud of
- A voice memo transcript, if you talk better than you write
Aim for 500–1,500 words total. Mix formats if you can. One email, one post, and one longer piece teaches more than five of the same thing.
Skip anything you wrote in a rush, anything heavily edited by someone else, and anything AI already helped write. You want your patterns, not a blend.
Step 2: Let AI extract your voice
Paste your samples into Claude or ChatGPT with this prompt:
Here are samples of my writing. Analyze my voice and write a voice
profile I can reuse. Cover:
1. Tone (e.g. direct, warm, playful, formal)
2. Sentence style (length, rhythm, how I open and close)
3. Words and phrases I use often
4. Words and phrases I never use
5. How I explain things (examples, stories, numbers, analogies)
6. Formatting habits (bullets, headers, emoji, paragraph length)
Be specific. Quote my samples where it helps. Keep it under 300 words.
[paste samples here]
The output is the first draft of your profile. It's usually 70% right.
Step 3: Edit the profile yourself
This is the step most people skip, and it's the one that makes the difference. Read the profile and fix what's off. Add the rules only you know:
- Banned words: the phrases that make you cringe ("leverage," "game-changer," "delve," "unlock")
- Things you always do: "I open with the problem, not the solution." "I use real numbers."
- Things you never do: "No exclamation points." "No questions at the end of posts."
- Your audience: who you're usually writing to, and what they already know
A good profile reads like instructions you'd give a new assistant on their first day. Short, specific, and a little opinionated.
Step 4: Use it every time, without retyping it
A voice profile only works if it's always there. Save it somewhere the AI sees automatically:
- Claude: create a Project and paste the profile into the project instructions
- ChatGPT: add it to Custom Instructions, or build a custom GPT for writing
- Anywhere else: keep it in a note and paste it at the top of every writing request
Then ask for drafts the normal way: "Write a LinkedIn post about the client intake workflow we built." The profile does the rest.
What the difference looks like
Same request, "write a short post about why small businesses should automate client intake":
Without a voice profile:
In today's fast-paced business landscape, client intake can be a game-changer! 🚀 By leveraging AI-powered automation, small businesses can unlock efficiency, streamline operations, and delight customers. Ready to take your business to the next level?
With a voice profile (direct, plain words, concrete, no hype):
A new inquiry that sits in your inbox for a day is a lead going cold. Not because the offer is wrong, but because nobody answered yet. An intake workflow fixes that: the form comes in, AI summarizes it, and you get a clean next step in Slack before you've finished your coffee.
The second one isn't magic. The AI just had instructions.
Step 5: Fix drift with feedback, not rewrites
AI will still miss sometimes. When it does, don't just rewrite the draft. Tell it what was wrong:
Too formal. Shorter sentences. Cut the last paragraph.
Never use "streamline."
When the same fix comes up twice, add it to your voice profile. After a few weeks, the profile gets sharp enough that most drafts need only light edits.
What not to hand to AI
A voice profile makes drafts sound like you. It doesn't give them your opinions or your stories.
Keep these yours:
- Your point of view. Decide what you think before you ask for a draft.
- Real stories and specifics. Client situations, numbers, mistakes you made. AI can't invent these honestly.
- The final read. Always read it out loud before it goes out. If you wouldn't say it, change it.
AI is great at turning your thinking into a clean first draft. It is not a replacement for having something to say.
Where this fits
A voice profile is one example of a bigger idea: prompt systems instead of one-off prompts. You build the instructions once and reuse them, so the output is consistent every time. It's the same move behind AI workflows, and it's how you get real leverage from the thinking tool in your AI stack.
Want the guided version?
Prompt systems are Phase 2 of Monarc University: building reusable prompts for content, operations, and client work, then connecting them into real workflows and a shipped capstone project. The founding cohort opens in early 2027.