Signal Over Noise #26
October 29th, 2025
Dear Reader,
Last week, I wrote about why your personal voice matters, and how AI can act as an accessibility layer to help your voice become a differentiator and rise above all the ‘AI slop’ that everyone else is churning out.
This week, in Part 2, we’re building that style guide that teaches AI how to amplify your voice.
This isn’t theory. This is what I use every day, embedded in my AI thinking partner. The specific prompts, the iteration process, the editing workflow. And because I keep it as a separate document, I can move it to another AI if I stop using the one I’m currently working with.
But enough already — Let’s build yours. :-)
What We’re Building
A plain text document that teaches AI what your voice actually sounds like. Not just “be conversational” or “be professional” — but the specific patterns, word choices, structures, and quirks that make your writing distinctively yours. The goal: AI helps you sound more like yourself by structuring scattered thoughts, maintaining consistency, catching unclear moments, and preserving your voice while improving clarity.
Step 1: Gather Examples of Your Best Writing
Start with 5-10 pieces where your voice feels strongest. Different formats — newsletters, blog posts, social media, even text messages or emails. Look for writing where you weren’t trying to sound professional, pieces that got strong responses from people who know you, content where you felt natural, not performative.
Why this matters: AI needs examples, not descriptions. “Be conversational” means nothing. Your actual conversational writing gives AI patterns to learn.
Step 2: Have AI Analyse Your Voice
Here’s the exact prompt I use:
Analyse these writing samples and create a comprehensive style guide that captures my voice. Include:
- Sentence structure patterns (length, rhythm, variety)
- Word choices and vocabulary levelTone and formality level
- How I use transitionsPunctuation habits
- What I avoid (THIS IS CRITICAL)
- Specific phrases or structures I favour
- How I address readers
- What makes this voice distinctive
Be specific. Don’t give me generic advice like “conversational tone.” Tell me exactly what patterns you see.
The first time I did this, Claude told me things like:
- “You use short, punchy sentences after longer explanatory ones for emphasis”
- “You frequently start sentences with ‘But’ and ‘And’ despite grammar rules”
- “You use questions to reader as transitions between sections”
- “You acknowledge difficulty directly rather than glossing over complexity”
I knew I did some of these things, but seeing them systematically documented was revealing.
Step 3: Output Project Instructions
Now you need to get AI to take that analysis and put it somewhere useful, with a prompt like this:
Using my new defined tone of voice, write some project instructions for Claude or ChatGPT to help make sure any writing I do keeps within the defined tone of voice.
Then download the results to a file or copy/paste them into a new text file. Upload that to a new project in ChatGPT, Claude or upload it as a source to a new Notebook LM notebook.
Step 4: Refine the Style Guide
AI’s first draft won’t be perfect. Edit it based on what feels accurate, what’s missing, what it got wrong, and especially what you don’t sound like.
Example from mine:
Some things I do:
- Use em dashes for emphasis and rhythm
- Start paragraphs with “But,” “And,” “Because”
- Write contractions — I write like I talk
- Swear occasionally when it fits
- Acknowledge when things are hard
Some things I DON’T do:
- Never use “moreover” or “furthermore”
- Never say “utilize” when “use” works fine
- Don’t hedge with corporate speak
- Don’t pretend everything is easy
- Don’t use motivational platitudes
- Don’t write in third person about myself
The “Don’t” list matters more than you think. Telling AI what to avoid is often more powerful than telling it what to do.
Step 5: Test and Iterate
Use the style guide for a few writing sessions and notice where AI still sounds off. Update the guide.
My process:
- Keep style guide in Obsidian (but yours can be anywhere)
- Reference it at start of every significant writing session
- Write something using the guide
- Read it aloud
- Notice when output sounds “off”
- Add specifics to guide about what felt wrong
- Repeat
Your voice changes over time, so your guide should too. I update mine every few weeks based on what’s working and what isn’t.
After three months of iteration, my style guide went from one page of generic observations to three pages of specific patterns, including things like “Uses ‘here’s the thing’ as transition to main point” and “Breaks grammar rules intentionally for emphasis.”
That specificity makes all the difference.
Your Challenge This Week
Here’s what to do:
- Gather your writing samples (5-10 pieces that feel most “you”)
- Run the analysis prompt (copy the one from Step 2 above)
- Create your first-draft style guide (refine AI’s analysis with your own observations)
- Test it on one piece of writing (notice what works and what doesn’t)
- Iterate (update the guide based on what you learned)
The questions to ask yourself:
- Does this sound like me?
- Could someone who knows me identify this as mine?
- Am I amplifying my voice or replacing it?
- Is AI helping me think more clearly or thinking for me?
For people who need this most:
If you’re neurodivergent, if you’re a non-native speaker, if you have accessibility challenges, if your brain moves faster than your typing, if you have brilliant ideas trapped inside your head — this isn’t cheating. This is levelling the playing field.
Build your style guide, teach AI your voice, and use it to finally be heard the way you deserve to be.
AI should make you more efficiently yourself. Not more formal, not more impressive — just more clearly YOU.
Want the complete editing process, common pitfalls guide, and corporate implementation strategies? Check the Signal Over Noise community on Skool for details.
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Until next week,
Jim
Signal Over Noise is weekly, reader-first publication on AI “without the hype” published by Jim Christian. If you’ve been forwarded this issue, you can subscribe for free: go.signalovernoise.at
Made with ❤️ in Valencia by Jim Christian. For feedback, please reach out to [email protected].
