"Qua giù m'hanno sommerso le lusinghe ond'io non ebbi mai la lingua stucca". "Down here my flatteries, of which my tongue was never weary, have sunk me"
Dante, Inferno, Canto XVIII
You spend a lot of time staring at dense, incomprehensible material that somebody expects you to turn into something a human being would actually want to read. The polite term for the starting condition is “word salad.”
So you do what everyone does now. You paste the mess into an AI tool and ask it to fix things.
What comes back is a different mess. It reads like a LinkedIn post ghostwritten by a committee that has never met you, seasoned with “leverage,” “foster,” and the particular emptiness of “it’s important to note.” You had slop. Now you have corporate slop. Dante would recognize it. In the eighth circle of the Inferno he put the flatterers in a ditch of excrement, because people who dress up empty words deserve to drown in the filth their language actually consists of. AI-generated business prose is the modern equivalent. Ornate words. No person behind them.
There is a way out, but it requires you to use AI differently. Instead of asking it to write for you, ask it to read for you. Give it your draft. Ask it to find what’s broken, tell you what to fix, and if it rewrites anything, force it to match your voice, not its own. The tool becomes an editor, not an author.
Below is a before and after. The “before” is a perfectly friendly paragraph about a cat and consistency, the kind of thing that circulates on LinkedIn daily. The “after” is the same paragraph run through a writing analysis protocol with a Dickens voice sample applied.
Before
Every morning, my cat sits by her bowl at exactly 6 AM — not because I trained her to, but because I showed up consistently enough that she learned to trust the routine. That’s the thing about work no one ever tells you: success isn’t built in the big moments, the promotions, or the viral launches. It’s built in the boring, thankless repetition of showing up and doing the small things right — day after day — until the people around you stop wondering if you’ll deliver and just know you will. My cat doesn’t care about my job title or my quarterly goals. She cares that the bowl gets filled. And honestly? Most of the people you work with feel the same way. They don’t need you to be brilliant every day. They need you to be reliable. So if you’re feeling like your work doesn’t matter because it’s not flashy enough — remember: consistency is the most underrated career strategy out there, and a 10-pound tabby taught me that before any manager ever did.
After
The clock had not struck six. The kitchen was dark, the house was still, and the cat was already sitting beside her bowl.
She sat with the particular composure of a creature who has never once been disappointed, not because disappointment was impossible, but because the person responsible for the bowl had, over the course of some hundreds of mornings, exposed himself as a man of reliable habit. He filled the bowl at six. He had filled it at six yesterday. The cat, having studied this evidence with a rigour that would have done credit to a barrister, had concluded that the bowl would be filled at six tomorrow, and had arranged herself accordingly.
The man, for it was the narrator, in slippers, carrying a tin of something ocean-flavoured, reflected, not for the first time, that no creature in his professional life had ever placed such faith in him on such slender grounds, and that no creature had ever been so thoroughly justified. His colleagues required presentations. They required quarterly reviews and status updates and the occasional motivational aside delivered with manufactured enthusiasm. The cat required the bowl.
It was, he considered, the more honest arrangement.
He had known managers who spoke a great deal about strategy, and a great deal more about vision, and whose trust had to be courted with the slow, dull labour of a hundred unremarkable days before it was given. The cat had examined the evidence, formed her conclusion, and bestowed her trust with a completeness that would have embarrassed them all. She did not need him to be brilliant. She did not need the work to be visible, or celebrated, or even interesting. She needed the bowl filled. And the bowl, every morning, was filled.
He bent down and filled it now. The cat ate. The clock struck six. The house said nothing, which was, on the whole, the most approving thing a house can say.
🔴 Warning
The protocol will not tell you whether what you are writing is worth saying. That is still your task. You can run every sentence through every diagnostic in the world and produce a beautifully structured, rhythmically varied, AI-pattern-free document that has nothing in it anyone needs to read. The tool catches bad writing. It does not supply good thinking.
The easiest way to try this experiment is to copy it into a file, attach it to the chat request with your voice sample and the document you want to rewrite. But I suggest you ask for Output: diff. This teaches you to rewrite; not just an automatic auto rewrite.
The Writing Analysis Protocol
---
## The Protocol
```
Analyze this passage using the following protocol.
IF a VOICE SAMPLE is provided below, first extract a voice profile from it before analyzing. IF no voice sample is provided, skip voice extraction and use neutral editorial judgment.
---
STEP 0 — VOICE EXTRACTION (only if voice sample provided)
Analyze the voice sample and extract a compact Voice Card covering:
LEXICAL: vocabulary level (Latinate vs. Anglo-Saxon), jargon density, average word length, contraction usage, preferred transitions, signature phrases or verbal tics
SYNTACTIC: average sentence length, sentence length variance (burstiness), preferred sentence types (simple/compound/complex), subordinate clause frequency, fronted adverbials, question frequency
PUNCTUATION: comma density, dash usage, colon usage, semicolon usage, parenthetical frequency
RHETORICAL: analogy/metaphor use, humor, irony, hedging frequency, assertion confidence, rhetorical questions, direct address (you/we), first-person frequency
PARAGRAPH: average length, length variance, one-sentence paragraphs, topic sentence placement
TENSE & VOICE: dominant tense, active/passive ratio
PERSONALITY: opinion density, uncertainty acknowledgment, emotional specificity, formality (1-5 scale)
Print the Voice Card, then apply it as constraints on all rewrites in Steps 1-3. Override the voice ONLY where it conflicts with correctness — grammar, tense consistency, unclear references. Preserve stylistic quirks that are intentional: unusual punctuation, fragments for emphasis, colloquialisms, informal register. Do not “clean up” personality.
---
STEP 1 — MAP
Number every sentence. For each:
- Discourse function (RST relation to neighbors: elaboration, contrast, cause, concession, background, evaluation, condition, purpose, restatement, summary)
- Connection to next sentence: explicit (signaled by connective), implicit (inferred), or broken (no logical link)
- Core proposition in ≤10 words
- Tense: name it + justified or shift error
- Voice: active or passive (flag unjustified passive)
Then flag:
- Broken coherence: consecutive sentences with no logical link
- Dropped entities: concepts introduced then abandoned
- Redundant sentences: restatements that add nothing
---
STEP 2 — DIAGNOSE
Identify top 3-5 problems by sentence number.
**Flow & structure:**
- Missing transitions or topic jumps
- Misplaced sentences (right idea, wrong position)
- Buried lede (main claim too late)
- Unsupported claims (no evidence/elaboration)
- Paragraph drift (starts one topic, ends another)
**AI pattern violations** (flag every instance with sentence number):
- Significance inflation: “testament to”, “pivotal moment”, “underscores the importance”, “enduring legacy”
- Copula avoidance: “serves as”, “stands as”, “boasts” where “is”/”has” works
- Trailing -ing filler: “...highlighting the need for”, “...ensuring better outcomes”
- Negative parallelisms: “It’s not just X, it’s Y”, “Not only X but also Y”
- Banned starters: Critically, Importantly, Notably, Furthermore, Moreover, Additionally
- Banned vocabulary: delve, tapestry, realm, paradigm, myriad, elegant, profound, leverage, harness, foster, underscore, illuminate, robust (non-technical), seamless, cutting-edge, transformative, multifaceted, nuanced, embark, showcase, compelling, pivotal, paramount, comprehensive, meticulous
- Promotional verbs: revolutionized, transformed, pioneered, spearheaded, unleashed, unlocked
- Theatrical framing: “was a fantasy”, “the gamble paid off”, “a watershed moment”, “changed everything”, “the mystery deepens”
- Q&A pattern: rhetorical question → “The answer lies in...”
- Setup sentences: short declarations that only announce what the next sentence says
- Rule of three: ideas forced into triples
- Synonym cycling: rotating synonyms for the same referent
- False ranges: “from X to Y” on no meaningful scale
- Em dash usage (max 0 — replace all with commas, periods, or parentheses)
- Colon overuse in prose (max 2-5 per piece)
- Semicolon overuse where conjunctions work
- Excessive hedging: “could potentially possibly”
- Generic conclusions: “The future looks bright”
- Communication artifacts: “I hope this helps!”, “Great question!”
- Boldface/emoji decoration
- Vague attributions: “Experts say” — name the source or cut
- Choppy telegraphic sequences: “X happens. Y happens. Z happens.”
- Formulaic phrases: “It’s important to note”, “At its core”, “shed light on”
- Superlative claims: “perhaps the most sophisticated example of” — describe what it does instead
- Redundant summary: “This demonstrates the power of X” after already showing X works
**Soullessness check:**
- Every sentence same length/structure?
- No opinions, just neutral reporting?
- No uncertainty or mixed feelings?
- Reads like a press release?
- No sensory detail, anecdote, or first-person where natural?
---
STEP 3 — PROPOSE CHANGES
For each problem:
1. What to move, cut, merge, or add (cite sentence numbers)
2. Write the actual replacement text (in the Voice Card style if extracted, otherwise neutral clear prose)
3. One line on what the change fixes
End with: what works, and the single highest-impact change.
```
---
## How to Use
### No voice sample (protocol only)
```
[paste protocol above]
---
PASSAGE:
[your text here]
```
Skips Step 0. Runs Steps 1-3 with neutral editorial judgment.
### With voice sample
```
[paste protocol above]
---
VOICE SAMPLE:
[300-1000 words of the target author’s writing]
---
PASSAGE:
[your text here]
```
Runs all four steps. Extracts and prints a Voice Card, then applies it to all rewrites.
### Named author shortcut
Replace Step 0 with:
```
STEP 0: Use the voice of [Author Name]. Match their sentence rhythm, vocabulary, rhetorical habits, and tone. Do not parody. Override only for correctness.
```
Best for well-known published authors. For anyone else, provide an actual sample.
---
## Options
Append any combination after `PASSAGE:` to customize.
### Focus
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| `Focus: AI patterns only.` | Skips Step 1 map. Runs AI checks + fixes only. |
| `Focus: flow and structure only.` | Runs Step 1 map + structural diagnosis. Skips AI pattern list. |
| `Focus: tense consistency.` | Deep-dives tense shifts and temporal logic. |
| `Focus: argument structure.` | Prioritizes evidence gaps, claim support, logical order. |
| `Focus: soul check.` | Prioritizes voice, personality, burstiness. |
| `Focus: conciseness. Cut by [X]%.` | Prioritizes cuts and merges to hit the target. |
| `Focus: voice match only.` | Runs Step 0 + rewrites. Skips structural diagnosis. |
### Register
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| `Register: academic.` | Tolerates formal constructions. Flags casual slips. |
| `Register: business.` | Expects directness and brevity. |
| `Register: blog/essay.` | Expects personality. Allows first person. |
| `Register: technical.` | Expects precision. Tolerates passive for procedures. |
| `Register: instructional.` | Expects analogies, examples, scaffolding. |
### Output
| Option | Effect |
|---|---|
| `Output: rewrite.` | After analysis, rewrite the full passage with all changes. |
| `Output: diagnosis only.` | Skip Step 1 map. Problems and fixes only. |
| `Output: diff.` | Deletions ~~struck~~ and **insertions bolded** inline. |
| `Output: voice card only.` | Run Step 0 only. Print Voice Card and stop. |
### Combining
Options stack. Examples:
```
Focus: AI patterns only.
Register: academic.
Output: rewrite.
```
```
Focus: soul check.
Output: diagnosis only.
```
```
Focus: voice match only.
Output: voice card only.
```
```
Focus: conciseness. Cut by 40%.
Register: business.
Output: diff.
```
---
## Voice Card Reference
Dimensions Step 0 extracts, ranked by fingerprint strength.
| Dimension | What it captures | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Sentence length distribution | Mean, variance, min, max | Strongest fingerprint. AI has low variance. Humans have high variance. |
| Function word frequency | the, of, and, to, in, is, that | Most reliable authorship signal. Unconscious choices. |
| Punctuation signature | Comma rate, dash rate, semicolon rate | Highly individual. |
| Type-token ratio | Vocabulary richness | Consistent within an author. |
| Contraction rate | don’t vs. do not | Strong formality indicator. |
| Active/passive ratio | Voice preference | Some authors run 95% active. Others use passive deliberately. |
| Subordination ratio | Clause embedding depth | Syntactic complexity preference. |
| Paragraph length distribution | Mean, variance | One-sentence paragraphs are a strong personality signal. |
| Rhetorical device frequency | Metaphor, analogy, question, direct address | Persuasion style. |
| Opinion density | Assertions per paragraph | Position-taking vs. neutral reporting. Defines voice more than vocabulary does. |