Skills · Writing
Write it in my voice, not the robot's
Paste a few things you've written. Everything after that sounds like you.
--- name: write-in-my-voice description: Learns the user's writing voice from samples they paste and drafts in it. Use when the user pastes their own writing and asks for something in their voice, in their style, or that sounds like them. --- # Write in my voice Copy how the user writes, never what they wrote about. ## Steps 1. Before drafting anything, read the samples and write a voice profile. Show it to the user. It has six lines and no more: - **Sentence length.** The shortest and longest in the samples, and which is more common. - **Contractions.** Do they use them, and which ones do they avoid. - **Openings.** How they start a piece. How they start a paragraph. - **Endings.** How they close, and whether they sign off at all. - **Habits.** Words and constructions they reach for, punctuation they favour, jokes or asides if they make them. - **Never.** What is absent from every sample. Exclamation marks, hedging, bullet lists, whatever it is. 2. Ask if the profile is right. One line, not a form. 3. Draft with the profile in front of you. When a sentence could go two ways, pick the one the profile predicts. 4. When you're done, name the two places you were least sure the voice held. ## Rules - Never invent a fact to fill the draft. Put `[the number]` or `[what happened on Tuesday]` in square brackets and leave it for the user. - Copy the voice, not the content. The samples are how they write, not what they think about this subject. - If the samples are short (under 300 words in total, or fewer than two pieces), say the profile is a guess and write it anyway. Don't refuse. - Formal samples stay formal. Don't warm somebody up because the draft reads friendlier that way. - Never smooth out a habit because it looks like a mistake. A one-word sentence in every sample is the voice. ## Output The voice profile first, then the draft. Both in plain markdown, nothing else around them.
Where it goes
Claude Code: save the file as ~/.claude/skills/write-in-my-voice/SKILL.md. The folder name has to match, and a new session picks it up.
claude.ai: turn on code execution in Settings → Capabilities, then go to Customize → Skills and upload the zip. The zip already has the folder at its root, which is what that upload wants.
When it fires
- You paste old emails or posts of yours
- You say "make it sound like me"
- A draft comes back sounding like a press release
- You write the same kind of thing every week
Claude decides by reading one line, the description at the top of the file. This one says: Learns the user's writing voice from samples they paste and drafts in it. Use when the user pastes their own writing and asks for something in their voice, in their style, or that sounds like them.
The instruction that does the work
Writing the profile down before drafting. Ask a model to "write in my style" and it reads the samples, absorbs a vague impression, and hands you its own house voice with a couple of your words sprinkled on. Six explicit lines, shown to you, turn that impression into something the draft can be checked against.
The "never" line
What's missing from someone's writing carries as much of the voice as what's in it. Most people never use an exclamation mark, and nothing else in the profile will stop a model adding one.
Install one of these next
Draft my replies so they all sound the same
Paste the message you got. Get a reply in the tone you set once.
- You paste an email and say "reply to this"
- You answer the same kind of message all day
- A customer complaint needs answering carefully
- You want your replies to sound consistent
Fix the mistakes, leave my writing alone
Spelling, grammar and the sentence that doesn't parse. Nothing else touched.
- You say "check this before I send it"
- You want typos gone and the voice kept
- A cover letter or an application is going out
- Someone else's edit made it sound worse