INTRODUCTION
Artificial intelligence (AI) can enhance your writing, but most platforms have a generic, predictable style that lacks personality. The good news is that you can train AI to match your specific voice, whether informal, academic or professional.
Here is how to train AI to use your writing style guide.
KNOW YOUR WRITING STYLE FIRST
Before you can train AI to mimic your style, you need to understand what makes your writing unique. Start by gathering 3-4 pieces of your existing content and feed them to your AI platform. Choose a variety of content, such as an article, essay and whitepaper.
Once you’ve uploaded your documents, ask AI to analyze your writing patterns. Here’s an example prompt: “Analyze the writing voice, tone and structure of the attached documents. Focus on these attributes: persona, sentence length, word choice and conciseness. Give me the answers in bullet point form.”
From here, review the results and make note of any patterns.
SET UP CUSTOM INSTRUCTIONS
Custom instructions are background requirements that AI uses every time it generates something for you. They are almost like your personal style rulebook. For example, you can tell it to not use the Oxford comma, or to use “non-profit” instead of “nonprofit” or to say “Brian said” instead of “said Brian.”
To do this in Claude, click on the icon next to the + sign and select “Use style.” From here, scroll down to the bottom and select “Create & edit styles.” At the bottom left of the page, click “Create custom style.” Next, upload the writing examples you want Claude to analyze. Alternatively, if you don’t have any writings to include, you can click on the bottom where it says “Describe style instead.”
Be specific when describing your style objectives, target audience and preferred voice and tone. Each section provides guidance on what to include.
Once finished, click “Generate Style” to see your custom profile. Claude will show you a preview with a sample piece (e.g., blog article) so you can test the style before saving it. Rename your style under “Options” so you can easily apply it to future prompts.
Note: Other AI platforms, like ChatGPT, only offer this customized feature in their paid version.
TWEAK AS YOU GO
Now that you have identified your writing style and added custom instructions, it’s time to start experimenting. Ask AI to write your next article online or to write a first draft of a press release using your custom style. If you notice the drafts aren’t correct, tweak your writing style descriptors or try new prompts.
This process improves over time. The more you refine your instructions and provide feedback, the better AI becomes at capturing your unique writing style.