TL;DR: A solo founder tested AI writing prompts for months while building an SEO platform. He landed on a 12-rule style guide that strips the robotic tone out of AI copy, and it is specific enough to actually work.
The Real Problem With AI Writing
Telling AI to “write naturally” gets you nowhere. The model has no idea what that abstract concept means. Because large language models are trained to be relentlessly helpful and polite, they default to a highly specific, overly formal tone. The AI fills the gaps with dense jargon, unnecessary hedging, and predictable phrases like “let’s explore this fascinating opportunity” or “in a world where.”
Tilen, a solo founder from r/PromptEngineering, figured this out the hard way. He spent months testing different approaches while building his SEO platform. He realized that vague instructions yield vague results. The fix was not a clever one-liner or a magic keyword. It was a comprehensive, rigid style guide the model could actually follow step by step.
The resulting post landed 152 upvotes. The comment section is full of people copying it into their own workflows, proving that the frustration with robotic copy is universal. When you give the AI strict boundaries, it stops trying to sound smart and starts sounding human.
What the Prompt Covers
The guide splits into two clear categories. It tells the AI exactly what to do and exactly what to cut.
Do these things:
- Write in active voice to keep the pacing brisk. Instead of “the software was launched by our team,” use “our team launched the software.”
- Address the reader as “you” and “your” to create an immediate, personal connection.
- Vary sentence length to create rhythm. Use short sentences for impact. Medium sentences for explanation. Long sentences to connect complex ideas.
- Use simple, direct language that a middle schooler could understand.
- Drop conditional words like could, might, or may when you are certain about something. Confidence builds trust.
Cut these things:
- Clichés, industry jargon, unnecessary hashtags, and semicolons.
- AI filler phrases like “Let’s explore this fascinating opportunity,” “In today’s rapidly evolving landscape,” or “A rich tapestry.”
- Redundancy. Models repeat themselves constantly to hit word counts and need to be explicitly told to stop circling the same point.
- Marketing language that makes everything sound like a corporate press release.
That last category is where most AI copy dies. When a model tries to sell, it exaggerates. Swap “our cutting-edge solution delivers unparalleled results” for “our tool helps you track expenses.” The difference is night and day. Clear, benefit driven language always beats empty hype.
The SEO Layer
Tilen stacked a technical SEO checklist on top for anyone publishing articles to the web. It calls for recent stats, specifically requesting 2025 and 2026 data. This forces the model to look for current information rather than relying on outdated training data. The prompt also requires one or two expert quotes per piece to build authority and break up the text.
On the technical side, the guide instructs the AI to generate JSON-LD Article schema. This invisible code helps search engines understand exactly what your page is about. Finally, it demands a FAQ section pulled from tools like AlsoAsked and AnswerSocrates. Answering real user questions directly is one of the easiest ways to capture featured snippets on Google.
None of this is groundbreaking SEO advice. But baking it directly into the prompt means you never skip the fundamentals. Consistency is what actually moves the needle in search rankings.
Use Cases
Three places this specific framework pays off right away:
- 📝 Blog posts and long form content, where AI traditionally pads paragraphs and repeats core concepts without clear direction.
- 📧 Email sequences, where every single sentence needs to carry its weight to keep the reader from hitting the delete button.
- 🛍 Product copy, where fluffy marketing language creeps in without you noticing and kills your conversion rates.
Prompt of the Day
Here is the core text you can paste directly into any AI writing workflow. You can use this as a system prompt, a custom instruction in ChatGPT, or append it to the end of a specific request:
Write in active voice. Address the reader as “you” and “your.” Be direct and concise. Use simple language. Vary sentence length to create rhythm. Keep a conversational tone.
Avoid: clichés, jargon, hashtags, semicolons, conditional language when certainty is possible, redundancy, and AI filler phrases like “Let’s explore this fascinating opportunity” or “In today’s rapidly evolving landscape.” Avoid marketing language. Say what the thing does, not how game-changing it is.
There are no hidden tricks here. Just strict, grammatical rules the model can easily process and follow.
Try It
Paste this framework into your next piece of AI assisted content and see what changes! Look closely at the output. The paragraphs will shrink, the vocabulary will simplify, and the overall message will become much sharper.
If the result still sounds like a LinkedIn guru wrote it, find the exact sentence that failed. Identify the specific word or phrase that gave it away, and add that failure to your avoid list. Prompt engineering is a constant cycle of refinement.
The best prompt is almost never the cleverest one. It is simply the one you keep updating until the output stops embarrassing you.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Won’t these rules make my writing sound repetitive and formulaic?
Good catch. These rules are a starting point, not a finish line. Professional writers know that humans naturally shift their sentence structure, rhythm, and pacing based on who they’re talking to and why. Use these guidelines to build a foundation, then edit to add natural variation. Realistically, the prompt gets you about 80% there, the last 20% is real writing work.
Q: Is it better to follow style rules or show the AI examples of my own writing?
Combination wins. Write a rough draft of what you actually want to say. Then ask the AI to refine it while you explain what you’re trying to accomplish. Using your own writing as a style sample beats generic rules every time because it teaches the AI your actual voice and how you phrase things.
Q: Does this dumb down professional writing?
Nope. This prompt pushes for clarity, active voice, and concrete language, the things that actually make professional writing stronger. You’re not sacrificing polish for humanity; you’re building both. The goal is readable and authoritative.
Q: How much editing time should I budget after the AI writes?
Be realistic: professional writers spend 15+ hours refining AI content to make it actually sound human. The AI nails structure and initial ideas, but you’ll do the real work, varying sentence flow, shifting tone where it matters, and adding details that only come from lived experience.
I finally found a prompt that makes ChatGPT write like human
by u/tiln7 in PromptEngineering