Here’s the thing about AI writing: most of it sounds like it came out of a machine, because it did. Nobody scored the tone. Nobody set the rules. It just guessed.
u/Admirable_Phrase9454 shared a fix for that on r/PromptEngineering, pulled from a conversation on the Networking Unleashed podcast. The framework is called the AI Strategy Canvas, and it swaps guesswork for structure.
Quick start: the canvas is nine blocks you fill in before you ever type a request. Each block feeds context to the model so the output sounds like a specific person instead of a generic assistant. Do this once per brand or client, then reuse it every time you generate anything. It works whether you’re writing for a solo newsletter, a client account, or a full content team.
The Old Way vs the New Way
The old way: type “write this with a little humor” and hope the model interprets “a little” the same way you do. It rarely does. One session it’s dry, the next it’s doing standup comedy.
The new way: score it. The team behind this canvas rates humor on a 0 to 10 scale, pulls sentence length patterns from real writing samples, and locks those numbers into the prompt. u/Dense-Employer8496 put it well in the comments: a “2 out of 10 for humor” beats a vague instruction to “make it punchy” every time, because a number leaves no room for interpretation.
That’s the whole shift. Vague direction produces vague output. Specific, scored direction produces something that reads like a person wrote it.
The Nine Blocks, In Order
Here’s the full sequence, straight from the original post:
- Target audience 🎯 Who reads this: a customer, a grant reviewer, whoever the piece is actually for. Skip this and every other block gets harder to fill in correctly.
- Company. What the reader needs to know about the business.
- Products and services. What the business sells. This can live as a quick prompt note or a full knowledge base doc, depending on how complex the business is. Skimpy detail here is usually why AI copy drifts into generic claims nobody asked for.
- Context. The catch-all block. Personal thoughts, feelings, or background that should shape the tone without fitting neatly anywhere else.
- Role. What job the AI has been hired to do: analyst, copywriter, something else entirely. This sets the lens for everything downstream.
- Style and brand voice 🎚️ The scored block. Instead of “a little humor,” you get a number, plus sentence length and other variables pulled from real samples of how that person actually writes.
- Resources. Outside data or research the output should pull from. This keeps the model grounded instead of inventing facts, which matters most when the request touches numbers, dates, or claims someone might fact check.
- Rules 🚫 What to avoid, including specific overused words. The original poster’s team keeps a running list here, because every new model has its own favorite word it leans on too hard. u/Dense-Employer8496 called this block the real MVP, and it’s easy to see why: it’s the difference between “utilize” showing up in every paragraph and it never showing up at all.
- Request. The actual goal. What you actually want out of this specific run.
Why the Order Matters
Fill these in out of sequence and the later blocks stop making sense. Role depends on knowing the audience. Style depends on knowing the role. Rules depend on knowing what the model tends to do wrong once the first six blocks are set. Treat it like a checklist, not a menu.
That order also saves time. Once the first four blocks exist for a client or brand, most future requests only need block 9 rewritten. Everything else stays put, which turns a nine-step process into a one-step process after the first pass.
Practical Steps to Try This ✅
- Build blocks 1 through 4 once per client or project. These barely change between requests.
- Fill in block 6 using three or four real writing samples, not a one-line vibe description.
- Keep a shared doc for block 8 and add to it every time a model repeats a word too often. This compounds over time.
- Write block 9 fresh for every single request. It’s the only block that should change constantly.
Run the same request through a bare prompt and then through the full canvas. The gap between the two outputs is the whole pitch for this framework, and it’s worth feeling for yourself!
The original poster covers this in more depth on the Networking Unleashed podcast, with more examples of how the scoring works in practice. Worth a watch if you’re tired of AI copy that sounds like AI copy.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Why score style elements on a scale instead of just describing them?
Specific numbers work way better than vague feedback. “Humor at 2/10” tells AI exactly what to do, while “make it punchy” is a guessing game. Score other style details pulled from your actual writing, sentence length, formality level, whatever shows up in your voice, and the AI will nail it.
Q: What are model-specific “crutch words” and why does Block 8 matter so much?
Every AI model has favorite words it gravitates toward, Claude leans on “nuanced,” others have their own patterns. You spot them by reviewing outputs for repeating words, then add them to Block 8 (Rules) as do-not-use. Without this filter, the same verbal tics poison everything the model generates.
Q: Do I need to fill out all 9 blocks, or can I keep it simpler?
You can skip blocks that don’t apply to your needs. But blocks 6 (Style/brand voice) and 8 (Rules) are the real MVPs, spending time there gives you the most control over sounding like you instead of a bot.
Q: Should I update my Rules list if I switch to a different AI model?
Yes. Each new model has its own crutch-word tendencies, so review a few outputs and update Block 8 to catch the new model’s habits before they take over your writing.
AI Strategy Canvas
by u/Admirable_Phrase9454 in PromptEngineering