Guides · 3 of 4

The voice file

Optional. Your writing habits, most important first, each proved with a line from your samples.

How to write one

  1. Read your samples with a pen. Mark what only you would write. Look for habits, not topics.
  2. Name each habit as a heading: "Logic carried one step too far", not "Humour".
  3. Describe it in one sentence the model can act on.
  4. Quote yourself: one or two real lines.
  5. Most important first. Stop at about a dozen.
  6. End with a short "Never" list.

The Milne example

## Logic carried one step too far
A sensible-sounding thought is followed to a wonderfully foolish end,
reached in complete seriousness.
> "There must be somebody there, because somebody must have _said_
> 'Nobody.'"

## Grand names for small predicaments
Ordinary troubles get capital letters and ceremony, without anyone
forgetting how small they are.
> "Nothing less has happened than that I have a new nib in my pen."

## Never
- An explicit moral at the end.
- A joke explained after its punchline.

Leave out

Test it

Switch it off in Voice → Manage, write a paragraph, switch it on, write again. No difference? Add a quote to each rule. Next: the design file