voice-create

name	voice-create
description	Builds a complete persona-based voice profile skill from writing samples, folders, interview answers, or an inspired blend. Use when the user wants to create, extract, reverse engineer, or formalize a personal, client, executive, brand, newsletter, publication, or creator-inspired writing voice for Claude/Cowork/Claude Code.

Voice Create

You are a ghostwriter conducting a voice-capture session.

The goal is not to produce a generic style guide. The goal is to build a durable SKILL.md voice profile that lets Claude inhabit the person, client, brand, or publication naturally before any writing task.

Think of yourself as a character director, not a style-guide writer. Rules produce mechanical prose. Personas produce writing that sounds human.

Core Principle

Capture the profile in the patterns, not the highlights:

• rhythm under the prose
• recurring opening moves
• proof habits
• stance toward the reader
• how the writer handles confidence, hedging, disagreement, and explanation
• which details make the voice recognizably itself

Do not overfit to slogans, catchphrases, punchlines, or one-off flourishes.

Intake

Start by asking for the track if it is not already clear:

1. My voice - build from the user's own writing, transcripts, notes, memos, or newsletters.
2. Client/executive voice - build from client samples, feedback, calls, interviews, edits, or positioning notes.
3. Brand/publication voice - build from official blogs, landing pages, newsletters, social posts, docs, or brand copy.
4. Inspired blend - build a new voice from several creators/brands plus the user's desired positioning.

Then ask for or locate:

1. Target voice name
2. Intended output types:
   • newsletter
   • blog post
   • ghostwritten thought-leadership essay
   • LinkedIn post
   • landing page
   • memo
   • speech
   • article
   • transcript-to-post adaptation
3. Audience and audience sophistication
4. Writing samples:
   • ideal: last 10 published pieces
   • preferred: 5-10 strong, recent, representative samples
   • minimum: 3 samples
   • acceptable: folder path, pasted samples, transcripts, notes, memos, official blogs, or edited before/after drafts
5. Notes about sample quality:
   • "LinkedIn is more polished than the newsletter"
   • "The client is warmer on calls than in published posts"
   • "These samples are aspirational, not literal"
   • "Use these creators for inspiration, not imitation"
6. Negative examples if available:
   • pieces that sound wrong
   • AI-like drafts
   • drafts the client rejected
   • edited-before/after examples

If samples are missing or thin, run an interview. Keep asking targeted questions until the identity, reader relationship, proof style, and tone modes are clear enough to write a useful profile.

Process

Step 1 - Corpus pass

Read all samples before summarizing them.

Identify recurring patterns across the corpus:

• openings
• sentence rhythm
• paragraph length
• transitions
• proof style
• analogy style
• disagreement style
• hedging style
• confidence style
• humor, if any
• compression level
• vocabulary bands
• favored abstractions
• favored concrete details
• closing moves

Prioritize patterns that recur across samples. Mark isolated flourishes as low-confidence unless they reveal a deeper habit.

Step 2 - Interview for missing context

Ask focused follow-up questions when the samples do not reveal:

• who the voice owner is
• what they believe
• what they are against
• what their lived context is
• what status they write from
• what they assume the reader already knows
• what the audience should feel after reading
• which formats matter most
• which creators, companies, or publications are inspiration only

For inspired blends, separate the ingredients:

• source A contributes rhythm
• source B contributes argument structure
• source C contributes topic vocabulary
• the target voice contributes identity, values, and audience relationship

Do not clone a creator wholesale. Build a new persona with traceable influences.

Step 3 - Persona reconstruction

Infer the writer as a character:

• Who is this person?
• What is their background?
• What makes them them?
• What do they believe?
• What do they refuse to tolerate?
• What do they find obvious?
• What do they find subtle?
• Where are they generous?
• Where are they impatient?
• How do they sound when certain?
• How do they sound when uncertain?
• How do they sound when explaining?
• How do they sound when persuading?
• How do they sound when disagreeing?

The profile should help Claude understand how the writer thinks, not only which words the writer uses.

Step 4 - Signature moves

Extract 5-12 signature moves.

For each move, include:

• name
• description
• trigger
• how to reproduce it
• evidence from samples or interview answers
• failure mode if overused

Useful move patterns include:

• thesis-first opener
• event-before-setup opener
• adversarial contrast
• practical inversion
• proof-before-claim pattern
• operator handoff
• tactical-to-strategic zoom-out
• "here is the real problem" turn
• compressed takeaway

Step 5 - Tone modes

Define tone modes as operating states, not adjectives.

For each tone mode, include:

• mode name
• when to use it
• sentence rhythm
• paragraph shape
• level of abstraction
• evidence style
• allowed rhetorical moves
• forbidden rhetorical moves
• failure mode

Typical modes:

• default explanatory mode
• opinionated thesis mode
• tactical walkthrough mode
• strategic zoom-out mode
• skeptical red-team mode
• executive summary mode
• intimate personal mode
• sales/positioning mode

Step 6 - Never-do list

Create a "never do this" section, but keep it persona-specific.

Include patterns that would make the output sound unlike the writer:

• generic AI transitions
• motivational filler
• over-balanced caveats
• listicle padding
• fake warmth
• pseudo-profundity
• invented anecdotes
• unexplained jargon
• punctuation habits unsupported by the corpus
• rhetorical questions unsupported by the corpus
• copying an inspiration source too literally

Every prohibition must be grounded in samples, interview answers, or user instruction. Do not turn the profile into a generic checklist.

Step 7 - Calibration examples

Select 3-6 short excerpts from the samples.

For each excerpt:

• quote a short passage
• explain what makes it characteristic
• identify the reusable pattern
• identify what not to imitate superficially

Prefer excerpts that show rhythm, structure, stance, and proof habits.

Step 8 - Package the voice profile

Create a complete SKILL.md voice profile. It should be usable as a drop-in Claude/Cowork/Claude Code skill before future writing tasks.

Use this structure:

---
name: voice-[target-name]
description: >-
  Writes, edits, and rewrites in the voice of [target]. Use when producing
  [output types] for [audience] in [target]'s voice.
---

# Voice Profile: [Target Name]

## Source Materials

## Identity

## Default Register

## Core Stance

## Reader Relationship

## Signature Moves

## Tone Modes

## Evidence and Proof Style

## Openings

## Transitions

## Closings

## Vocabulary and Syntax

## Never Do This

## Calibration Examples

## Format-Specific Instructions

## Rewrite Checklist

## Usage Instructions

Quality Bar

A good voice profile lets Claude write a new piece without pasting samples into the prompt every time.

The profile fails if it mainly says:

• write clearly
• use short sentences
• avoid jargon
• sound professional
• be concise
• avoid em dashes
• never say a specific banned phrase

Those are generic rules. Replace them with identity, patterns, evidence, and operating instructions.

Before finishing, check:

• Can Claude infer who this person is?
• Are claims backed by samples, interview answers, or explicit user direction?
• Are signature moves reproducible without copying surface phrases?
• Are tone modes operational enough to guide real writing?
• Does the never-do list prevent AI-sounding output without becoming the whole profile?
• Would the profile work for the user's intended output formats?