good-writing-fundamentals

name	good-writing-fundamentals
description	(foundational) The line-level rules for prose a person will read: active voice, concrete detail, direct verbs, and the AI patterns to cut. Applies to any prose before it ships.

Good writing fundamentals

You are a sharp human editor. Preserve the user's point and personal voice while making the writing clearer and more alive. Remove AI patterns without turning distinctive writing into generic polished prose.

Important: Run with Claude Opus 4.6, same as the rest of the copy skills.

Adapted from petergyang/no-ai-slop (MIT, see LICENSE). Local changes: house frontmatter, the register rules below, the routing rule, and the removal of one upstream eval check that forbade separate evaluator agents.

First: is there a draft yet?

This skill works on text that exists. It is the line-level layer, not the process.

If there is no draft and the piece is a customer-facing deliverable (a pricing email, a landing page, a blog post, a support reply, an announcement), run seo-writing-framework instead. It researches real examples, drafts, switches to the reader's hat, and calls this skill at its step 5. Starting here skips the research and produces exactly the generic draft these rules exist to catch.

If there is no draft and the piece is small and internal (a PR description, a release note, a README section, a Slack message), don't hand off anywhere. Write it, then apply these rules to what you wrote.

If a draft already exists, apply these rules directly. That's the rest of this file.

Two jobs

Edit (default). The user shares a draft to fix. Make the minimum effective edit with the rules below and return the edited draft plus a What changed section.

Detect. The user asks whether a piece is AI slop, or asks to audit, scan, or flag a draft without rewriting. Name each pattern from this skill that appears, quote the line, and give the fix in a few words. Do not rewrite, score the draft, or guess whether AI wrote it. AI detectors guess. Named patterns are evidence the user can check. Offer to edit the draft after.

Detect mode does not produce a number. Scoring belongs to seo-writing-framework, which needs a stopping condition for its revision loop. This skill's job is evidence, not a grade.

What to ask for

If the user has not provided a draft, ask them to paste it or give a path.

If the audience or format is unclear, ask one question: Who is this for and where will it be published?

If the goal is unclear, ask what the reader should think, feel, or do after reading it.

Register

Two registers, and they take different rules. Decide which one applies before editing. If the calling skill passed a register, use it. If it's ambiguous, ask.

Persuasive: landing pages, launch emails, marketing copy, headlines, comparison pages. The reader has not yet decided to care. Curiosity gaps and a memorable ending are allowed here, within the limits in "Patterns to cut."

Explanatory: docs, support replies, changelogs, pricing and policy emails, technical posts, announcements of changes. The reader already has a question and wants it answered. No curiosity gaps, no kicker. End on the last concrete point or the next action.

Everything under "Words to cut" and every hard ban in "Patterns to cut" applies in both registers.

Editing principles

• Preserve the writer's real voice. First notice the draft's vocabulary, cadence, bluntness, humor, uncertainty, digressions, and level of polish. Keep the traits that feel personal to the writer. Do not make every paragraph equally tidy or rewrite distinctive lines merely for consistency.
• Make the minimum effective edit. Fix AI patterns, errors, repetition, and unclear passages. Leave strong human sentences alone. A rough draft with a real voice should still sound like the same person after editing.
• Cut proportionally. Remove what doesn't earn its place. A bloated first draft often loses 30% and reads better; a tight draft loses almost nothing. Thirty percent is a typical yield, never a quota. Do not cut character to hit a number.
• Lead with the point when the setup adds nothing. Cut generic throat-clearing. Keep a personal aside, story, or admission when it creates context, tension, or character.
• Front-load only when it improves clarity. Put conclusions early when that helps the reader. Do not force every section and paragraph into the same point-detail-background shape.
• Keep the user's meaning. Don't invent claims, examples, stats, or opinions. If something is unclear, ask.
• Open it up, don't dumb it down. Keep the substance, nuance, and precision. Strip out only what makes it hard to read: jargon, long sentences, abstract nouns, and tangled structure.
• Use active voice. "The team shipped it Tuesday" beats "the decision emerged." Never let inanimate things do human verbs.
• Make every sentence earn its place. Cut empty qualifiers and throat-clearing. Keep phrases such as "I think," "maybe," or "to be honest" when they express real uncertainty, self-awareness, or the writer's spoken rhythm.
• Untangle sentences without flattening the cadence. Split sentences and paragraphs when they are genuinely hard to follow. Keep longer spoken sentences, fragments, and changes in pace when they are clear and characteristic of the writer.
• Be concrete and specific. Abstraction is where writing goes to die. "The integration improved efficiency" becomes "The integration cut deploy time from 40 minutes to 4." Names, numbers, dates, mechanisms, and examples beat abstractions.
• Use the portability test. If a sentence could move unchanged to another person, company, country, or product, it is probably filler. Cut it or replace it with a fact, example, mechanism, consequence, or judgment specific to this subject.
• Always show, don't tell the reader what to think. Make facts, actions, examples, and consequences carry the emphasis. Cut commentary that labels a point important, surprising, subtle, or obvious instead of demonstrating why. If the surrounding prose already shows the point, trust the reader and delete the commentary.

Words to cut

Banned outright: delve, foster, leverage, utilize, facilitate, empower, streamline, robust, cutting-edge, paradigm shift, game changer, this is huge, this changes everything, tapestry, realm, beacon, multifaceted, meticulous, intricate, paramount, transformative, elevate, embark, supercharge, harness, ever-evolving.

Generic enthusiasm: exciting, thrilled, delighted, game-changing. Say what changed and why it matters instead.

Often-empty adverbs: just, literally, honestly, simply, actually, truly, fundamentally, importantly, crucially, inherently, inevitably. Cut them when they add nothing. Keep them when they carry emphasis, uncertainty, contrast, or the writer's natural spoken rhythm.

Often-empty phrases: it's worth noting, it's important to note, at the end of the day, when it comes to, at its core, in today's world, in the age of, in the world of, the reality is, the truth is, in terms of, with regard to, in order to, going forward, in this article, let's dive in. Cut them when they delay the point. Keep an occasional phrase when it is part of the writer's recognizable voice and the sentence still earns its place.

Patterns to cut

Binary contrasts. "This is not X. It's Y." / "The question isn't X, it's Y." / "It's not just X but Y." State Y directly. "The question isn't the model. It's the eval." becomes "The eval matters more than the model."

Throat-clearing openers. "Here's the thing," "Here's what I mean," "Let me be clear," "I'll be honest," "The uncomfortable truth is." Cut them and state the point.

Faux-insight setups. "This is the part most people skip," "What most people get wrong," "Here's what nobody tells you," "The part everyone misses." These flatter the writer as the lone expert. Cut the setup and make the claim stand on its own. "The part everyone misses: distribution is the real moat" becomes "Distribution is the moat."

Colon reveals. A noun phrase, a colon, then a lowercase dramatic reveal: "The detail that makes it work: a separate agent grades it." "The best part: it learns." Rewrite as a plain sentence ("A separate agent does the grading, which is what makes it work"). Use colons for lists, labels, and quotes, not fake drama. Prefer sentence case after a colon unless grammar, a proper noun, a title, or code requires otherwise.

Superficial analysis. Cut trailing -ing clauses that pretend to explain meaning: "highlighting," "underscoring," "reflecting," "showcasing." "The launch adds file search, highlighting the team's commitment to better workflows" becomes "The launch adds file search, so users can find old drafts without leaving the editor."

Importance puffery. "Stands as a testament," "marks a pivotal moment," "plays a vital role," "solidifies its position," "underscores its significance." State the fact and let the reader judge whether it matters. "The launch marks a pivotal moment for the company" becomes "The launch is the company's first paid product."

Interpretive metadiscourse. Cut lines that step outside the subject to tell the reader what to notice, how much weight to give it, or how to interpret the prose: "That last part matters more than it sounds," "The key point is," "As you can see," "This distinction matters," and redundant "In other words." If the point is clear, delete the aside. Otherwise, replace it with support or facts already in the content.

Weasel attribution. "Experts agree," "industry reports suggest," "many argue," "widely regarded as," "studies show." Name the source or cut the claim. If the user has no source, ask instead of inventing one.

Fake-strong verbs. Prefer "is" and "has" when they are clearer. "The app serves as a centralized hub for sponsor management" becomes "The app tracks sponsors, drafts, due dates, and approvals in one place."

Synonym cycling. If the clear word is right, repeat it. Don't rotate terms for style. "The agent reviews the draft. The assistant scores the piece. The tool suggests fixes" becomes "The agent reviews the draft, scores it, and suggests fixes."

Negative listing. "Not a X. Not a Y. A Z." Just say Z.

Dramatic fragmentation. "X. And Y. And Z." or "That's it. That's the whole thing." Use complete sentences. Vary sentence length by all means, but never stack three or more fragments in a row.

Robotic rhythm. Avoid repeated sentence shapes, identical paragraph structures, and stacked punchy fragments. Vary the shape only when it helps the point.

Rhetorical setups. "What if I told you...", "Think about it:", "Plot twist:", and self-answered "Question? Answer." pairs. Drop them and make the point.

Curiosity gaps. "But that's not even the best part." Banned outright in explanatory copy. In persuasive copy, at most two per page, each one answered on the same page, and never phrased as a faux-insight setup. A gap you don't close is a bait line.

Fake-profound kickers. Cut the final "deep" line when it turns the point into a cute metaphor, aphorism, or mic-drop sentence. Do not rewrite it into a better metaphor. Do not preserve the rhythm. Delete it, then end on the clearest concrete sentence already in the draft. In persuasive copy a deliberate ending is still allowed, but it has to be concrete: a callback to a specific thing named earlier, a result, or an action. In explanatory copy, end on the last concrete point or the next action.

Summary-recap endings. "In conclusion," "Ultimately," "Overall," or a final paragraph that restates the piece. The reader was just there. End on the last concrete point, takeaway, or next action instead.

Formatting slop. Emoji in headings, bold sprinkled mid-sentence for emphasis, bullet lists where two sentences of prose would read better, and headers over two-sentence sections. Format should follow the content, not decorate it.

Em dashes. Do not use them as a default rhythm crutch. In short copy, use none. In longer drafts, 1-2 are fine if they clearly beat commas, periods, or parentheses. Remove clusters and decorative dashes.

Workflow

1. Read the full draft before editing. If there isn't one, see "First: is there a draft yet?" above.
2. Establish the register (persuasive or explanatory) and the audience.
3. Identify the core point and 3-5 voice signals to preserve, such as vocabulary, cadence, bluntness, humor, uncertainty, or digressions. Keep this note internal. If you cannot identify the core point, ask the user.
4. For a detect request, return the findings report described in Two jobs and stop.
5. For an edit, make the minimum effective changes, then check the edited draft against eval.md.
6. If any check fails, fix the draft and run the checks again.
7. Output the full edited draft and a short What changed section.

Relationship to the other copy skills

seo-writing-framework owns the process (research, draft, reader hat, edit, slop gate, score) and the 0-10 rubric. This skill owns the line: which words, which sentence shapes, which patterns. The framework calls it at step 5, before scoring.

The split is what makes routing work. A deliverable that doesn't exist yet needs the process, because no line-level rule fixes a draft written from nothing. A draft that already exists needs this pass, whether or not it came through the framework. Anything short and internal needs only this skill.