How to stop your AI copy sounding like AI
5 min read
You've heard a wedding speech written by someone who has never met the couple. It's warm and well organised, and it hits all the right notes. It could also be about anyone. By the second minute, the whole room is looking at the napkins.
That's the sound of AI copy, and your members can hear it. Nobody writes in to complain. They just stop reading halfway through, and one of them eventually asks you by the lifts whether a computer wrote the president's letter.
The usual response is to ask Claude to "make it sound more human", and that gets you the same speech with a joke in it. Rewriting can't fix it, because the problem goes back to what you asked for in the first place. If you give a writer nothing but a topic, you'll get the average of everything ever written on that topic, whether the writer's a machine or a person. So the fix starts before the draft.
Give it your material instead of a topic
"Write 600 words on the new reporting rules" is the wedding speech. Paste in your interview notes, the transcript, the two emails from members and the committee's actual decision, and Claude has something only your magazine could have. Then stop it padding:
Write a 600-word draft using only the material below. Don't add facts, examples, figures or quotes that aren't in it. Where you need something I haven't given you, write [NEED: what's missing] and carry on.
Those brackets are the most useful thing in the draft. Each one is a phone call you need to make, and a spot where a less careful tool would have invented something convincing.
Show it what good sounds like
Adjectives won't get you there. Every magazine thinks it's "warm and professional". Give Claude three pieces you're proud of, written by a person, and ask:
Describe how these pieces are written: sentence length, how they open, how they use humour, what they never do. Be specific, and quote examples.
Correct what it gets wrong, because that conversation is the useful part. Then save the result, so you never have to do it again. A Claude Project keeps your instructions and samples together, and every chat inside it starts from them. If several people write for you, your voice guide belongs in there too.
Ban the habits by name
AI writing has a set of tics, and once you've noticed them, you'll see them on every website you visit. Tell Claude to avoid them, and look for them yourself afterwards.
| The habit | What it looks like | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The false contrast | "It's not about compliance, it's about confidence." | Say the second half and delete the first |
| Everything in threes | "Clear, concise and compelling." | Pick the one you mean |
| The grand little sentence | "And that changes everything." | Cut it, or say what changed |
| The throat-clear | "In today's fast-paced world..." | Start at the second paragraph |
| Decorative adverbs | "Seamlessly", "truly", "deeply" | Delete them and see if anyone notices |
| The recap | "In summary, ..." | End on the last real point |
| Same-sized everything | Paragraph after paragraph of four tidy sentences | Break one up, and let one run long |
You can paste that table straight into your instructions.
Ask for less at a time
A whole article in one go gives Claude 800 words to drift in. Ask for an outline first and argue with it. Then get one section at a time, so you can steer as you go, and write the opening yourself. If the first three sentences sound like you, the rest tends to follow them, and you'll have thought harder about what the piece is for.
Then do the part only you can do
Print the draft and circle every specific thing: a name, a number, a place, a date, an opinion someone might disagree with. A paragraph with no circles is a paragraph that could appear in any magazine, so it needs something from you or it needs to go.
Here's the difference, using a made-up example.
Before: "In today's changing regulatory environment, members are navigating new challenges and finding innovative ways to adapt."
After: "Janet runs a two-person practice in Dubbo. She found out about the new form from a client, in the car park, on the day it was due."
Claude couldn't have written the second one, because it didn't know about Janet. You do, or you know someone like her. That's why members pay to hear from you.
Then read it aloud. Anything you wouldn't say to a member's face gets rewritten.
If one gets through anyway
It will, at some point. You'll be reading the published issue on Monday when "in an ever-evolving landscape" looks up at you from page 6. With Zeenly you can fix the sentence, upload the corrected PDF over the top and keep the same reader link, stats and hotspot links, so nobody needs a new link. Better still, run the full check before the issue goes out, and decide what you'll tell readers about how you use AI.
Start with the next piece on your list. Before you ask Claude for anything, find your notes and paste them in first.
Frequently asked questions
Can Claude write in my magazine's voice?
It can get close if you give it real samples of your writing and correct its description of your voice. It still needs your facts and your opinions, and a person doing the final edit.
Should I run my copy through an AI detector?
We wouldn't rely on one. They aren't dependable enough to settle the question, and passing one doesn't make a piece good. Reading it aloud will tell you more.
Do I need to tell readers I used AI?
It depends on how much it did. A short, honest policy helps, and our article on disclosure has wording you can adapt.
Why does it keep inventing details?
A model will often fill a gap with something plausible. Tell it to use only the material you've supplied and to mark anything missing, then check every name and figure yourself.
