Pairing and order — how this pass fits with tell-stripping
This skill is one half of a two-pass editing standard. The other half strips AI tells (the anti-ai-slop-writing pass). They are not interchangeable, and the order is not optional.
The two-zero model
- Tell-stripping gets copy to zero. After it, nothing in the piece screams machine: no negative parallelism ("it's not X, it's Y"), no false-suspense transitions ("here's the thing"), no grandiose stakes, no formulaic openers, no em-dash addiction. The copy is clean.
- This pass gets copy above zero. Clean is not the same as human. "Flawless and flat" is itself a recognisable AI signature - copy that is technically perfect and has no point of view. This pass adds one or two deliberate human moves so a specific person is visibly present.
Both matter. Clean copy with no texture still reads as AI. Textured copy that still has rhetorical tells reads as an AI trying to sound casual, which is worse.
Why the order is fixed
Run tell-stripping first, this pass second.
If you add human moves to copy that still carries AI tells, the moves make the tells louder, not quieter - a mid-sentence aside sitting next to a "here's what nobody tells you" transition just draws attention to the transition. Strip the machine patterns to a clean baseline, then add texture to that baseline.
The failure modes this pairing prevents
| Symptom | Cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Reads as AI, smooth and lifeless | Only tell-stripping ran; no texture added | Run this pass; add one or two moves |
| Reads as AI "doing casual", overwrought | This pass ran without stripping, or too many moves | Strip first; cut back to one or two moves |
| Reads as a costume, not the writer | Moves don't match the writer's register | Match dry moves to dry writers, warm to warm |
| Reads as fabricated | Specificity move used invented detail | Use only true detail, or drop the move |
One row above needs a carve-out: "smooth and lifeless" is only a problem for voice-forward copy. Formal, compliance, or technical copy is supposed to read clean and plain - it correctly stops after the tell-stripping pass, and this pass should not run on it. Do not add casual texture to writing meant to stay plain; smooth-and-neutral is the target there, not a failure.
What this pass is NOT
- Not a checklist to apply all at once. One or two moves per piece. A wall of quirks is try-hard slop.
- Not a licence to invent. The specificity move uses only real, true detail; fabricated specifics are still a hard failure.
- Not a replacement for tell-stripping. Strip the tells first, then add the texture. A piece that skips the first pass is not ready for this one.
Quick sequence
- Draft.
- Strip AI tells to a clean baseline.
- Read once, find the flat stretch.
- Add one or two moves from the move library, matched to the writer.
- Read aloud. One moment should sound like a specific person. If not, adjust. If it now sounds try-hard, cut back.