This is Part 2 of a three-part series on building Claude skills.
The skill we're building today—capturing your writing voice—is just the example. What you're actually learning is how to turn any repeatable task into a reusable AI capability. Once you understand how skills work, you can apply the same approach to research workflows, email drafting, data analysis, client deliverables, whatever your work requires.
Here's where we're headed:
- Part 1: One skill. One task. Consistent every time.
- Part 2 (this week): A second skill for a different job.
- Part 3: Chain them into a workflow.
New to skills? Part 1 covers what they are and how they're different from GPTs and Gems.
This week's playground: Teaching Claude to sound like you
You've probably noticed that AI writing sounds like... AI writing. Competent but generic. Correct but flat. It hits all the points but none of the personality.
You can fix this with detailed prompts that describe your tone, list words to avoid, and explain your style. But that means re-explaining yourself every time. And honestly, most people can't articulate their own voice well enough to prompt it consistently.
This week, we're taking a different approach. Instead of trying to describe your voice from scratch, you're going to let Claude analyze your existing writing and figure out the patterns. Then you'll turn that analysis into a skill you can call on whenever you need to write something that actually sounds like you.
Why this matters
Voice is the hardest thing to get right with AI. You know it when you see it—that LinkedIn post that sounds like a press release, that email that's technically fine but weirdly stiff, that blog post that could have been written by anyone.
The problem isn't that AI can't write well. It's that AI defaults to a generic "helpful assistant" voice that sounds nothing like how you actually communicate.
Most people try to fix this by adding instructions like "be more casual" or "sound confident." That helps a little. But your voice isn't just casual or confident—it's the specific way you structure arguments, the phrases you reach for, the rhythm of your sentences, the things you never say. That's hard to describe in a prompt.
It's much easier to show than tell. Give Claude examples of your writing, let it reverse-engineer the patterns, and codify those patterns into a skill.
The two-step process
Here's how this works:
- Analyze: Upload 5-10 writing samples and ask Claude to create a style guide based on your patterns
- Build: Take that style guide and ask Claude to turn it into a reusable writing skill
The first step does the hard work of articulating your voice. The second step makes it permanent.
A note on general vs. specific skills
For this exercise, we're building a general writing skill—one that applies your voice across formats. That's a good starting point.
But here's the truth: how you write a whitepaper is probably different from how you write an email. If you write a lot of one format—newsletters, sales emails, case studies—you'll get better results building a separate skill using only those samples.
Start general. Get specific when it matters.
Your AI experiment: Build a personalized writing skill
👉 Time to tinker: Gather 5-10 writing samples, make sure you're on a paid Claude or ChatGPT plan, and set aside ten minutes.
Step 1: Generate your style guide
Gather your writing samples. For this general skill, mix formats—blogs, emails, LinkedIn posts—so Claude can find patterns that persist across contexts. Upload them to Claude.
The prompt:
I've uploaded several samples of my writing. Analyze them and create a detailed style guide that captures how I write.
Look for patterns in:
Voice and tone — How formal or casual am I? What's my default stance — authoritative, conversational, analytical, something else? How do I balance confidence with openness?
Sentence structure — Do I favor short punchy sentences, longer flowing ones, or a mix? How do I use rhythm and pacing? What transitional phrases do I reach for?
Word choice — What words or phrases show up repeatedly? What do I seem to avoid? How technical or accessible is my vocabulary?
Structure and formatting — How do I typically open and close pieces? How do I organize arguments or ideas? Do I use headers, bullets, numbered lists — and how?
Rhetorical habits — Do I use analogies or metaphors? What kind? Do I ask rhetorical questions? How do I handle examples and evidence?
Anti-patterns — What do I never do? What seems absent from my writing?
Output a comprehensive style guide I could hand to someone else to write in my voice.
Review what Claude produces. Does it capture how you actually write? If something's off, tell Claude: "That's not quite right. I actually [correction]." Refine until it feels accurate.
Step 2: Turn the style guide into a skill
Once you're happy with the style guide, ask Claude to build it into a skill:
The prompt:
Take this style guide and create a skill that writes in my voice.
The skill should:
- Apply when I ask Claude to write or draft something for me
- Follow all the patterns, preferences, and anti-patterns in the style guide
- Maintain my voice across different formats (emails, blog posts, LinkedIn, etc.)
Include the full style guide in the skill so Claude has all the details.
Please create this as a skill I can install and reuse.
Claude will generate the skill. Install (or copy it), and now you have a writing assistant that actually sounds like you.
Test it: ask Claude to draft a LinkedIn post or write an email. Compare it to your actual writing. Does it land?
💡 Pro tips: Get more from your skill
- Add anti-patterns explicitly. If the style guide misses things you hate—corporate jargon, passive voice, exclamation points—tell Claude: "Update my writing skill to never use [X]."
- Iterate after testing. Your first version won't be perfect. Test it, notice what's off, refine.
What did you discover?
Here's the thing: Claude can sound like you. But it can't think like you.
It doesn't know your point of view, your opinions, the arguments you'd actually make. It can match your rhythm and tone, but you still have to guide the substance.
A voice skill handles the how. The what is still yours.
Until next time—keep tinkering, keep prompting, keep innovating.
📩 Not subscribed yet? Hit the button at the top. Next week, we're chaining these skills into a full workflow — whitepaper in, finished blog posts out.
