Stop Sounding Like ChatGPT

Most of your draft probably doesn’t need fixing.

When a draft feels “AI,” it’s easy to assume the whole thing needs another rewrite. Usually it doesn’t.

A handful of patterns are doing most of the damage: the same sentence shape three times in a row; a fake little reveal; an example with no real person or detail in it; a paragraph that explains itself after it has already made the point.

Once you can see those patterns, editing becomes much smaller. You stop asking AI to regenerate 1,500 words because six sentences bother you. And you stop losing the sentences that were already yours.

Start with one prompt.

The guide opens with a Master Editing Prompt. Paste it into ChatGPT or Claude. Add your draft.

It finds the three most noticeable problems, quotes the exact passages, explains what’s happening, and suggests the smallest useful change. If the draft only has one real problem, it should tell you one.

If a fix needs a real example from your life or work, it asks you for one instead of making something up. You decide what gets changed.

• No automatic full rewrite.
• No “humanizer” that replaces your voice with another generic voice.
• No hunting through five versions of the same article.

Keep the point. Lose the performance around it.

Nothing is technically wrong with it. That’s why these sentences survive so easily. But once the same contrast appears five times in the same article, you start hearing the pattern instead of the writer.

Same point. Less performance around it. And if the original sentence already sounds like you? Keep it.

You start seeing the habits before they pile up.

After a while, you probably won’t need a prompt for every draft. You start noticing the habits while you’re editing:

• A paragraph made entirely of punchy one-line sentences.
• “Here’s the thing.”
• “The result?”
• Another neat three-part sequence.
• An example that sounds specific until you realize there isn’t a single actual detail in it.
• A conclusion that repeats the previous three paragraphs.

The guide covers 12 patterns like these, with examples of what they look like and what a smaller, more natural edit can look like. Not because every one is forbidden. Because repetition is what makes them obvious.

Smaller tools for the parts that need more help.

There are prompts for specific editing jobs, so you can get useful help without sending the entire draft back through the machine.

• Quick ScanFind the three most noticeable problems without rewriting anything.
• Full ScanFor a longer article when you want to go deeper.
• Targeted Fix PromptsFor repetitive sentence structures, overexplaining, fake suspense, generic examples, predictable paragraph rhythm, and passages that need more help.
• Voice Profile BuilderGive ChatGPT or Claude a few things you actually wrote and create a reusable description of your voice.
• Reusable AI EditorSave it once in ChatGPT or Claude and use it again on future drafts.

There are before-and-after examples and a final checklist too, but you don’t need to read the whole PDF before it becomes useful. Open page 2. Copy the prompt. Paste your draft. Start there.

Keep the useful draft. Remove the habits that make it feel generic.

You don’t need another complete regeneration every time a paragraph feels strange. You don’t need five versions of the same article open in different tabs. You don’t need to manually hunt for every phrase people have started associating with ChatGPT.

And you definitely don’t need to add typos, slang, or awkward sentences just to make something look “human.”

Keep the useful draft. Remove the habits that are making it feel generic. Then publish it.