Write a blog or newsletter with AI, in your own voice
Use AI for ideas, outlines, headlines and editing, while the stories and opinions stay yours. Start with a voice guide, check every fact, and build a routine you can keep.
In 30 seconds
- Write a one-page voice guide, and paste it in before you ask for any help.
- Use AI for ideas, outlines, headlines and edits. Your stories and opinions are why people read.
- Check every fact and link yourself, and tell readers how you use AI if they’d expect to know.
People read a newsletter or a blog because of the person writing it: your view, your stories, the way you put things. Let AI write the whole post and you get smooth, sensible prose that sounds like everyone else’s, which gives readers no reason to choose yours. Used well, though, AI can take on the slog around your writing, so you publish regularly without losing what makes it yours.
Start with a voice guide
Before you ask AI to help with a post, pin down how you sound. A voice guide is a short note you paste in at the start of every session, so the AI’s suggestions fit you rather than its own default style. It needs four things.
- Three adjectivesHow you want to come across, such as warm, dry and practical. Three is enough to steer it.
- Words you usePhrases you reach for, how you sign off, and habits such as short sentences or the odd aside in brackets.
- Words you never useThe phrases that make you wince, such as “delve”, “unlock” or “in today’s fast-paced world”.
- Two past piecesTwo posts you’re proud of, pasted in full, so it can hear your voice rather than guess at it.
You can ask the AI to draft the guide from your past pieces, then edit it until it sounds right to you. Many assistants let you save Jargon busterCustom instructions: Standing instructions you save in an AI assistant’s settings, such as how you like it to write, so you don’t have to repeat them in every chat. or set up a project, so you don’t have to paste the guide in every time.
Here are two pieces I’ve written: [paste both in full]. Describe my writing voice as a one-page guide I could give to an editor. Include three adjectives for my tone; words, phrases and habits I use often; my typical sentence length; and how I open and close a piece. Then list ten words or phrases that would sound wrong coming from me. Quote my own lines as examples.
Let AI help around the writing
AI is useful for the jobs around a post: finding angles, shaping an outline, suggesting headlines and tightening a draft. It can’t supply the parts readers come for, because it wasn’t at the school gate on Monday and it doesn’t hold your opinions.
| Ask AI for | Keep for yourself |
|---|---|
| Ten angles on a topic you’ve chosen | The story of what actually happened to you |
| An outline to react to | Your opinion, and what you’d tell a friend to do |
| Headline and subject line options | The final choice, and making sure the post delivers on it |
| A tighter, clearer edit of your draft | The jokes, the asides and the turns of phrase |
| Questions a reader might ask | What your readers actually replied last week |
Here’s my voice guide: [paste]. I want to write a post about [topic] for [who reads it]. Here’s my rough view and a story I want to tell: [your notes]. Suggest three ways to structure it, in five bullet points each, plus the question a sceptical reader would ask. Don’t write the post.
Here’s my voice guide: [paste]. Edit the draft below to match it. Cut repetition and tighten long sentences, but keep my phrasing, my jokes and my opinions. Don’t add facts, examples or claims of your own. Then list every change you made, and flag any line that doesn’t sound like the guide. Draft: [paste your draft]
For headlines and email subject lines, ask for ten options in your voice, then choose. Steer clear of Jargon busterClickbait: A headline written to tempt you into clicking, often by teasing or exaggerating, that the article or post doesn’t live up to.: a headline that promises more than the post delivers costs you more trust than it earns in clicks.
Check every fact and every link
AI can produce a statistic, a quote or a link that looks completely real and isn’t, a Jargon busterHallucination: When AI states something false as if it were true, because it predicts plausible words rather than checking facts.. It can also shift your meaning while “just tidying”. Before you publish:
- Open every link and check it goes where you say it does.
- Find every figure and quote at its original source. If you can’t, cut it.
- Compare the edit with your draft, in case a careful sentence got bolder or a caveat went missing.
- Read it aloud. Anything you wouldn’t say out loud doesn’t sound like you.
Tell readers how you use it
If your readers would expect to know, tell them. A line in your footer, such as “I write every post myself, and use AI to help with headlines and editing”, is honest and costs nothing. The more of the writing AI did, the more it matters to say so. Some publishing platforms have their own rules on AI content, so check those too.
A weekly routine
- Collect all weekKeep a running note of stories, readers’ questions and things that made you think. That’s your raw material.
- Plan with AIPick one idea, ask for angles and outlines, then choose the shape you like.
- Write it yourselfDraft it in your own words, however rough. Give this step the most time.
- Edit with AIPaste in your voice guide and ask for a tighter version that keeps your phrasing.
- Check and sendCheck every fact and link, pick a headline from its options, read it aloud, then publish.
For more ways to keep your voice when AI edits your writing, see write better at work with AI.
Check yourself
3 quick questions nothing is savedTools in this guide
Spotted a mistake? Tell us and an editor will check it.
