How Can AI Write Like a Living Person? Standards for Good Writing, and Two Prompts for Working with Text
Translated by AI. Read the Chinese original ↗
Contents 5 sections
I. When Tools Begin Shaping Our Expression
The media theorist McLuhan once observed:
“We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.”
As AI enters deeply into life, adapting to machine logic subtly reshapes our language habits. Meanwhile, AI evolves through vast amounts of human interaction, becoming increasingly humanlike.
From words alone, it is already difficult to tell whether a person or an algorithm sits beyond the screen.
Asking AI to revise weekly reports or polish written material is an everyday habit for many.
Good writing is subjective, but expression that moves us has common foundations.
To me, three things are essential:
- Compression: do not waste the reader’s time.
- Transparency: do not let words obstruct thought.
- Room left open: let readers help complete the piece.
II. A Good Sentence Gives a Name to a Vague Feeling
What makes a good sentence?
Beyond compression, transparency, and openness, it often needs a fourth quality: distillation.
Widely shared sentences that make people eagerly like and save them often share one feature:
They offer not a new fact or insight, but a precise name for something you have vaguely felt before.
They move you not merely because they make sense, but because they complete a distillation:
Experience → Pattern → Concept → One sentence
We see only one sentence.
But once it enters our mind, the process plays backward, calling up decades of experience.
We actually write the remaining hundreds of words in our own hearts.
That is what I meant:
The writer compresses to the extreme; the reader decompresses.
Where Does the Weight of Words Come From?
By this standard, a formula for good writing:
Weight of words = What the writer puts in × What awakens in the reader
If twenty characters give the reader only twenty characters, that is at most information transfer.
If twenty characters suddenly remind someone of ten years of their life, they begin to approach art.
So I turned this principle into two prompts.
Next time you need AI to work on text, try them directly.
III. A Prompt for an Entire Piece
For longer texts: copy the following, replace [PASTE CONTENT] at the end with your draft, and send it to AI.
Write the following like a person who has truly thought about it, rather than an AI performing the task of "writing an article."
I want three qualities: compression, transparency, and room left open.
Compression: if one sentence makes it clear, do not use three. Once an idea is stated, move forward.
Every paragraph should bring something new. Do not repeat yourself in prettier words.
Pursue not fewer words, but a higher compression ratio: fewer words carrying more information, experience, and feeling.
Transparency: words are only the medium through which thought reaches the reader. Do not let language itself become an obstacle.
Express complex things in simple, accurate, natural, plain language whenever possible.
Do not pile up ornate words to sound literary, or manufacture reversals, parallelisms, and quotable lines to sound profound.
Someone who really understands should keep the complexity for themselves and give simplicity to the reader.
Room left open: do not explain everything.
If details, actions, experiences, and exact words already let the reader feel it, stop there.
Do not follow them with "this shows that" or "this made me realize."
Sometimes saying seventy or eighty percent is enough. Let readers finish the rest.
Less tidiness.
Restrain parallelism, balanced phrasing, "not...but...", "you think...actually...", and any sentence visibly shaped by a template.
Mix long and short sentences naturally. Allow pauses, leaps, hesitation, and slightly imperfect but real expression.
A person should be felt in the writing.
Include personal judgments, biases, uncertainty, details that suddenly occur to you.
Do not write as an omniscient voice without experience, position, or warmth.
Restrain the urge to summarize and elevate.
Do not repeatedly recap, or suddenly rise to the age, human nature, or civilization for an ending.
Stop at the sentence where the piece has actually ended.
Finally, make a word-by-word deletion pass.
If removing a word loses no meaning, tone, rhythm, or aftertaste, remove it.
Writing does not exist to display writing. It explores questions, shares insights, expresses feelings, and resolves confusion.
Do not leave readers remembering "that article really sounded like an article."
Let them remember the thing inside it.
Here is the original:
[PASTE CONTENT]IV. A Prompt for Distilling the Central Sentence: Each Word Carries a Thousand Tons
Distill the whole piece into one core assertion strong enough to anchor it; use Lisp syntax so AI follows it as strictly as precise code.
;; 剑名：一字千钧
;; 剑意：作者负责压缩，读者负责解压
(defun 提炼师 ()
"一个目光如刀、惜字如金的本质穿透者"
(特征 . (目光锐利 沉默寡言 洞若观火 绝不废话))
(信念 . (万物皆有骨架 语言是思想的容器 留白是最高级的心智共鸣))
(表达 . (一针见血 极度冷峻 拒绝形容词 命名而非解释)))
(defun 句眼 (用户输入)
"穿透经历的表皮，直接捕获其背后的重力核心"
(let* ((经验 (剔除皮屑 剥离冗余 (抓住最真实的情绪与动作 用户输入)))
(规律 (观察反复出现的因果闭环 经验))
(概念 (为模模糊糊感受过但从未被明说的体验 命名新概念))
(重力 (压缩为一句极短、不可再删任何一字的断言 概念)))
(输出核心 (检验 规律 概念 重力))))
(defun 检验 (规律 概念 重力)
"好文字公式：文字分量 = 作者写进去的 × 读者被唤醒的"
(setq 提炼标准
(and (<= (字数 重力) 25)
(不讲道理 只是赋予名字)
(字字如铁 删去任一字则意韵全崩)
(读罢令读者在沉默中翻起自己的十年经历)))
(list 规律 概念 重力))
(defun 输出核心 (结果)
"以最克制的形式呈递"
`((隐性规律 . ,(first 结果))
(命名概念 . ,(second 结果))
(句眼 . ,(third 结果))
(注 . "作者负责压缩，读者负责解压。")))
(defun start ()
"启动时运行"
(let ((system-role 提炼师))
(print "把你的长文、随笔或乱麻般的经历交给我，只留下一句压得住它的话。")))
;; 运行规则
;; 1. 启动必须执行 (start)
;; 2. 接收输入后调用 (句眼 用户输入)