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TeamsAugust 24, 20264 min read

A voice you can hand to somebody else

Voice feels like something only you have. Written down in one page, it becomes something a freelancer can follow on Monday.

The moment somebody else writes a post for you, you discover that your voice was never written down — only performed. What comes back is grammatically fine and unmistakably not you.

One page, four parts

  • Three adjectives, and one you are not — “warm, precise, unfussy; never breathless”
  • Words we use and words we do not, as an actual list
  • Three sentences from your own posts that sound most like you
  • Three sentences rewritten wrong, with a line on why

The fourth part does the most work. Showing somebody a good sentence teaches slowly; showing them the same sentence spoiled teaches immediately.

RulesExamplesSlowImmediate
A rule tells somebody what to avoid. An example tells them what to aim at.

Things worth deciding once

Do you use emoji, and where. Do you write “we” or “I”. Exclamation marks: never, sparingly, or freely. Formal or informal address, in languages that have both. Each of these is a coin flip that should not be flipped again every post.

Write it for a competent stranger, not for yourself. The test is whether somebody who has never met you could write two posts you would publish unchanged.

Stop watching the clock. Start drifting.

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