Prompting for Voice and Tone
If you’re a self-taught writer you might not have the classical vocabulary that makes up English composition. Or maybe you just need a refresher. Here are some terms and sub-terms that will help you get what you want out of AI when editing with it. Often a simple command like “Make it sound more natural” isn’t enough—you’ll need to tell AI what you mean by that.
This works better because the AI models have been trained by humans with masters degrees in writing who are telling it what mechanical levers to pull when certain commands are given. (Ask me how I know…or better yet just read the inaugural Prompt Crush blog post.)
Voice
A more consistent, personality-level trait of your writing style. Voice is what makes your content recognizable. You might describe it as “straight-talking and warm" or "technical and precise." <— AI wrote that and it kinda sucks. *cue sounds of tires screeching”
Let’s turn it around. To me, voice is perspective more than it is topical in AI’s definition—that’s tone. But we can fight about it if you want. Instead, I would prompt AI for voice by giving it a perspective as well as a target audience with some demographic information.
Incoming! A proven use case: This is tried and true for me as I’ve used it to help write web copy for service descriptions (that I knew nothing about) in the past.
Prompt: “Rewrite this product description from the perspective of a skin care company who is targeting women in their 40s who have an advanced degree and live in Australia.”
Prompt: “Write a description for grass-cutting services from the perspective of a company providing that service. The target audience is high-end commercial property managers.”
This specific phase of the writing process will yield better results with the more detail you put in. If you skip it at this phase and try to do it for tone, it’s going to be less impactful and more like you’re throwing a bunch of synonmous adjectives around.
It will actually help AI make better choices for the downstream mechanics like tone—applying word choice based on cultural references you gave it, choosing punctuation styles based on ages that you indicated, and determining its usage of first/second/third POV for pronouns, to give a few examples.
Tone
The emotional quality or attitude behind the writing. Think, “It’s giving…” Friendly? Professional? Coy? Inspirational? Again, instead of solely relying on those adjectives, try adding in a more strategic move: a character or archetype.
Tone is usually talked about as its own thing (and usually the very last thing), but in my opinion (another hot take), tone is a combination of syntax and voice. It kind of builds naturally from those earlier choices, then gets a second pass for fine-tuning in the final editing phase.
Prompt: “Make this pitch more polished without being stiff. Adjust this to a more confident, inspirational tone without being over-the-top. Don’t degrade the reader’s position.”
Prompt: “Make it more human. Replace any jargon or technical terms with words or phrases that someone would use when explaining this subject to a friend. Don’t sacrifice clarity—if you can’t find a 1:1 replacement then keep the technical term and add in a brief definition. If the definition is longer than 30 additional words then style it into an aside or footnote.”
*Bonus: Giving AI word or character count maximums is a great move with any command at any phase.
Syntax
*Special guest: syntax.” Why is this here if we’re talking about voice and tone? Though a structural component, syntax is structure at the sentence level, so it affects voice and tone greatly.
I use syntax commands when I’m trying to direct AI for voice and tone adjustments, as I find that it’s a great way to get more specific about what I want that voice and tone to do and how I want it to look for a certain second or deliverable.
A blog post, the headline for a billboard, and a social caption all require different syntax. Just as within those formats, each part (titles v. body v. CTA) require different treatments as well.
Prompt: “Make this more succint—shorter sentences, more direct phrasing. Lead with verbs and avoid complex sentences. Stick with end punctuation only. Use bulleted lists for any places where you currently have more than 2 commas in succession.”
Prompt: “Make it sound more conversational. Vary the sentence structure by alternating between very short statements and longer complex sentences. Use non-standard english. For example, playful punctuation and styling sentence fragments as full sentences.”