Most of your AI rewrites happen because AI assumed when it should have asked. You feed it your Voiceprint. You give it the topic. It generates 800 words. And somewhere around paragraph three, you realize it invented a personal story you never had, took a stance you'd never take, or structured the argument backwards from how you actually think. Now you're rewriting instead of editing. Again. Here's the fix. Add this exact line to every collaboration prompt: ``` Before drafting anything substantial, identify 2-3 places where you'd need my specific input—personal experiences, opinions, examples—and ask me first. Don't assume. Ask. ``` What changes: Before: AI generates → You read → You discover the problems → You rewrite After: AI asks → You answer → AI generates with your actual input → You edit details The difference isn't subtle. When AI asks "What's your personal experience with this?" before writing, it uses YOUR story instead of inventing generic filler. When it asks "How strongly do you want to make this claim?" it calibrates stance before drifting into guru-mode. The places AI needs to ask are what I call "you-shaped holes"—sections where only your experience, your opinion, your specific take belongs. AI can't fill these. It can only fake them. And faked content is exactly what makes output feel hollow even when the voice sounds right. Try it on your next piece. Count how many corrections you give versus last time. *** Quick challenge: Drop your "ask first" instruction in the comments. What specific questions do you want AI to ask before generating? Seeing each other's versions helps everyone refine theirs.

Here's what's actually happening when ChatGPT produces that generic, committee-approved output: AI creates convergent content by default. It averages patterns from billions of words. The result is competent, coherent, and completely forgettable—a statistical composite stripped of anything distinctive. This isn't a bug. It's the architecture working as designed. The opportunity? While everyone else accepts the average, you can train AI on YOUR patterns and produce divergent content that stands out. Quick poll: When you read AI-generated content in the wild, can you usually tell?

Just dropped a new newsletter post that I've been sitting on for a while. It's called "The AI Content Industry Isn't a Pyramid Scheme (But the Structure Is Suspiciously Similar)" And yes, I implicate myself. Heavily. The short version: There's a loop in this space where teaching AI tactics → creates generic content → creates demand for "authenticity" courses → creates demand for NEW tactics → repeat. The people teaching benefit at every stage. The people learning keep buying fixes for problems the last fix created. I'm not outside this loop. My whole "anti-slop" positioning benefits when slop gets worse. I didn't design it, but I'd be lying if I said I don't benefit. So the post is partly confession, partly framework. The framework: A "Demand Manufacturing Detector" for evaluating whether AI content advice (including mine) is actually valuable or just creating more problems to sell solutions for. The test: "Would this advice still work if 10,000 people followed it?" I also talk about whether Voiceprint/Co-Write OS is actually different or just a more sophisticated version of the same loop. (Honest answer: I think it's different, but I'm biased, and I built in ways for you to call me out if I'm wrong.) Read it here: https://nickquick.substack.com/p/the-ai-content-industry-isnt-a-pyramid And if you catch me falling into the loop I'm critiquing? Call it out. In this community. Publicly. I'm asking you to. That's the only way this stays honest.

My cold email prompt was 487 words. Audience context. Tone guidelines. Vocabulary patterns. Banned phrases. A complete map of how to sound like me. The output? Generic garbage I'd banish to spam. So I deleted it. Started over with four sentences. Suddenly: usable. Here's the thing nobody warns you about—AI doesn't process instructions like humans. Give it 15 constraints and it has to prioritize. And it picks wrong. Constantly. Your carefully-worded instruction about avoiding clichés? Deprioritized. Your tone examples? Buried under the avalanche of demands. The fix is embarrassingly simple: separate identity from task. 🧉 Identity documentation (your Voiceprint) = comprehensive. Who you are as a writer. Reference material AI always has access to. 🧉 Task prompts = minimal. Four elements max. One sentence each. Most people conflate these. They try to establish identity AND define the task AND set constraints AND specify format—all in one massive prompt. That's where everything falls apart. New article breaks down the 4-element task prompt structure and why your detailed prompts are fighting themselves. → https://open.substack.com/pub/nickquick/p/your-500-word-prompt-is-the-problem?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=40teo What's your most over-engineered prompt disaster? Looking back, how much was identity documentation crammed into a task request?

Hey Co-Writers— Dropping something I've been refining that's made a measurable difference in how my AI-assisted content performs. The problem: AI nails logical structure but completely misses emotional flow. Your content hits the points but not the feelings. No build-up, no release, no resonance. The fix: Mapping emotional beats BEFORE writing—then directing AI to follow the map. The Five Beats (simplified): 1. Disruption (sentences 1-3) — Break the pattern. Surprise, confession, contradiction. No information yet. Just feeling. 2. Tension (next 2-3 paragraphs) — Press on the problem. Make it uncomfortable. Don't rush to fix it. 3. Release (middle section) — Introduce your framework/solution. Only works if tension earned it. 4.Proof (one solid example) — Show it working. Story beats statistics every time. 5. Resonance (final paragraph) — Not a summary. An echo. What feeling do you want lingering? How I prompt for this: Instead of "write emotionally" (which produces pure cringe), I encode it directly: ``` Structure the emotional flow: - Sentences 1-3: Disruption. No information—just pattern break. - Paragraphs 2-3: Build tension around [pain point]. Don't resolve yet. - Paragraphs 4-5: Release with [framework]. Relief should feel earned. - Paragraph 6: Concrete example showing this working. - Final paragraph: Image or thought that echoes. No summary. ``` Quick exercise: Pull up your last piece of AI-assisted content. Mark where each beat lands (or doesn't). Most pieces flatline at beat 2—tension. We're all too eager to fix the problem before letting the reader feel it. Where does YOUR content usually lose the emotional thread? Drop your answer below—and if anyone wants, share a piece and I'll give feedback on the beat structure. Let's workshop some examples