Teach AI What You Never Want It to Say
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AI Writing Assistance · Project Knowledge & Story Control · Public Lesson 32
This block is about building enough project knowledge that AI can assist without quietly becoming the source of truth.
Positive style guidance is only half the job. Repeated bad habits deserve explicit boundaries.
The Jack Righteous approach
Build negative constraints from evidence in your own edits rather than generic lists of supposedly 'AI' language.
Use this workflow
- Collect phrases and tones you repeatedly remove.
- Identify structural habits that make the writing feel generic or inflated.
- Explain why important bans exist so better alternatives are possible.
- Add preferred behavior where useful instead of only saying 'never.'
- Review the list as the project evolves so it does not become a rigid blacklist.
Why this matters
Long projects do not usually fail because the AI cannot write a sentence. They drift because facts, terminology, chronology, character logic or project rules change without anyone noticing. A stronger source-of-truth system keeps the human creator in control of what the project actually is.
A prompt you can actually use
Copy and adapt:
From these approved edits, build a negative style guide. For each banned word, phrase, tone or structural habit, show the evidence and suggest the preferred alternative behavior. Do not invent dislikes I have not demonstrated.
What a useful AI response should do
A useful response should distinguish known information from interpretation and proposals. It should surface contradictions instead of smoothing them away, preserve open questions and make it clear when a human decision is required.
Your five-minute exercise
A phrase I consistently remove is: ______________________________
A tone I never want is: ______________________________
A structure that feels generic is: ______________________________
The preferred alternative is: ______________________________
What the human still decides
AI can organize records, compare scenes, surface contradictions and help maintain consistency. You still decide what becomes canon, which interpretation is fair, what can be published, and when a real-person or source-material issue needs additional professional review.
Continue from here
If you are reading publicly: continue through the AI Writing & Story Development Library for more free writing, manuscript, story and creator workflows.
If Find Your Voice training is included in your access: continue with Voice Foundation Template | Find Your Voice Tool. That link enters the deeper story-development layer and may require you to log in.
If you are unsure where to go next, use How to Use Jack Righteous and start with one project, one blocker and one useful next action.
Jack Righteous principle: Better project knowledge gives AI less room to invent and gives you more control over what becomes real.
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