Build a Do-Not-Use List for Your AI Writing
Gary WhittakerAI Writing Assistance · Find Your Voice · Public Lesson 15
This lesson is part of the public AI Writing Assistance series: practical training you can use now, with a deeper Find Your Voice practice available where your access includes it.
Sometimes the fastest way to protect your voice is to tell AI what to stop doing.
The Jack Righteous approach
Build negative constraints from evidence in your own edits—not from generic internet lists of so-called AI words.
Use this workflow
- Review several AI-assisted drafts for phrases you repeatedly delete.
- Collect words, tones and structural habits that feel false or inflated.
- Explain why important bans exist so AI can choose better alternatives.
- Add preferred behavior where possible instead of only saying 'never.'
- Review the list periodically so it stays useful instead of becoming a giant blacklist.
Why this matters
AI can move quickly enough that a weak assumption becomes polished before you notice it. A stronger workflow makes the important choices visible earlier: what the source material actually says, what belongs to your voice, what the reader needs, and what still requires human judgment.
A prompt you can actually use
Copy and adapt:
From these drafts and edits, identify words, phrases and structural habits I repeatedly remove. Propose a do-not-use list, but separate strong evidence from guesses. For each rule, explain what I appear to prefer instead.
What a useful AI response should do
A useful response should help you inspect the material, not hide the reasoning under better prose. You should be able to see which patterns came from your source material, which conclusions are tentative, and which choices still belong to you.
Your five-minute exercise
A phrase I always remove is: ______________________________
A tone I dislike is: ______________________________
A structure that feels too AI-like is: ______________________________
The preferred alternative is: ______________________________
What the human still decides
AI can help with pattern recognition, organization, questions, alternatives and editing. You still decide what is true, what sounds like you, what belongs in the project, what is safe to publish and what deserves to become a reusable rule.
Continue from here
If you are reading publicly: continue through the AI Writing & Story Development Library for more free writing, story, manuscript 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 training 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: Use AI to make your thinking clearer—not to make your thinking disappear.
Continue the Public Series
