Make it sound like you

By the end of this track you will have

1. Step 1One plain text file of your own prose, one reader, one register, with a word count written on it.
2. Step 2Nine numbers describing your own prose, computed from your corpus file, saved somewhere you can paste them into a prompt.
3. Step 3Six to ten named moves you actually make, each one quoted from a real line in your corpus, and nothing on the list you could not find twice.
4. Step 4A 400-word sample written to your profile, a printed gap table against your corpus, and a second version that closed the biggest gap.
5. Step 5A closed list of what you are allowed to claim, and a blind audit pass that checks a draft against it and is allowed to return a failure.

The steps

Each one ends with a check you run yourself. The box is yours to tick when it passes.

1. 1
   Step 1.Collect the writing that was actually for someone

   25 minutesOpen to everyone

   Done means

   wc -w corpus.txt returns a number between 1,500 and 3,000, and reading the first line aloud names a reader rather than a subject. Run it again after every deletion. If the count falls under 1,500 you have collected too narrowly, and if it climbs over 3,000 you have stopped choosing.

   The check passed
2. 2
   Step 2.Measure it, do not describe it

   20 minutes

   Done means

   Run the script on your corpus, then on 2,000 words published by somebody else in your field. Their median must differ from yours by two words or more, or their short share from yours by five points or more. If both land inside those margins, your corpus is too mixed to teach anything, and you go back to step 1 and cut a register out.

   The check passed
3. 3
   Step 3.Name the moves, cite the line

   30 minutes

   Done means

   Cover the quotes and read the move names on their own. Search corpus.txt for a third occurrence of each move, one you have not already cited. Any move where you cannot find one inside two minutes comes off the list. What survives is the profile, and the same pass run next month will cut more.

   The check passed
4. 4
   Step 4.Write one sample and score it against yourself

   30 minutes

   Done means

   The sample sits within two words of your corpus median, within five points of your short rate, and its parenthesis, exclamation and question rates are no higher than yours. Where your corpus rate is zero the sample must be zero as well. Zero means zero. One exclamation mark against a corpus of none is a fail, and you delete it rather than argue with it.

   The check passed
5. 5
   Step 5.The model will invent your life if you let it

   35 minutes

   Done means

   Plant one false claim in the draft on purpose, in your own rhythm, before you run the audit. Something like a client email you never received, and the audit must return that exact sentence marked UNSUPPORTED. If it comes back clean, your auditor is reading the voice. It is not reading the claims. An auditor is worth nothing until it fails that test.

   The check passed