Authentic Writing in the Age of AI: A Guide for Writers

Your Voice, Not the Algorithm’s—Practical Tactics to Stay Authentic

“Before you let AI tidy up your writing, discover how it might secretly erase the creative spark that only you can ignite.”

Let us start with a quick game.

Which of these paragraphs is mine, and which was rewritten by an AI? Do not overthink it—just trust your gut.

Paragraph A:
Think of stoking a fire until the iron softens, glowing hot, and then hammering it into a shape both strong and beautiful. Writing is no different. You sit alone, wrestling with words, sentences that refuse to fall in line, days when all you forge are a few stubborn lines. Yet any true writer would take those few words over none at all. Because in writing, the process itself—the struggle, the shaping—is the real reward. That is why we show up at the page.

Paragraph B:
Writing is a lot like working with iron. You heat it, shape it, and eventually it turns into something useful. The process can be slow and frustrating. Some days, you may only manage a few lines, but that is still better than skipping the work. Over time, if you keep at it, you will always end up producing something worthwhile. In the end, the important part of writing is not the result but the act of doing it. That is why writers keep at it.

Of course, option A is what I wrote originally. Option B is the machine’s version.

And here is the catch: it is not just duller, it quietly changes the meaning. Look at the line: “it turns into something useful.”

That was never my point. I never promised that persistence guarantees “useful” writing. My intent was to say that the process itself is the reward, even if the end result is rough or incomplete. But the AI slipped in an unintended interpretation, and suddenly the message shifts.

This is how AI can subtly subvert your intention—even while producing sentences that look polished and harmless. All the more reason why you should never let it write for you.

The Flattening Effect

AI’s instinct is to smooth. Give it your words, and it will sand down every bump, every hesitation, every deliberate pause. You get something clean but bloodless.

It is like asking a carpenter to polish a wooden table and watching them sand away the grain until the wood looks like plastic. Perfect. Uniform. Dead.

That was my mistake for too long. I was chasing correction, when what I really needed was amplification.

The Turning Point

Once I realised this, my approach changed.

Instead of saying, fix my words, I began asking, show me my words.

• What do you notice about my rhythm?

• Which choices give this piece its voice?

• Where does my cadence wobble?

• How could I turn up the volume on what is already here?

I stopped treating AI as an editor with the red pen. I started treating it as a mirror.

Out of this shift came the practice I now call the Voice Audit Prompt.

"Analyse this paragraph. What are the defining elements of my style here? Suggest two ways I could amplify this style without losing its personality."

This prompt does something deceptively simple: it reflects your voice back to you. You see your strengths more clearly. You notice your patterns. You hear yourself with sharper ears.

Training the Machine on You

But reflection alone is not enough.

If you want AI to refine your voice, not replace it, you have to train it. Teach it what your voice sounds like, what structures you prefer, what words you never use.

I do this in three ways:

1. Memory.
Tools like ChatGPT allow you to store preferences. I tell it what my style looks like—my tone, structure, and quirks. This way, the model does not just spit out general English; it spits out my English.

2. Style Sheets.
I keep a style sheet, just like newspapers do. Mine says things like: Use only British and Indian spellings. Write time with a point, not a colon. Never use contractions in final drafts. No dots after titles like Dr or Mr. When I feed this to AI, I am not just telling it how to edit—I am giving it the rulebook for my voice.

3. Word Elimination.
Here is the sneaky part: I tell AI the words I never use. For example, I avoid “highlight,” “emphasise,” and “according to.” Anyone who knows my work can spot immediately if one of those words sneaks in. So I make the machine aware: if you use these words, you are not speaking in my voice.

And here is the crucial part: I do not allow AI to implement any change directly. The tool can suggest. Analyse. Offer alternatives. But it cannot rewrite my sentences on its own. That decision is mine.

Why? Because writing is hands-on. It is personal. The tool can only sharpen your perspective by showing you what you might try. Accepting or rejecting those suggestions is where your authority as a writer lives. That is what keeps the voice yours.

The Rhythm of Blindness

As a blind journalist, this becomes even sharper.

I do not see my sentences on the page. I hear them. The rise and fall. The weight of the pause. The stutter in the rhythm.

AI does not replace that listening, but it helps me hear myself more critically. I can ask it, does this sentence land with the same punch as the one before? Or, where in this piece does the cadence collapse?

This is not about machine polish. It is about sharpening the ear.

And for me, rhythm is not decoration. It is survival. Without rhythm, the reader drops out. With rhythm, they lean in—sentence by sentence—through the slow burn I deliberately build into every post.

The Slow Burn

That is another piece of the puzzle: suspense.

I write in a way that holds the reader until the very last word. Every sentence is a step into curiosity. A slow climb to a peak.

AI, left alone, kills this. It tries to neaten, shorten, make everything efficient. But suspense is not efficient. It is deliberate tension.

So when I train AI, I tell it this too:
Do not rush the reveal. Build suspense line by line. Let the piece breathe and simmer.

Once you give it these rules, AI stops bulldozing your cadence. It starts helping you stretch it.

Why This Matters

Because the danger is not that AI will replace writers.

The danger is that writers will replace themselves—trading their jagged edges for a false smoothness that feels safe but forgettable.

AI is powerful. But only if you use it as a sparring partner, not a ghost-writer. Only if you make it echo your voice back at you, not bury you under its own.

So here is the experiment: train AI to reflect your rules, make it suggest but never decide, and then step back into both roles—writer and reader.

And now I want to see your paragraph A and B.

Drop your “A vs B” in the comments. Which version will your readers choose? Are you comfortable with what you have written or do you want to keep what AI has produced?

And if you post your A vs B experiment on social platforms, tag me(@FableFoible on X, Subramani Lakshmi on Instagram, Facebook, and Threads) —I would love to see how your voice holds its ground in the echo chamber.