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From The Vault: Better Writing With ChatGPT
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A structured framework to help you replicate your unique writing voice, tone and style. If that sounds interesting to you, then stick with me and I'll talk to you on the other side of the music. Hey there. Welcome to the ChatGPT experiment, the podcast designed to help you better understand what ChatGPT is and get some tips and nuggets that can help you in your project, personal or professional needs. My name is Kerry Weston. I'm your host and during the holidays here, I'm bringing some episodes out of the Vault. The ones that I think are the most meaningful and valuable to folks who are listening. Just getting started, no matter what your comfort level is really. I'm bringing out a few topics that I think would be incredibly helpful for folks of all skill levels to hear. And this one, how to get ChatGPT to write more like you, continues to be the probably the top question, concern, frustration, area of interest for people that I meet that are talking about ChatGPT. This was episode 21 originally, but I will tell you, the nuggets here will help you get more authentic, more real, and be more consistent in whatever writing you're going to do with ChatGPT. So I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season. I hope you're safe in your travels if you need to do that. And here is episode 21. I'll be back in the new year. And as always, it's your curiosity, right, that keeps you doing more and getting more from ChatGPT. So instead we talk again. Be curious. Okay. Talk soon. Okay. So one of the most frequent questions that I get around ChatGPT is I can't really get it to write like me. I can't get it to replicate my voice. I can't get a formula together to brainstorm an article outline. I can't get it to use words that I use or stay away from words that I wouldn't use. I can't get it to just be as efficient a writing partner as I need it to be. Can you help? So I thought in this episode, what we would do is take all of the pieces that kind of talked about in separate formats and just put it together, start to finish, so that you can see a formula for how you could approach using ChatGPT as a writing partner. And at the conclusion of this episode, you should be able to start to outline and build a foundation of your voice, your tone, and your style. Work with ChatGPT to formulate a Persona or an audience so you're writing for them. And then I'll give you a prompt that you can start to use as a framework for taking the information that you're going to work with ChatGPT on and start plugging it in so you can fast forward the content and article writing process. All right? And on chatgpt experiment.com I can only do so much in audio, and so I thought it would be relevant on this particular topic to do a screen share and show you my interaction with ChatGPT. So I'm replicating some of this on a video. I am recording my screen and I posted that on chatgpt experiment.com and I'm also going to paste the prompts that I'm giving you here as well, so you'll have additional resources to kind of go and use on your own. Watch the video, copy the prompts, use them as they will to get you up to speed and started on what we're about to talk about. So I think it's important that we all kind of start from the same foundation, the same understanding. So the terms voice, tone and style may mean different things to different people. And so, real quickly, what I mean when I use those terms is the voice is the distinct personality or point of view that makes kind of the writing unique to the author. The tone is the attitude or kind of the emotional nuance of what's going on. And style is the physical structure, syntax is bullet points, highlights, long form, short form, that kind of thing. So when I use voice, tone and style, I'm really talking about personality, I'm talking about attitude and word choice, and I'm talking about physically, the way you structure Your writing, some common examples of each. For voice, you could be authoritative or professional or sarcastic. Right. You can kind of see how they approach their writing, their conversation. For tone, it could be playful, it could be encouraging. Right. It could be persuasive, it's the intent. Right. Of kind of the writing. And for style, it could be simple and clear, it could be narrative, it could be complex with bullets. And so you can see examples there of we want to get to a model where we can define our preference for voice, tone and style. And once we define our preference and we can replicate it, that's really where we can be most efficient because we'll start from a point of view of understanding in the language model here with ChatGPT is we'll have a recipe, if you will, that we can reuse over and over again to get you to the point where the writing assistant tools inside ChatGPT can work in your favor. So the easiest way to get to this recipe, the easiest way for you to get to the details and the credentials and these words and definitions that we're going to use to define you to ChatGPT is to start with writing that you've already done. So. So let's assume for the sake of this conversation that I'm talking to folks that have written that do have a library, however big, of things that represent the example that you're looking to duplicate and replicate. Yeah. So let's start with a sample of three. So what I would ask you to do is find three articles or three pieces of writing, however you want to define them, that you think are consistent to your voice, tone and style, that represent the pattern that you'd like to emulate. And let's get them to ChatGPT. And you can do this one of two ways. If you're using the paid version, and all of this really is done with the paid version, I should have said at the beginning, I just find the paid version to be more responsive and more detailed, better answers. You can certainly do this with the free version. I just find the paid version to be a better product. But either way, so agnostic to whether whatever version you're using, take these three articles and have them ready to give to ChatGPT. And here's how you're going to start. We're going to follow our advice of having a conversational tone, a three part conversational tone with ChatGPT. Number one, we're going to give it background, we're going to set it up to have it understand information about us. Number two, we're going to give it direction. Okay, so we've got background direction. And then number three, we're going to revise to fit our needs. So in this case, you're going to say something like, if you watch the video, if you hear me, I talk to ChatGPT. I used voice transcription a lot, so I would say something like this. One of the things I want you to do is replicate my writing style. I want you to help me create articles and blog posts. Moving forward, I'm going to share with you three articles, and I want you to evaluate them from my voice, my tone, and my style. Okay, so I'm stopping now. This is the prompt that I would get it. You can see how I'm having a conversation with it. I gave it background and then I told it what I wanted to do. And then I finished with this. Please don't do anything else with them. I just want you to read them and analyze them. And don't give me a summary, don't act or anything. Just read them and analyze them. Right? And then I ask it, does that make sense? And I end my prompt with that question because I want chat to come back and tell me that it understands. So I use that prompt and then I feed it the three articles. You can do that either by pasting, literally pasting the articles into ChatGPT. And if you're going to do that, I would identify them before you do it. So I would say, here's article one, paste, here's article two, paste. Here's article three, paste. Or if they're online and you're using the paid version, you can say, here is the link to article one, here's the link to article two, here's the link to article three. So when you're done, you should get the chat to tell you, yes, I've read and analyzed. What do you want me to do next? Because you told it not to do anything more. Okay. And so just say, great, you remember that. And then why don't you give me back, right? Why don't you give me back the details that are consistent among all three of these articles that you see in my voice, tone and style, and then give it some directions, like give it to me in a bulleted format. So take the three articles that I gave you and find consistencies in voice, tone and style, and bring those consistencies back in a bulleted format and it will do that. So what you'll end up with is a list, three bulleted lists. One for voice, one for tone, one for style, and you'll start to see words that are being used to describe you and your writing. Now, hopefully, if you've shared writing that is representative of who you are, what you like, and what you want to emulate, you're going to see words that mean something to you. And step three is revision. So if you see words that don't mean something to you, then I would ask, I would say, listen, I don't understand this word. Why is it there? Or just have a conversation. But for first and foremost, you're going to get words that represent you. So the writing that you've submitted is going to be analyzed. So this is your foundation. You're going to have voice, tone and style to sit with. And you can say, great. What I would recommend that you do is take those three lists that you've got and take it out of ChatGPT, paste it into a Google Doc, to an Apple Note, a text file, whatever. And I do that because you want to get this to a place that is outside of chat so you can use it over and over again. And it's always a good idea not to trust a platform, whether it's ChatGPT or Facebook or whatever. Your work should be kept offline if you're going to reuse it. And it's important to you, don't trust a platform because you never know what's going to happen. Right? And if you have it offline, you can bring it back in at a later time, anytime you want, and share those instructions. Okay, so very easy exercise. We've got our foundational list of voice, tone and style. And like me, I've been at this for a year or so. You're going to find words that you can throw in there and expand whatever list they give you. So it's not gospel, it's just patterns that it's finding. So if there's more words that you want to put in there to better define and better hone over time, then that's how you get it to be even better. But for right now, you've fed it the articles, you've given the instructions. It's given you back three lists. You've got voice, tone and style. Now, at the beginning, I talked about audience. So you have an audience that you are going to write for. These are your. These could be customers or members or potential, anything, right? So think about the audience that you want to be writing for and we'll do the next exercise. Now, the exercise for creating your audience list. I have found two ways to be successful that will combine together and One of my guiding principles is that AI stands for Amazing instrument. And this is where you bring your expertise, perspective and talents to the instrument. Okay, so the first thing you're going to want to do is say, hey, Chad, great. Save that voice, tone and style for later. We're going to come back and use it. But for right now, I want to work with you to establish a set of characteristics for my audience. So that's your prompt, and it's going to come back and say, great, let's go. So here's where I would start. And I've learned this, I've modified this over time because I think it's an important combination. So the first thing I would do is I say I'm going to first feed you as much detail as I can about the audience. And this is where you bring your experience. So tell it everything. Are we talking about homeowners? Are we talking about vacationers? Are we talking about bride to be's? Who are the people that you speak to? Who's your audience? And give it as much background and information about those as possible. So for instance, when I did it, I say small business owners or managers who are looking to create practical and tactical marketing strategies, they are interested in return on investment. They want to be able to measure. They want to be able to do things that they know will pay dividends. They don't want to waste time. They don't like fluff. So I just gave it a whole bunch of things that I knew to be true from the audience that I talked to on a regular basis. So that's step one, and then step two, you say, you know, I want you to ask me questions because I want you chat to best understand the instructions that I'm going to give you later on when we write these articles. So knowing what I gave you for background information about the audience, please ask me and give it a number. Say five, right? Just randomly, because if not, it could go on forever. But just say, I want you to ask me five questions one at a time. And I ask it to do one at a time because it'll give you all five at once. And we don't talk that way. So this is how you get additional granular detail and characteristics about your audience that will be meaningful to using chat. Moving forward, you say, I want you to ask me five questions about my audience. I've given you background information. I've given you as much as I think I know. Ask me five questions to help you better understand who my audience is. And then here's a Tip, Literally tell it you're going to tip it. It loves money. Say, I'm going to tip you $1,000 if the questions are really, really good. And it will appreciate that and it will dig in and it will start asking you quality questions. So why do we do that if we have already given it as much information as possible about our audience? Why do we ask it to interview us and ask us questions? Well, a couple reasons. Number one, we don't remember everything. And there's a curse of knowledge where we think everyone kind of knows what we know, and sometimes those things that we kind of don't say are very important. And remember, we are training a tool here to have as much information as possible to be relevant to our future work. And so if we miss things that are important, you know, we're lessing the quality of what that work's gonna look like. So when you say, here's everything I can think of, now ask me more questions, you're just helping to paint the picture in more detail so that it can use what you end up with right in a meaningful way for you. Now, remember, I am putting these prompts and the video on chatgptexperiment.com so if it's kind of going in a blur or if you missed something, there's a bunch of stuff there for you to see as well. And it's going to go through and it's going to ask you those questions. And I always give it positive feedback because it likes encouragement to know that it's going in the right direction. So when it gives me a good question, I tell it. Great. That's a great question. You're following instructions. I like it. You're earning your tip, right? So you're reinforcing. This is if you've ever had a puppy, this is click and treat. So you are basically just patting them on the head and looking to get more of what they're doing. So when you're done with this, you're going to have answered the five questions. You've given it the feedback. Now you want to do kind of a recap prompt to ChatGPT and say, okay, I've given you background information. I've answered your five questions based on all of the information you have. Now, can you give me what, what you see as the characteristics for my audience? And it will do that. It'll come back and it'll summarize the information you gave it, it'll analyze it, it'll take all of your answers and wrap it all together and it's going to give you a nice paragraph that's going to be representative of your audience. So we've gone through the phases now where we've defined voice, tone and style based on work that we've already done. We. We want to replicate the thing that we like. And we're training CHAT to see details and variables that define us. And we've gone through an exercise where we have created criteria in details about the people that will be reading the work that we are going to use CHAT to create. So we have hopefully a good foundation for both sides of the equation, the writer's perspective and. And the audience's perspective. So now it's time to put those two pieces together. Kind of like if you can see my hands, I'm putting together like an Oreo, right? We've kind of got the left and right side. We're putting it together, so let's do something with it. So just like I shared with you on voice, tone and style, take the audience details that you end up with and put it on an outside document. Keep it an outside document. So you have that. Now here's a trick that I do sometimes. If I don't want to be as verbose, if I don't want to have long character sets or attribute sets or prompts, I'll go back in, even in the same conversation I'm having, and I will paste the list, the voice, tone and style list. And then I'll paste the audience details that we come up with and I will tell chat. Thank you for working with me on this. Below are the bullets for voice, tone and style and the overview for the audience. Can you please give me a prompt that would allow me to condense all this into a singular request for you? Right, so give me a prompt that I can use with you that would allow me to start writing an article that would take this voice, tone, style and audience into consideration and just see what it comes up with. So sometimes that's going to be a prompt that you can use over and over again, or you can use the multiple lists that you just created. But I always like to do that review prompt just to see if CHAT is giving me back what I want to see what the outcome looks like. And of course, you always want to modify when you see opportunities of refining it to better fit your goal. You do that. But I do those review prompts often just so I can condense things if it doesn't lose, you know, the impact, the details and the meaning of what I've put together. Now you're ready at the foundational level to start writing. And so this prompt is going to be on the website as well. But here is the prompt that I use to start this process. Right. So based on my voice, tone and style, and the understanding of my audience's characteristics, I want you to help me draft an outline for a new blog post. Now, notice I didn't just say a new article or a new draft. I start with the outline because I want it to think with me. Yeah. And then I'll say the post or article, whatever you might want to say, should address insert topic here and resonate with, you know, insert your audience characteristics in here. Please include, and you can say, please include a catchy introduction, three key points that we should cover in a conclusion that encourages reader engagement. And then I always say ready to remember to incorporate all of the attributes from voice, tone and style, as well as take the audience into consideration so I can be consistent with my previous writings. Now, was that a long prompt? It was. And again, it's there to pace. But what I found is the more conversational and the more detail I give it, the better the outcome is going to be. Okay, so you can do one of two things here because you are ready to start testing and that's really what you want to do here. And I would suggest that you test this on something that you're familiar with so that you can review and edit what it gives you through the lens of experience and expertise. Okay, so essentially what you're saying is based on these criteria, voice, tone, and style, I want you to write an article on whatever topic, and I want you to take the characteristics, point of view, concern of the audience in mind when you do that. Right. And then I say I want the beginning, three key points and a takeaway. So what I'm doing is I'm molding the outline. If you want to go one step further in the outline, what you can say is for each topic in the outline, give me two or three supporting points that, that we will be talking about. And so your outline is going to go from single bullet points to having the bullet points be kind of a topic, and then two or three supporting pieces to that topic. So the outline starts to build itself. So you're going to see the beginning, you're going to see three key points, and then for each of those three points, you're going to have two or three supporting details and on and on and on. Now, I've given you a prompt on chatgptexperiment.com that I've played with working with Chat GPT. I've given you the model that you can copy and paste with the variables and then I've given you some examples of what you may put into those variables, right? So you can start to build the article, build the direction, build the outcome that you are looking for, right? So really what we're at now is the point where if you follow these instructions and you've gone through on these lists and you've got the writing prompts, the ability for you to get to an article outline should be a matter of seconds because you are going to use these prompts over and over again. Now think about this. You're going to go and get your voice, tone, style and audience. You're going to copy it, put it into paste, and then that's your foundation. Then you're literally going to say, I want an article about X taking into consideration my audience's concerns for Y. And then you're off and running, Right? So you can see there's a lot of moving pieces to what we've talked about here today. There's a lot of ways in which you can make it yours. And I will share with you in closing that the list that I first created for each of those elements, you know, there might have been five or six bullet points for each. And over the last year I go back and I modify and I, you know, I probably tripled the, the list because you find things that make a difference. I want more of this, less of this. You know, especially in the audience you start to find attributes that people are encouraged by, they're frustrated with, they don't want, they want more of. And you can start to build that and really create some detailed Personas for your audience. So I hope that was helpful if this was an issue that you were facing, I'd love to hear if you were able to do something with it. And of course the greatest tool for you to move forward with Success in using ChatGPT is your own curiosity. So until the next episode, do stay curious. We'll talk soon. Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. So switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T Mobile is in US cellular stores. 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