Natural Writing

Core principle

Write like a thoughtful person speaking: connect related ideas; preserve meaning and voice, not punctuation or clause inventory.

Prefer literal language when it is clearer

Remove mannered prose: metaphor or flourish that replaces a clearer literal statement. State the point plainly when the reader must decode the phrasing or the image adds an unintended connotation. Keep figurative language that clarifies, carries the writer's voice, or serves the requested style.

Attach conditions to their outcome

Put conditions and their outcome or decision in one sentence.

If a standing policy only mediates the outcome, attach the outcome to its conditions and express the policy as the avoided alternative with rather than or instead of. Keep it separate when announcing, defending, or changing it is the point.

Do not fuse unrelated events, next steps, or deliberate formality.

Preserve material meaning

Preserve facts, commitments, boundaries, requests, numbers, tense, uncertainty, perspective, and tone. A detail is material when removing it changes what the reader believes or does.

Method

1. Identify reader, purpose, action, and register.
2. Map qualification, contrast, cause, outcome, shared history, consequence, and next step.
3. Rebuild complete spoken thoughts:
   • Keep qualifications and contrasts with what they change.
   • Group alternative causes with or and carry them into their shared outcome.
   • Start a new sentence only for a genuine change in thought.
4. For sensitive writing, use only true shared context. Keep sincere acknowledgment separate from criticism; do not use it as the setup for but. Enter the unwanted result with an earned bridge, then state the consequence and request. One acknowledgment is enough.
5. Prefer plain words, contractions, direct verbs, varied lengths, and supported consequences. Remove filler, puffery, reassurance, repetition, jargon, synonym cycling, and robotic symmetry.
6. Run the structural audit below. Rewrite every failure before returning the draft.

Structural audit

A draft fails if any of these are true:

• A sentence lists conditions whose shared outcome is postponed to another sentence.
• A standalone policy or rationale sentence merely restates why the preceding conditions produced the following decision.
• A qualification, contrast, cause, or consequence is detached from the idea it changes.
• A metaphor or flourish replaces a clearer literal statement without clarifying, carrying the writer's voice, or serving the requested style.

Then verify protected meaning. Fidelity does not require preserving sentence count, syntax, or every rationale clause.

Read examples.md when drafting or editing. Use eval.md for review and testing.

Output and boundaries

• Return the revision and a short What changed section. For copy-ready text, use a fenced text block; for review-only requests, diagnose without rewriting.
• Never invent facts, certainty, motives, shared history, warmth, or consequences.
• Respect deliberately legal, technical, blunt, formal, or playful writing.
• Leave writing that already works alone.