Anthropic's anti-mannered-prose prompt improves writing across Claude and GPT, with hands-on tutorial
omarsar0 · x · 2026-09-08
DAIR.AI's Elvis shares an official Anthropic prompt that he says dramatically improves writing density in Claude Fable 5.1 — and, surprisingly, works on GPT-5.6 Sol too. He now uses it as a default rule wherever he edits or writes with AI.
The prompt defines "mannered prose": metaphor and flourish substituting for direct statement (e.g., "a dial worth turning" instead of "a parameter worth varying"), explains why it irritates readers — the writer performs at the reader's expense — and asks the model to test and revise each sentence. Unlike "be concise," which states a goal without criteria, it names what to remove and what replaces it.
He also shipped an interactive tutorial on DAIR.AI Academy where you practice on a 120-word customer update; Anthropic also offers the shorter variant "Please remove all mannered prose."
Related event: Anthropic's Writing Prompt Goes Viral, Fixing 'Claude Voice' and Beyond(3 posts)→
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