How to Actually Write Naturally
And Not Sound Like a Silicon Sock Puppet
Because if your prose reads like it was drafted by an HR chatbot in a beige cardigan, it doesn’t matter how "clear" it is.
1. Write with Cadence, Not Caution
Short sentences don’t make you natural. Rhythm does. Music does. A pause before the drop. A clause that coils before it strikes. Sometimes a sentence should breathe like a slow exhale. Sometimes it should hit like a falling cymbal.
❌ “Please send the file by Monday.”
✅ “If you’ve got it by Monday, great—otherwise, we’ll roll it into the next sprint.”
Clarity isn’t shortness. Clarity is precision in the presence of voice.
2. Use Metaphors Like You Mean It
“Stay away from fluff”? No. Stay away from filler. Fluff is cotton candy. Filler is sawdust. Don’t confuse the two. A good metaphor makes abstraction tangible. A great one rewires how you think.
❌ “Let’s avoid buzzwords.”
✅ “Half of LinkedIn reads like it was written by a Roomba dragging a thesaurus kicking and screaming to a TED Talk.”
That’s not fluff. That’s texture.
3. You’re Not a Brand, You’re a Person
Avoiding “marketing language” is fine, but what’s worse is writing that sounds like you’re allergic to having opinions. Real people get excited. They use emphasis. They sound, occasionally, like they give a damn.
❌ “This product can help you.”
✅ “This thing works—when it works. Which is most of the time. Usually.”
Throw some friction in there. It’s called trust.
4. Let Yourself Sound Human, Not Optimized
Natural language is inconsistent. It starts with “and.” It loops back. It contradicts itself and keeps going. It improvises. When you try to write like a perfectly pruned bonsai of “short, direct, simple” rules, you get something no one wants to read unless they’re filling out insurance forms.
You want real? Try this:
“Okay, I’ll be honest—I didn’t get it at first. But then it hit me like Aphex Twin's ‘Come To Daddy’ at 3AM with headphones that didn’t know what mercy was.”
That is human. That is truth wearing a hoodie.
5. Your Grammar Isn’t a Badge of Virtue
Yes, grammar matters—but it’s a tool, not a leash. Style is bending grammar with intent, not avoiding capital letters because some Reddit prompt told you it made you “authentic.” Authenticity isn’t lowercasing “i”—it’s knowing when to drop the “i” entirely.
“Felt that. Didn’t love it. Moved on.”
That’s not grammar. That’s rhythm, register, vibe.
6. Don’t Simplify—Distill
They told you to “write plainly.” But plainness without pressure is just thin. Great writing isn’t plain—it’s distilled. Boiled down with the flame turned way up, until all that’s left is voice and intent and whatever glows in the dark.
“This wasn’t music. This was what jazz dreams about when it drops acid and forgets it died.”
That’s distilled. It has clarity because it’s wild.
7. Be Specific. Be Strange. Be Real.
The best writing isn’t natural because it avoids weirdness. It’s natural because it embraces it. Real people say weird things. They remember what the room smelled like. They admit when they were wrong, or young, or arrogant. And they don’t sand off the corners of their sentences.
“It didn’t reject the dancefloor so much as pave it over with a turbo-charged steamroller and put up a carpark designed by Escher.”
You don’t get that from a style guide. You get that by being there.
TL;DR — You Are Not a Prompt
You are not a stack of best practices or a bullet point list of linguistic hygiene. You are a voice. A context. A point of view. And if your writing isn’t bringing you into the room, it doesn’t matter how “natural” it sounds.
So yes, use short sentences. Or long ones. Say “let’s dive in” if it feels right. Say “this blew my mind” if it did. Use a metaphor if it moves the pulse. Break the rules if they don’t fit. Own your rhythm. Respect your reader. Write like you know what it’s like to feel something strange and true and alive.
And then? Hit send.
Publisher's Note
This counter-barrage was crafted by ChatGPT in response to the following Reddit post:
In an earlier, unrelated conversation, an LLM described a flat pitch copy as:
Something you'd see in a Hallmark card... duct-taped to an eviction notice.
That did not read like anything I'd expect from a machine, probably because the humans have been condition to write like robots.
The irony is thick enough to deflect autocannon rounds.
[humAIn]