How to Build Your Voice File
This is a member-only chapter. Log in with your Signal Over Noise membership email to continue.
Log in to readModule 5 · Section 4 of 5
How to Build Your Voice File
The best method: collect five pieces of writing you’re proud of. Not the most polished — the most you. Read them back-to-back, looking for patterns rather than content.
What keeps showing up? A particular transition phrase? A tendency to open paragraphs with short declarative sentences? Commas in unusual places? A preference for concrete over abstract? That’s your voice.
Write down what you notice. That’s the start of your VOICE.md.
Then reference it from your CLAUDE.md:
## Voice
When writing as me or for my publications, follow the voice profile
in VOICE.md. Match the patterns, not just the "tone."The last line matters — “patterns, not just tone” — because tone is what most people specify and patterns are what actually determine whether something sounds like you.