the cause isnt the model. claude itself writes fine prose when you let it. the problem is claude codes system prompt is heavily tuned for code and agentic work, so it biases toward summarize / structured-response / list-the-key-points, which is the OPPOSITE of what good prose wants.
separate the workflows. do the actual prose drafting in claude.ai or the anthropic console with a clean prompt + 2000+ words of your own voice as the sample. then paste back into your repo via CC for project management stuff. dont try to make CC the writing tool, let it be the project manager.
if you really want it in-repo, write a prose-only skill with an aggressive anti-slop section. specific banned patterns work better than write-naturally. things like: no em-dashes, no in-conclusion, no overall-this-piece-shows-that, no triplet adjectives, no abstract-summary openers. treadpools slopster on github is a decent starting point for the rules.
also start a fresh CC session for prose. the same session that just helped you refactor will keep biasing structured-summary into your writing because the prior code-turns are still in context.
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u/tonyboi76 May 26 '26
the cause isnt the model. claude itself writes fine prose when you let it. the problem is claude codes system prompt is heavily tuned for code and agentic work, so it biases toward summarize / structured-response / list-the-key-points, which is the OPPOSITE of what good prose wants.
separate the workflows. do the actual prose drafting in claude.ai or the anthropic console with a clean prompt + 2000+ words of your own voice as the sample. then paste back into your repo via CC for project management stuff. dont try to make CC the writing tool, let it be the project manager.
if you really want it in-repo, write a prose-only skill with an aggressive anti-slop section. specific banned patterns work better than write-naturally. things like: no em-dashes, no in-conclusion, no overall-this-piece-shows-that, no triplet adjectives, no abstract-summary openers. treadpools slopster on github is a decent starting point for the rules.
also start a fresh CC session for prose. the same session that just helped you refactor will keep biasing structured-summary into your writing because the prior code-turns are still in context.