No Tropes (AI writing tells)

After drafting any prose, revise it against the tropes catalog in tropes-reference.md.

Core Principle

Write like a human: varied, imperfect, specific. Any single trope used once might be fine. The problem is when multiple tropes stack or a single trope repeats.

Quick Checklist

Before finalizing text, scan for:

• Word choice: "quietly", "delve", "tapestry", "landscape", "serves as", "leverage", "robust"
• Sentence structure: "It's not X — it's Y", "The X? A Y.", tricolons, anaphora, false ranges, "-ing" tacked-on analysis
• Paragraph structure: Short punchy fragments as standalone paragraphs, listicles disguised as prose
• Tone: "Here's the thing", "Think of it as", "Imagine a world", "Let's break this down", invented concept labels, grandiose stakes inflation
• Formatting: Em-dash overuse (2-3 max per piece), bold-first bullets, unicode arrows (→)
• Composition: Fractal summaries, dead metaphors beaten into the ground, historical analogy stacking, one-point dilution, "In conclusion"