Brand voice

A sourdough starter for the words. Every project should have one — the AI's natural register is generic-marketing, and without a counter-pull every piece of copy ends up sounding the same. This document is what the AI consults before writing anything user-facing.

The voice in one sentence

{Write your one-sentence voice description here. Concrete enough that the AI can audit a paragraph against it.}

Example: "Direct, slightly irreverent, technically credible. Lowercase preferred. Specifics over generalities. Avoids the corporate register entirely."

The register

Voice varies by surface. Be explicit:

Conventions

The non-obvious rules that make your copy yours.

Example conventions to declare (delete what doesn't apply):

• Lowercase headings in marketing copy. All h1 / h2 / h3 are lowercase. Don't capitalise.
• No emojis in code or copy unless explicitly asked for.
• No exclamation marks in body copy. The voice is too dry for them.
• Numbers as digits, not words for anything with quantitative meaning (6 free tools, not six free tools).
• Headlines end with a period. Most don't; we do. It makes them feel like statements rather than slogans.
• British English (colour, centre, optimisation) OR American English (color, center, optimization) — pick one and stick.
• Oxford comma: yes / no — pick one.
• First-person plural ("we") vs second-person ("you") — when to use each.

Words we use

Examples that work for the Fizzgig voice:

• "sticky" for tools you re-run regularly ("sticky tool — run before every deploy")
• "vibe coders" for the audience — concrete, won't be misread, deliberately not flattering
• "guardian" for what Fizzgig is — the brand metaphor
• "shipped" rather than "deployed" or "released" — closer to how the audience talks
• "grrrr…" as the Fizzgig character noise — playful punctuation

Words we don't use

The AI's default vocabulary. Strip these on every pass.

• "supercharge" — the canonical AI-marketing tell. copy_tone_check flags it.
• "leverage" (as a verb) — corporate. "Use" is shorter and clearer.
• "unlock" — particularly bad in pricing copy ("unlock your potential" on a checkout button is wrong).
• "revolutionary" — almost nothing is.
• "best-in-class" — meaningless. Cite the specific class and the specific best-in-it.
• "seamless" — drops out of the sentence; the sentence is the same without it.
• "furthermore", "in conclusion" — AI essay tells.
• "It's important to note that…" — if it's important, just say it.

AI tells to strip

The shape of writing that betrays AI authorship even when the words are fine:

• Every paragraph the same length. Vary them. Short ones. Then a longer one with two clauses and a turn. Then a short one again.
• Excessive em-dashes. One per paragraph is fine. Three per paragraph is a tell.
• Hedge stacks. "It could be argued that, in some ways, this might possibly be…" — cut all of them.
• Synonym strings. "Powerful, robust, scalable, enterprise-grade…" — pick one.
• Closing summary paragraph that restates what was just said. End on the last substantive point.
• Bullet lists where prose would do. AI defaults to bullets; humans default to prose. Use bullets when the items are genuinely parallel and discrete.
• Reading like a wikipedia article. Detached, neutral, comprehensive. Yours should have a point of view.

Length discipline

• Tagline: 5-7 words.
• Body paragraph: 2-4 sentences. If it's getting longer, break it.
• Article paragraph: 3-6 sentences. Long paragraphs are fine in articles; they're a wall in marketing pages.
• Error message: one sentence + one next action.
• Button copy: 1-3 words. Verb-led.

The two-question audit

Before any copy ships, run it through two questions:

1. Could a competitor use this verbatim? If yes, it's generic. Make it specific to your project.
2. Would my reader recognise themselves in this? If they can't see their own situation in the words, the copy is for an imaginary user.

If both answers are good, ship it.

How to feed this starter

Add to it when:

• The AI introduces a new word you'd reject. Add it to "words we don't use."
• You write copy that feels distinctively yours and want to keep that shape. Reverse-engineer the rule and add it.
• A convention shifts (you start using British English instead of American, or vice versa). Update it everywhere.

Remove from it when:

• A rule turns out to be wrong (you DO use exclamation marks in error messages, say). Better to delete the rule than have a dead one in the file.

Companion starters

• ux-reference — visual equivalent of this document (tokens, sizes, spacing)
• project-starter — the parent shape this slots into

Companion tools (Fizzgig)

• fizzgig__copy_tone_check — flags buzzwords, AI tells, em-dash density, hedge clichés, superlative stacks
• fizzgig__content_quality — Flesch reading-ease, paragraph rhythm, structural depth

Both fold into fizzgig__audit at the June 2026 launch.