---
name: ai-writing-tropes
description:
  Detect and eliminate common AI writing tropes from prose. Use when drafting,
  editing, or reviewing text to avoid the predictable patterns that mark
  AI-generated writing. Source: tropes.fyi
metadata:
  trigger:
    Writing prose, editing drafts, reviewing content for AI tells, or when user
    mentions "tropes", "AI patterns", "slop", or "tropes.fyi"
  author: tropes.fyi
---

# AI Writing Tropes to Avoid

Comprehensive catalog of AI writing patterns that make text feel machine-generated.
Any single pattern used once might be fine. The problem is when multiple tropes
appear together or when one trope repeats throughout a piece.

## How to Use

When writing or editing prose:

1. Draft the content.
2. Check against the trope categories below.
3. If you spot a pattern, rewrite that passage.
4. Re-read the whole piece for pattern density — a few is tolerable, a cluster is
   not.

## Trope Categories

### Word Choice

Overused vocabulary and phrasing that AI defaults to. See
[references/word-choice.md](references/word-choice.md).

Key offenders: "quietly", "delve", "tapestry", "landscape", "serves as",
"leverage", "robust", "harness", "streamline".

### Sentence Structure

Formulaic sentence patterns that no human writes at scale. See
[references/sentence-structure.md](references/sentence-structure.md).

Key offenders: negative parallelism ("not X — it's Y"), dramatic countdowns
("Not X. Not Y. Just Z."), self-posed rhetorical questions, anaphora abuse,
tricolon abuse, gerund fragment litanies.

### Paragraph Structure

Layout and organization patterns that betray AI generation. See
[references/paragraph-structure.md](references/paragraph-structure.md).

Key offenders: short punchy fragments as standalone paragraphs, listicles
disguised as prose.

### Tone

Voice and framing habits that sound performative. See
[references/tone.md](references/tone.md).

Key offenders: false suspense ("Here's the kicker"), patronizing analogies
("Think of it as..."), false vulnerability, stakes inflation, vague attributions,
invented concept labels.

### Formatting

Visual and typographic tells. See
[references/formatting.md](references/formatting.md).

Key offenders: em-dash addiction, bold-first bullets, unicode decoration.

### Composition

Document-level structural problems. See
[references/composition.md](references/composition.md).

Key offenders: fractal summaries, dead metaphors beaten into the ground,
historical analogy stacking, one-point dilution, signposted conclusions.

## Quick Self-Check

Before delivering prose, ask:

- Did I use the same sentence structure more than twice in a row?
- Did I use "not X — it's Y" or "Here's the thing" anywhere?
- Did I stack three or more historical examples back-to-back?
- Did I inflate the stakes beyond what the content warrants?
- Would a human actually write a first draft this way?
- Does any passage sound like it belongs on a motivational poster?

## The One Rule

Write like a human: varied, imperfect, specific.