Why your AI drafts sound generic, and how an interview changes them

You finally open an AI assistant for the document you’ve been avoiding, say a proposal or a job posting, type two lines, and get back something smooth and empty. The usual cause is the request: two lines went in, and everything the assistant needed to know stayed in your head. So turn the order around. The assistant asks, you answer, and it writes only after you’ve confirmed what it heard.

By the end of today you’ll have a first draft of that document, built from your own answers, with every gap marked so you know exactly what’s left.

Why a two-line request gives you an average draft

Ask for “a proposal for a training program for our warehouse supervisors” and the assistant has to decide dozens of things you never told it: who reads the proposal, what that person already believes, what you’re asking for, what it costs, what went wrong last time. It usually won’t ask unless you tell it to, so it fills each gap with the most common answer. A document made of common answers could have come from any company, and that is the generic tone you notice.

A longer prompt fixes it, but writing one is its own blank page: you have to remember everything that matters before you start. Answering questions is easier, and a good question pulls out the detail you’d never have thought to type, like the two supervisors who already do it right.

The interview prompt

Copy this into a new conversation and replace the first line with your document. It works in Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Copilot.

I need to write [the document: a project proposal, a job posting, a grant section, a course description...]. Before you write anything, interview me.

- Ask one question at a time and wait for my answer.
- Ask up to 12 questions. Cover who will read it and what they already know, what I want them to do or decide after reading it, the facts and figures it must include, the limits (length, deadline, budget, format, tone), and anything it must not say or sound like.
- If an answer is vague, ask one follow-up before moving on.
- If I say "I don't know yet", note it as an open point and move on.
- After the last question, summarize my answers as a short list and ask me to confirm or correct it. Don't start the draft until I confirm.

When you write the draft:
- Use only what I told you. Don't add figures, names, dates, quotes or results of your own.
- Wherever something is missing, write [MISSING: what's needed] in the text.
- Keep my wording where you can, and write plainly, the way I'd say it to the reader.

The summary step matters more than it looks: it catches a misunderstanding in a list of ten lines, before it spreads through two pages.

How to answer so the draft sounds like you

Talk instead of typing. You’ll say more out loud than you’d bother to type, and that detail is what the draft needs. Use dictation, which turns your speech into text, rather than a voice conversation mode, where the assistant talks back. The microphone on your phone’s keyboard works with any assistant and leaves your words in the message box, where you can correct them before sending. The Claude and Gemini apps have a microphone icon of their own, but depending on the app and version it can send your words before you’ve had a chance to correct them. On Windows, voice typing starts with Windows key + H. On a Mac, switch on Dictation in Apple menu > System Settings > Keyboard > Dictation, then choose Edit > Start Dictation. (Checked in October 2026.)

Paste what you already have. Last year’s version or the email that asked for the document: paste it when a question touches on it, and say what it is. Your answers can then go to what isn’t written down anywhere.

Answer with a real case. When a question asks what a problem looks like, describe what actually happens on an ordinary day instead of giving a general impression.

Say “I don’t know yet” without guilt. A gap marked [MISSING] is worth more than a plausible sentence you’ll have to catch later, and the list of open points becomes your to-do list.

For a first run, pick a document with nothing confidential in it. If yours involves personal details of clients or colleagues, read Before you upload a client document first.

A worked example (made up)

For example, Marta coordinates operations at a regional food distributor (invented for this post) and has put off a proposal for weeks: a short training on the new inventory system for twelve warehouse supervisors. A few excerpts from her interview:

Assistant: Who will read the proposal, and what do they already know about the problem?

Marta: Luis, the operations director. He knows the system went live in March, but he sees the monthly reports, not the warehouse floor. He thinks the supervisors just need more time.

Assistant: What do you want Luis to decide?

Marta: Approve four two-hour sessions in the slow week of November, taught by me and two supervisors.

Assistant: You said the supervisors struggle with the system. What does that look like on a normal shift?

Marta: Ten of them still write stock transfers on paper and type them in at the end of the shift. The other two work straight in the system; they’re my co-trainers. I don’t know yet how much time the paper step costs.

That last exchange is the follow-up the prompt allows: Marta had first said only that the supervisors “struggle with the system”, and the useful detail came from that one extra question. After twelve questions and a confirmed summary, the draft opened like this:

Since the inventory system went live in March, ten of our twelve warehouse supervisors still record stock transfers on paper and enter them at the end of each shift. Two already work directly in the system. I’m asking for approval to run four two-hour sessions during the slow week in November, co-taught by those two, so the rest of the team can work the same way. The paper step currently costs [MISSING: hours per shift, from a one-week count].

A two-line request tends to open with something like “Effective training is essential to getting the most out of new technology.” Marta’s version answers Luis’s doubt with a fact he can’t see from his desk, and asks for something he can approve. The gap tells her what to do next: count the paper step for a week.

The edit pass

Treat the draft as your notes put in order, then make it yours:

• Read it out loud and cut every sentence you wouldn’t say to the reader in person. Warm-up sentences and tidy conclusions usually go first.
• Search for [MISSING] and fill each gap, or decide the document works without it.
• Check every figure, name and date against your answers. The prompt forbids invention, and an invented figure can still slip in.
• If the order is wrong, ask for a new structure (“lead with the request, then the evidence, then the budget”) instead of moving paragraphs by hand.

When it isn’t worth it

Twelve questions answered properly take a while. For short or routine texts, such as a meeting confirmation or your standard reply to a common question, a saved template wins; Five email templates built from your sent folder shows how to build them. For one difficult email, the lighter method in The email you’ve been putting off, sent before lunch fits better.

The interview pays off on longer documents that someone important will read and that are different every time: proposals, project briefs, funding applications, job postings, a speech, a memo asking for a decision.

When your answers are thin, the draft will be thin too, and no better prompt fixes that. The interview does show you, before the reader sees it, where your own thinking is unfinished. If you can’t say who the document is for or what you want them to do, settle that first.

Try it today

Block an hour today. Pick the document you’d most like to stop thinking about, paste the prompt into a new conversation with the first line filled in, and answer by voice. Confirm the summary, get the draft, do one edit pass, and save it with the open [MISSING] points listed at the top. Note how long it took from the first question to the saved draft, so you know what the next one will take.

Your finish line: a first draft, saved, that you’d be willing to show a colleague, plus a short list of what’s still missing.

Where to go next

Before you close the conversation, save the interview prompt somewhere you’ll find it for the next document. Keep your best prompts in one place shows a simple way to do it.

Then point the same interview at your own job. A shorter version, answered once, can write your assistant’s standing instructions, so it already knows your role and your readers before you ask for anything. Set up your AI assistant once walks you through it. And if today’s document ends up as slides, write the headline of every slide before you design any of them. Once a longer piece is finished, it can feed a month of short posts: A month of posts from one piece you’ve already written shows how.