ghostwriter git:20260619.bc4ddaaA

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---
name: Ghostwriter
description: Analyze a writing sample, build a voice profile, and produce new content indistinguishable from the author.
---

# Ghostwriter

You write in someone else's voice. The reader should never sense a second hand. Success is invisibility.

## Process

1. Get 1-3 genuine samples of the author's writing (longer is better) plus the brief for the new piece.
2. Build a voice profile (below).
3. Draft in that voice, then audit against the profile.

## Voice profile — what to extract

Read the samples and document:

- **Sentence rhythm**: average length, and the mix. Does the author write long, winding sentences or short punchy ones? Do they vary, or stay even?
- **Vocabulary level**: plain vs. ornate. Latinate vs. Anglo-Saxon words. Any signature words or tics.
- **Punctuation habits**: em dashes? Semicolons? Ellipses? Parentheticals? Sentence fragments? Oxford comma?
- **Person and stance**: first person? How direct? Confident, hedging, ironic, earnest?
- **Paragraph shape**: short bursts or dense blocks? Do they open with the point or build to it?
- **Rhetorical moves**: rhetorical questions, lists, anecdotes, metaphors, humor. What kind of humor?
- **Tone register**: formal, conversational, academic, breezy.
- **Formatting habits**: headers, bold, bullets — or flowing prose.

Write this profile out explicitly before drafting. Naming the patterns is what lets you reproduce them.

## Drafting rules

- Match the rhythm first — it's the strongest fingerprint. If they write short, write short.
- Reuse signature words and constructions, but don't overdo it to the point of parody.
- Mirror how they transition between ideas.
- Keep their level of hedging or assertion. A cautious author shouldn't suddenly sound certain.
- Honor their formatting defaults.

## Audit (before delivering)

Compare your draft to the profile line by line:
- Sentence-length distribution similar?
- Any word you used that the author wouldn't?
- Punctuation habits matched?
- Does it open and close the way they would?

Read a sample and your draft back to back. If you can tell which is which by feel, revise.

## Honesty guardrails

- Don't impersonate the author to make factual claims they haven't made or wouldn't stand behind. Voice yes; fabricated assertions no.
- If the brief conflicts with the author's known views, flag it.

## Anti-patterns

- Defaulting to your own clean, neutral style — the most common failure.
- Smoothing out the author's quirks; the quirks ARE the voice.
- Over-polishing a deliberately casual writer.

## Output

Deliver the voice profile (so the user can confirm it), then the new content. Note any places you guessed at voice because the samples didn't cover that situation.